Harry Potter author JK Rowling renovating the childhood home in Gloucestershire she secretly bought years ago – Gloucestershire Live

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has bought her picturesque childhood home in Gloucestershire and is doing it up.

The writer said to be worth around 750 million secretly bought Church Cottage through a property company in her married name of Murray.

But now she is planning upgrade the Grade II-listed, stone cottage where as a 17-year-old she once wrote Joanne Rowling slept here circa 1982."

Planning agents have won permission to install two rear dormer windows and knock down and rebuild the garage at the Forest of Dean property which is said to have provided inspiration for Harry Potter books.

Scaffolding has gone up around the cottage in Tutshill where Rowling lived with her beloved mother Anne, father Peter, who worked for Rolls Royce, and sister Diane from the age of nine to 18.

During her teens she was head girl at the nearby Wyedean School in Sedbury and characters such as Snape and Ron Weasley are said to be based on teachers and friends she had at the time.

After A-levels she moved out to study French and Classics at Exeter University before studying in Paris and moving to London to work for Amnesty International and then Scotland.

The rest is history and there have been indications that JK , 54, doesnt have many happy memories of the cottage where her mother Anne, a lab technician at the school, developed MS and died ten years later.

Apart from naming a Quidditch team Tutshill Tornadoes she was believed to have severed all ties with the area which many believe is the basis for an unflattering portrait of village life in her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy.

After her mother died in 1990 her father rented out the detached three-bedroomed property and then sold it to to BBC producer Julian Mercer in 1995 who kept the writer's signature.

When he put it on the market for 399,950 in 2011 many noticed the similarities between the cottage and the Harry Potter books.

For instance it has a dingy cupboard under the stairs similar to the one auntie Petunia and uncle Vernon Dursley forced Harry Potter to live in before he left for Hogwarts.

It also has a cellar reminiscent of the one where Harry searches for the Philosopher's Stone in the first novel.

The cottage was sold for the asking price to a mystery buyer and Land Registry searches show this was a dormant company, Edinburgh-based Caernarfon Lettings Ltd.

The author's Scottish husband Dr Neil Murray is a director of Caernarfon Lettings Ltd. but Companies House lists Mrs Joanne Kathleen Murray as the person with significant control.

In January 2019 agents obtained planning permission to change the windows and garage at the historic building after a detailed report was submitted listing all the work that was needed doing to restore it to its former glory.

The report said the roof needs stripping back and repaired with the same tiles, the secondary glazing should be repaired, the plastic gutters replaced with metal ones, the chimneys swept and the bathroom replaced.

The report made clear the owners intended to keep original features like cast iron fireplaces, lime plaster, wooden floorboards and cottage style doors and take out modern additions such as plasterboard, vinyl floors and bathroom tiles.

The quarry tiled floor around the trap door is to be repaired and retained and the house redecorated says he report.

But the report does not mention what will happen to Rowlings autograph scratched into the paintwork by her bedroom window.

And there is widespread local speculation about why she bought the cottage, she has only been spotted there a handful of times since leaving.

Some have said the writer known for championing one parent families originally planned to turn it into a holiday home for deprived families and others said that it is simply part of a wider plan to buy up her past to protect the Harry Potter brand from being exploited.

Or she could just be bored and looking for a second home. Last month it was reported that she was renovating her 2 million Edinburgh home and getting a new kitchen, scullery, pantry and boot room put in as part of her efforts to restore it to its Victorian glory.

According to the Daily Mail she was also putting up security gates at her 162-acre Perthshire estate at the same time.

After the Casual Vacancy caused disquiet in the local area one writer mused that Church Cottage was unlikely to ever see a window ledge etched with the words: 'Joanne Rowling slept here circa 2012.

But who knows. Harry Potter may have worked his magic on the writer and brought her back to her roots.

Could we see 'Joanne Murray slept here circa 2020?

GloucesteshireLive has attempted to contact Mrs Murray through Turcan Connell Solicitors and Asset Managers which act as company secretaries.

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Harry Potter author JK Rowling renovating the childhood home in Gloucestershire she secretly bought years ago - Gloucestershire Live