The former home of James Bond author Ian Fleming and playwright Noel Coward has gone on the market.
Sitting on the beach at St Margaret’s Bay near Dover, Mermaid Cottage comes with a £1.75 million price tag.
Pictures show the interior of the sea-view property, where Fleming is said to have written Moonraker.
Fond of Kent and a regular visitor, the Art Deco property was his weekend and holiday home.
It was built in the 1920s on top of the shingle, with the white cliffs making a dramatic backdrop.
So close to the sea, it is said waves can lap against the front room windows at high tide.
Fleming brought the property – also referred to as White Cliffs – from Coward, who owned the site following the Second World War.
In the early 1900s, St Margaret’s-at-Cliffe became established as a getaway from London for the wealthy.
It had been badly damaged by troops training on the beach, and he undertook an extensive renovation.
His rich celebrity friends, including American actress Katherine Hepburn, often came down from the capital at weekends to visit.
But by 1951, he reportedly claimed the area had become “a beach crowded with noisy hoi polloi” and returned to his other home, Goldenhurst in Aldington, selling the coastal property to Fleming.
The author had the home until 1957.
Here, he wrote Moonraker – the only Bond book to be set entirely in Britain.
The chalk cliffs featured significantly in his writing, particularly in the location where Hugo Drax, the villain of the novel, built a rocket.
Mermaid Cottage is one of four houses in a row, and Coward is said to have bought the lot to protect his privacy, although some reports say he instead convinced friends and relatives to buy the other three due to a housing shortage law against owning multiple homes.
Now, it could be the residence of any Bond or theatre fan – if they have a healthy £1.75 million to spare.
It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a gym, four reception rooms and a balcony.
Estate agents Strutt and Parker said in the listing: “Mermaid Cottage is set in a breathtaking location between the foot of the White Cliffs and the sea wall at St Margaret’s Bay.
“Part of a small enclave of four properties that hark back to the heyday of the 1920s and the fashionable Art Deco movement, this select haven has a rich history of famous connections, with Noel Coward and Ian Fleming as former residents.
“The irresistible lure of Mermaid Cottage endures today, offering an exceptionally rare opportunity to acquire a stylish home with direct access to the beach and captivating views.
“Just 21 miles from France, the Bay is a favoured place from which to embark on a cross-Channel swim and the French coastline beckons from the balconies of this extraordinary home.”
St Margaret’s Bay is not the only Kent location which makes an appearance in Bond.
Fleming’s favourite golf course – Royal St George’s in Sandwich – is where the spy outplayed Goldfinger in the book.
The Dover to London bus route – 007 – became the iconic tag name.
Further inland, The Duck in Pett Bottom – which recently reopened as a restaurant – was one of Fleming’s favourite ‘locals’ and his preferred seat is marked with a plaque.
In You Only Live Twice, it is revealed that James Bond spent his early years, under the guardianship of an aunt, in a small cottage beside ‘the attractive Duck Inn’ at the ‘quaintly named hamlet of Pett Bottom’.
