Keep 10 million in your pocket to bid for Alfred Lord Tennyson's house

London, Sept 17 : Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson's seven-bedroom house is up for grabs but bidders need at least 10 million pounds to make a serious offer.

Designed as Tennyson's summer getaway, the house acted as perfect shield for the poet from the "trippers" which surrounded his home on the Isle of Wight.

The 60-acre estate on Black Down, near Haslemere in Surrey, looks out at the Sussex Weald and Downs and stretches to the English Channel, 40 miles away. The legendary poet loved the house so much that he even mentioned it in his poem Prologue, To General Hamley.

"You came, and looked and loved the view, Long-known and loved by me, Green Sussex fading into blue, With one gray glimpse of sea," Telegraph quoted Tennyson, as saying.

Aldworth House was built in 1869 by Sir John Knowles on the site of an old smugglers' inn and is a Grade One listed French-style Gothic house, made from sandstone.

At the time it was built, the house included the modern luxury of piped hot water, certainly suited Tennyson, who used to enjoy at least three baths a day.

With its private setting, the house provided Tennyson the much-needed solitude without any disturbance from the local inhabitants.

He even used to inviting literary friends such as George Eliot and Henry James to stay when he desired company. Tennyson died at Aldworth in 1892 and the house passed through many hands including an Indian Maharajah, His Highness Sir Sayaji Rao Gaekwar of Baroda, before it was finally bought by the current owners in 1993, who restored the property and its now reduced 12 acres.

Along with its many luxuries, Aldworth also boasts a separate Grade Two listed four-bedroom cottage, extensive gardens, a covered swimming pool and a helicopter hanger with a retractable helipad.

ANI