Observations: Take a break in a cottage that has a creative past

 

Chris Beanland
Friday 08 June 2012 14:07 BST
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Rather than renting the same old boring Cornish cottage, how about staying in a bolthole with a creative past?

Ozzy Osbourne's childhood home was recently put on a roomshare website by its current owner. Black Sabbath fans can splash out £200 for a night's sleep at 14 Lodge Road in Aston, the house where the rocker spent his first 20 years. This unassuming terrace in a yet-to-be-gentrified area of Brum was recreated for the "Home of Metal" exhibition at Birmingham's Museum. The current owner stipulates no booze, drugs or ciggies according to the website airbnb.co.uk.

Rock fans might also like to take a room at sprawling Hammerwood, near East Grinstead. Owned in the 1970s by those other Midlands metal behemoths Led Zeppelin, it was built by Benjamin Latrobe – architect of the US Capitol.

At Fittleworth in West Sussex, you can rent the studio where Elgar composed his "Cello Concerto" in 1919. You can also stay on the Norfolk farm where Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth both holidayed in the 1930s – one of the houses at Church Farm in Happisburgh has been renamed Moore Cottage. Meanwhile, George Orwell fans can shack up at secluded Barnhill (above) on Jura – where the author wrote 1984.

The Caribbean offers even more choice: there's Ian Fleming's Goldeneye villa on Jamaica where he wrote his James Bond novels. Or you can borrow Mick Jagger's crashpad on Mustique – for a price. It costs a cool £10,000 a week.

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