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Explore a Country Durham property with ties to Richard III

This medieval County Durham property connects two of British history’s most controversial figures, King Richard III and Oliver Cromwell, across a span of 150 years.

The Grade I-listed Blagraves is the oldest residence in Barnard Castle and is the second oldest building in the county, built before the year 1482. The land on which it stands was originally owned by monarch Richard III, who famously imprisoned his nephews in the Tower of London and assumed the throne for himself before being killed in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth by Henry Tudor’s troops. Richard granted the land as an annuity to Mrs Joan Forest, wife of his Keeper of King’s Wardrobe, Miles Forest.

By the 17th century, the building had been turned into the Boar’s Head Inn, where Oliver Cromwell stayed during his bloody Civil War campaign against the Roundheads. Blagraves’s features a rich patchwork of late medieval and Tudor architecture with 17th-century bay windows and an 18th-century oak staircase added in later by fishmonger William Tomlinson. Further changes were made during its stints as a pub, ropemaker’s, bakery and shoemaker’s before it was converted into apartments in 1921 by Mrs Cook. After World War II, Blagraves became a ‘House of Mystery’ museum and had a suit of armour hung outside its doors.

Photography: Inigo

Blagraves is considered of ‘exceptional historic interest’, and was given Grade I listed status in 1950 for its rich national and regional importance.

English Heritage consulted on the building’s restoration, resulting in a home that’s rich with period features, from carved stonework (such as the inn’s signatory boar’s head) to hung antique doors, working fireplaces and original joinery and woodwork.

The 5,398 sq ft sq ft building is currently designated as mixed-use, arranged as a three-bedroom home with street access rooms on the ground floor (previously used as a shop and café and suitable for a commercial space, studio or gallery).

Inigo is listing the unique historic property for £550,000. Take a look inside the gallery above.

Photography: Inigo
Photography: Inigo
Photography: Inigo
Photography: Inigo
Photography: Inigo

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