An idyllic country house in Kent, England, where author H. E. Bates lived for over 40 years and wrote most of his best-known works including "The Darling Buds of May," has hit the market for £1.1 million (US$1.47 million).
Dubbed "The Granary," the house was converted from an old grain storehouse in the village of Little Chart in 1931 by then 26-year-old Bates, who detailed in his 1971 autobiography "The Blossoming World" how he and and his wife, Madge, found the property.
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"It stood in half an acre of flooded farmland: an oblong building of tone, weatherboard and tile, open to the winds on the ground floor, still littered with straw and grain upstairs," he wrote.
"Madge looked at me and I looked at her. We said nothing; but in that moment of sunlight we suddenly knew that this was it."
The Bates family painstakingly converted the granary, laid out and landscaped the garden. They lived there together until his death in 1974, according to listing agent Simon Backhouse of Strutt & Parker Canterbury.
"Set back from the village green, the location is quintessentially English with a wonderful array of period houses all facing onto this bucolic scene," Mr. Backhouse said.
The gardens and the village green directly to the front of the house were the inspirations for many of the settings for Bates’ two-dozen-or-so novels, according to Mr. Backhouse.
A prolific and successful author, Bates also penned five children books and many short stories and non-fiction books. "The Darling Buds of May," a novel published in 1958, was adapted into a popular eponymous British television show from 1991-93, which helped launch the career of Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Many of the television scenes were also filmed in front of the house, Mr. Backhouse said.
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The 3,000-square-foot home has a reception hall, a drawing room, sitting room, dining room, a kitchen with a breakfast room and four bedrooms. It features partially exposed beamed ceilings, French doors, fireplaces with tiled hearth and other period details throughout, according to the listing, posted late last month.
The seller’s family bought the house from Madge in the late 1970s for an disclosed amount and made some improvements, including updating the stairs and the kitchen, according to Mr. Backhouse.
The house, on the open market for the first time since 1931, "remains in immaculate order with a gardener and housekeeper keeping it in ship shape condition," Mr. Backhouse said.
The seller wasn’t immediately available for comment.