Church Cottage in the village of

Tutshill Tutshill is a village within the parish of Tidenham in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England. It is located on the eastern bank of the River Wye, which forms the boundary with Monmouthshire at this point and which separates the village fr ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England, is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, thought to have been designed by the architect

Henry Woodyer Henry Woodyer (1816–1896) was an English architect, a pupil of William Butterfield and a disciple of A. W. N. Pugin and the Ecclesiologists. Life Woodyer was born in Guildford, Surrey, England, in 1816, the son of a successful, highly resp ...

. It was the childhood home, between the ages of 9 and 18, of Joanne Rowling, author (as J. K. Rowling) of the ''

Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...

'' series of fantasy books.

Description

The building was constructed in about 1852 in the

Victorian Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style, and was originally used as a

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

house and then a

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of religion. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, parsonage, rectory or vicarage. Function A clergy house is typically ow ...

. Free Press (Monmouthshire), ''Tutshill home where Harry Potter author JK Rowling grew up goes up for sale'', 13 July 2011
Accessed 13 July 2011 Henry Woodyer designed the adjoining St. Luke's Church, and

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

regard him as "possibly" the designer of the cottage as well. The -storey building is of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

, with a tiled roof, two-light

chamfer A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces. Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, fu ...

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

ed casements, small gablets and a porch. In 1988 it was

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

, Grade II, as being of "Special Architectural or Historic Interest" by English Heritage, who reported its external appearance as "untouched from its original design".

J. K. Rowling

Joanne Rowling, together with her parents and sister, moved to the house in 1974 when she was aged nine. The house was sold by the Rowling family in 1995, and then sold again in 2011. The owner, Julian Mercer, said of the house in 2011: "J. K. Rowling would have been here in her formative years and could have taken inspiration from the cottage. The architecture is very

Hogwarts Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry () is a fictional Scotland, Scottish boarding school of Magic in Harry Potter, magic for students aged eleven to eighteen, and is the primary setting for the first six books in J. K. Rowling's ''Harry Pot ...

-like. It has vaulted ceilings, stone windows and oozes gothic spirit." Features inside the house include an under-stairs cupboard, reportedly similar to the one in which Rowling's character Harry Potter is forced to live, and a trapdoor to a cellar. It also contains an inscription written on one window-frame, "Joanne Rowling slept here circa 1982". Steven Morris, ''The ultimate Harry Potter memorabilia: JK Rowling's childhood home is for sale'', The Guardian, 13 July 2011
Accessed 13 July 2011 Rowling also drew inspiration from the adjoining church graveyard, and the local countryside. She attended the nearby

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

in Tutshill, before moving on to Wyedean

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

, and later named one of her fictional

Quidditch Quidditch is a fictional sport invented by author J.K. Rowling for her fantasy book series ''Harry Potter''. It first appeared in the novel ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' (1997). It is a dangerous but popular sport played by witc ...

teams as the "Tutshill Tornados".

Ownership

When the cottage was sold by a subsequent owner in 2012, it was reported that its new owners were associated with the Volant Charitable Trust, a charity established by Rowling to support research into

multiple sclerosis Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...

and other activities. Further reports in 2020 suggested that the cottage is currently owned by a company run by Rowling's husband, and that she was intending to refurbish the property while retaining its original features. Janet Hughes, "Harry Potter author JK Rowling renovating the childhood home in Gloucestershire she secretly bought years ago", ''Gloucestershire Live'', 13 April 2020
Retrieved 13 April 2020

References

{{Reflist Grade II listed houses in Gloucestershire Tidenham J. K. Rowling