I can’t buy my dream house in Kent, made famous by Bagpuss — but you can

There is not much to do in Blean, the small, sleepy Kentish village sandwiched between Canterbury and Whitstable, but it is, nevertheless, the best place on earth. There are two pubs, a church, a garden centre that does incredibly good sausage baps and an excellent primary school where the children are forced to wear the awful combination of yellow and brown as part of their unflattering uniform. It is where I dream about getting married and where I hope I will be laid to rest when I die. Although it may not be much to write home about, I've actually never needed to, because Blean is where I’m from.

This is why, with perfect certainty, I can say that there have only ever been two even remotely famous incidents to occur in Blean. I was alerted to the first when, to my unemployed delight whilst living at home, a job advertisement on LinkedIn appeared one fateful day for a Bison Wrangler. Blean made national headlines (something that almost never happens) when our woods were chosen as the first place in which to reintroduce bison to the UK — not something that happens just everyday. My dreams of donning a cowboy hat and riding around the Kentish countryside with a lasso, manfully herding the mighty beasts while gleefully bellowing ‘Yeehaw!’ were crushed, however, when I accepted a job instead at Country Life. Alas, what could have been.

Blean’s biggest claim to fame, however, has not been our burgeoning bison population, but the legacy of the magnificent Peter Firmin. Alongside Oliver Postgate, he co-founded Smallfilms, the production company that dreamt up the delightful 1960s and 1970s children’s shows The Clangers and ‘the most important, the most beautiful, the most magical saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world’, Bagpuss. At Hillside Farm, 36 Blean Hill, which is just a stone’s throw from where I grew up, the latter was created and filmed — and now you have a chance to buy Blean’s most famous property.

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Firmin’s former home, which might I add is my dream home, is on the market with Finn’s estate agents for £1.2 million. Being so close to home, and such a tantalising piece of local history, obviously I had to go and have a look for myself.

I have walked past Hillside Farm many times on my way to Canterbury and not known that a slice of British TV history had been hiding just down the winding driveway all along. It was here where Firmin’s wife, Joan, helped make some of the props used on the set of Bagpuss. Smallfilms also made The Clangers, Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog but it was Bagpuss that was the winner in a BBC poll for British children’s favourite TV programme in 1999. Firmin sadly passed away in 2018, but his legacy lives on. A new film starring the beloved wrinkly cat is set to be released in 2027.

‘It’s the sort of house you’d drive straight past. You wouldn’t even know it's here,’ says Paul Robertson of Finn’s, who meets us at Hillside Farm. The garden of the property is charming. Winding roses and creeping sweet peas grow around the iconic blue-framed windows that are recognisable from the TV show.

The house, which dates from the early 1800s, Paul thinks, is like stepping back in time. You can’t put a price on this kind of originality. The kitchen, with its bright green walls, yellow-tiles and gorgeous AGA is as whimsical and magical as Firmin’s creations were. There is a pantry, the door to which proudly has the heights and dates of the various Firmin children and grandchildren scrawled on it. The current owners, the very same grandchildren, now grown up, have clearly inherited his creative streak. Papier-mâché sculptures of animals that I recognise from the popular local Mexican restaurant Café des Amis are stationed at points around the room. They are the creations of Emily, Firmin’s granddaughter, who sells her kooky artwork through her business, Total Pap. She was the little girl in Bagpuss. A small puppy with angel wings, one of her creations, guards the kitchen’s entryway. A delftware style plate which reads ‘The artist Peter Firmin lived here’ stands proudly on a dresser, into the bottom of which is built a cosy dog bed.

The other rooms are the same, old-fashioned, clearly well-loved cosy spaces filled with art and knicknacks, and plenty of Smallfilms memorabilia. Several Bagpuss toys are scattered throughout the house and a picture of Firmin and Postgate taken outside Canterbury Cathedral hangs on one wall. They are holding Bagpuss and all three of them have mortarboards merrily perched on their heads. The place is such a moment in time, it makes you feel as though Firmin could, at any moment, appear from the other room with a cup of tea held in one hand, and his beloved cat tucked underneath the opposite arm, humming a familiar tune.

The buyers of this four-bedroom property will have to do a bit of work to restore the house to its former glory, but such a house is undeniably well worth the effort. I had taken my incredibly practical Dad along for a nose around and even he, usually the enemy of any home features that would need ‘plenty being done to’, was won over by the property’s innate charm and utter originality. Paul calls it ‘completely untouched,’ which is, Dad and I agree, just as it should be.

‘We’ve had lots of viewings,’ Paul adds. ‘It’s just such a one-off and so close to Canterbury.’ It has been mostly families so far, he says. I ask Paul if they’ve had many Bagpuss-fanatics book viewings. ‘Fortunately, no,’ he says, sounding relieved. My favourite room is the large upstairs drawing room, which was added to the property in the 90s. With high wooden beams and plenty of natural light it would be the perfect place to curl up with a cup of tea and a book whilst gazing at the gardens below. Which, by the way, are hardly insubstantial.

The private dwelling sits within over 6 acres of gardens and woodland and comes with its very own Kentish barn, which could easily be repurposed as a writer’s retreat (which is what I would do) for the lucky buyers. There are also stables, a paddock where an alpaca currently roams, a pond with a tiny makeshift boat and another outhouse, in which you'll find a pottery studio and old-fashioned printing press. A working well is used by the current owners to water the plants in the garden, which was dug by Firmin himself, according to his grandson.

Hillside Farm evokes a sense of nostalgia for Firmin’s day, where TV was just beginning and filming something magical about a pink-and-white cat could be done from your living room. It makes you wonder how his family can bear to part with it.

Although I dream of living there myself, I am currently about £1.2 million short. Until I have saved up the funds, some other well-meaning custodians will have to look after it for me in my absence. So, let this be my public plea to the new owners. Please do your very best to preserve a slice of the magic of Bagpuss’s former home, so that when I finally have the money to buy Hillside Farm from you one day, Firmin’s legacy will continue to live on within its beautiful walls. As my Dad said when we left, it truly is ‘unique and timeless’.

This property which the Country Life team are now cheerfully referring to as 'Bagpuss's House' (formerly known as Hillside Farm) is on the market with Finn's. Potential buyers should note that when Country Life's Digital Writer Lotte Brundle has amassed the requisite funds she will be more than happy to succeed them as its next owner.