 He lived at Stepleton House, near Iwerne Courtney (Shroton) in Dorset, and in Chelsea, London.A well-attended memorial service was held in Blandford Forum Parish Church on Saturday, 31 January 2015, followed by a function in the Blandford Forum Corn Exchange.Coombs, who once tried to buy the "New Statesman", was Chairman of "Prospect", the intellectual monthly magazine founded in 1995 by Coombs and by former "Financial Times" journalist David Goodhart, who edited it.