JK Rowling’s childhood home that inspired Harry Potter on sale for £400k

London: JK Rowling’s childhood home, which is said to have inspired Harry Potter, has been put on the market for almost 400,000 pounds.

Current owner Julian Mercer, a BBC producer, purchased the three-bedroomed house near Chepstow, Gwent, from the Rowling family in 1995 and is now selling it for 399,950 pounds. The grade II-listed Church Cottage in the picturesque village of Tutshill, Gloucestershire has a trap door, cupboard under the stairs and even a secret scrawl penned by the author as a teenager. The 45-year-old ‘Harry Potter’ author scribbled her name into paintwork by her bedroom window alongside the words: “Joanne Rowling slept here circa 1982” when she was 17. The author used to live in the house with mother Anne, father Peter and sister Diane from the age of 9 to 18, and the name of the place inspired her to name a Quidditch team in the novels. The cupboard under the stairs is similar to the one in which Harry had been forced to live by his evil auntie Petunia and uncle Vernon Dursley. The trapdoor leads to a creepy cellar – almost the same as the one where Harry searches for the Philosopher’s Stone in the first novel. The gothic architecture of the house is as if it has come “straight out of Hogwarts”. It also has a pretty cottage garden, including a herb patch like that seen in Professor Sprout’s Herbology lessons. “‘It is a truly lovely cottage. It is quite small but has wonderful architecture and a gorgeous garden surrounding it,” the Daily Mail quoted Mercer as saying. “JK Rowling would have been here in her formative years and could have taken inspiration from the cottage,” he added. IANS