The write home for bookworms! Historic five-bed rectory that hosted Tennyson, Hardy and Sassoon hits the market for £2.85m

A historic rectory that hosted notable literary figures such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy and Siegfried Sassoon has gone on the market for £2.85m.

Old Came Rectory was the home of well-known Dorset scholar and poet William Barnes, a friend and mentor to a young Thomas Hardy, for 24 years in the latter half of the 19th century.

The Grade II Listed thatched five-bedroom house near Dorchester sits in 1.67-acre gardens and is up for sale with Savills.

Barnes met Hardy when he was working as an apprentice architect at a practice in Dorchester next door to the school where Barnes taught.

There was a 40-year age gap between the two men but they formed a deep bond.. Barnes gave up his school to become the rector for Came in 1862 and remained there until his death in 1886 and Hardy was a regular visitor.

Barnes was a fascinating and charismatic gentleman - a natural linguist and a gifted mathematician and inventor - which attracted other notable literary figures like Tennyson.

Even after his death, his former home was a meeting place for great minds. Siegfried Sassoon rented the property in the 1920s with fellow poet Edmund Blunden and TE Lawrence also came to stay with them.

While they stayed there they also went to visit Hardy at Max Gate, his home nearby.

The historic house was built in the 1830s to a design by John Nash, but has undergone a meticulous refurbishment in the last two years to make it a functional modern home.

It has many original features such as flagstone floors, working shutters and cornicing.

The property has 3,519 sq ft of accommodation with a kitchen/breakfast room, dining room, drawing room, music room, study room and wine tasting room on the ground floor, cellars below and four bedrooms and three bathrooms on the first floor.

The coach house, which is accessed separately from the rear through the walled garden, has a sitting room, bedroom and bathroom.

Outside it sits in mature landscape gardens surrounded by countryside with no near neighbours and fields or woodland on three sides. 

There is a productive kitchen garden and orchard, a pretty Pavilion, a timber garden room and a walled knot garden with water lily pond.

A spokesman from Savills, who are selling the property, said: 'Old Came Rectory is a beautifully restored rectory and coach house, you can feel that this house is brimming with history.

'With the arrival of William Barnes, the house is understood to have become the favourite retreat of many notable British literary figures, such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Siegfried Sassoon and TE Lawrence.

'In the last two years the house has undergone a meticulous refurbishment, now providing a fully functioning modern home within a wonderful old building.'