Kate Youde

As MPs and peers vacated the Houses of Parliament for their summer holidays last week, we take a look at five homes for sale with political links. Where Pitt stoppedImage: Knight Frank A bronze plaque on the front of Pitt House, a grand Georgian property in Bath, informs visitors of its famous former resident. William Pitt the Younger made the townhouse his home in 1802, the year after the first of his two stints as prime minister came to an end with his resignation. Built a decade earlier, the residence was designed by Thomas Baldwin, the architect of many of the city’s most impressive buildings. Its connection to the country’s youngest prime minister is not the property’s only political pedigree: it later served as the offices of Bath Conservative Association.

Jeremy Clarkson’s latest TV venture, Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime Video, sees the petrolhead learning to manage his 1,000 acre Cotswolds farm. Anyone dreaming of their own rural idyll might want to consider one of these beautiful farmhouses. For artists - Folliotts Farmhouse Image: Clare Goldsmid Currently owned by a ceramicist and artist, Patricia Low, this Grade II-listed farmhouse would make an inspiring retreat for creative types seeking a slice of rural life without the responsibility of too much land. Set within about 0.4 acres in the hamlet of Tidpit near the Hampshire village of Martin, the 18th-century main four-bedroom home comes with a separate two-storey artist’s studio.

Our attention turns to all things literary this week after the return of the Hay Festival. It comes during a bumper year for book sales, when lockdown encouraged many of us to read more and escape our repetitive reality for fictional worlds. But what of the authors' own abodes? Here we look at five homes for sale with links to literary greats. Agatha Christie - Winterbrook House The Queen of Crime bought this five-bedroom house in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan in 1934 and lived there until her death in 1976, taking inspiration for her popular detective fiction from her surroundings.

When Julia Riley ran her Somerset home as a B&B prior to the Covid pandemic a few guests booked in not for her Tripadvisor-recommended breakfast or a peaceful night’s sleep, but because of the Georgian property’s literary connection. Coxley House is the former home of David Cornwell, better known as the spy novelist John le Carré. 'We had one or two people coming because they were keen on him,' says Riley. 'They wanted to know which bedroom he slept in and things like that but, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure, so I invariably told them it was the one they were sleeping in because it was the easiest answer.