Winchester home with links to Henry VIII and James Bond on the market

Grade II listed Colebrook House is situated adjacent to Wolvesley Palace and Winchester Cathedral and boasts half an acre of garden with Anglo-Saxon streams running through it.

The house was originally two buildings owned by royal monastery the Nunnaminster before Henry VIII seized it during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He gave all of the Abbey’s assets to his daughter Mary Tudor, who then used it to compensate the city for the costs of her wedding to Philip II of Spain at Winchester Cathedral.

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The cathedral's apothecary doctor Simon Trippe lived there in Elizabethan times.

In 1890, it was bought by Dr Ridding, former headmaster of Winchester College. He went on to become Bishop of Southwell and sold the house to the Cathedral in 1894 for £1500. Choristers were moved into the house in 1897 and two homes joined together. 

Sidney James, whose granddaughter was the writer PD James, was the new master at the choristers school in 1920 before the house was purchased by the Smithers family. 

In the 1950s, Colebrook House was inherited by Peter Smithers who was the MP for Winchester. He is believed to be the inspiration for the character James Bond having worked with Fleming in Naval Intelligence in WW2 and because of his wife’s gold typewriter, which appears in the book Goldfinger.

The current owners bought the house from Sir David and Lady Calcutt in 2007 and have since  set about restoring the home to its former glory with a host of original features. 

This classical Georgian house with Tudor origins has an attractive William and Mary facade draped with an old wisteria entwined with mature roses.

With 7,000 sq ft of accommodation arranged over three floors with a large attic space, there's a Jacobean oak main staircase and attractive barrel vaulted kitchen / breakfast room with doors which open out onto a terrace overlooking the stream.

Steven Moore, head of residential sales at agents Savills Winchester, said: "Colebrook House is a home of great historic provenance and arguably one of Winchester's most important privately owned family homes. Beyond the home’s intriguing history spanning back hundreds of years, Colebook House today offers substantial family-orientated living, in a prime central Winchester location with magical gardens. The house has attracted many renowned owners since it was originally built and is now looking for the next custodians to enjoy one of Winchester’s rarest and most significant homes."