Enid Blyton’s Old Thatch
I grew up in the late 1950s reading almost all of my older sister’s Enid Blyton’s story books. Blyton lived in the 17th-century cottage from 1929 to 1938, writing in her diary that it was “perfect, both outside and in … just like a Fairy Tale house and three minutes from the river”. She would begin her Wishing Chair and Faraway Tree series while living at Old Thatch, as well as her Brer Rabbit books and, once she had left, would set her popular Five Find-Outers series in a fictionalised version of the local area.
The four-bedroom house, tucked away in a secluded lane, has a galleried hall with oak beams, three reception rooms, underfloor heating, a dining room with stained-glass windows and an inglenook fireplace, two bathrooms and a mezzanine study. The roof was rethatched with Norfolk reed, which should be good for 90 years. The current owners have lived in Old Thatch for over 20 years, with the redesigned garden included in The Most Amazing Gardens in Britain & Ireland by Reader’s Digest in 2010. Old Thatch is about a five-minute walk from the Thames. The property, which runs to over an acre, is now for sale for £1.85m, and is described as “magical”, with “huge character.”
Alison Flood of The Guardian & Brian Claridge of The Mail Online
22 July 2015
