Stunning rural cottage with dark former life goes on sale for 725,000

A STUNNING rural cottage with a dark former life has gone on sale for £725,000.

The Grade II listed property was built on the site of a plague graveyard in the Derbyshire village of Eyam - where three quarters of residents succumbed to the disease in the 17th century.

Villagers selflessly quarantined themselves for a year in September 1665 so as not to spread the deadly plague to outsiders.

The disease - which is thought to have been brought to the village on a piece of cloth - claimed the lives of 260 residents.

Deaths reached six a day, with one woman losing six children and a husband in just over a week.

The village graveyard was shut and bodies were dragged into fields for burial.

In the 18th century the tombstones on the site were removed and a coaching inn was built.

There is a plaque on the outside of the four-bedroom cottage commemorating its former tragic purpose.

The new owners of the cottage will acquire a wealth of traditional features including shutters, sash windows, stone walls, exposed beams and a salting slab in the stone cellar.

The house has its own private rear driveway leading to a large area of off-road parking and around a third of an acre of land.

Downstairs there is an entrance hall with access to the cellar and a large cloakroom, a drawing room, dining room and a bespoke kitchen/breakfast room.

Off the kitchen is a pantry and a large utility room.

Upstairs there are three bedrooms including a master suite and a family bathroom.

On the second floor there is another large bedroom with an en suite bathroom.