Bristol's 'Pooh Corner' house, where Winnie the Pooh was first drawn, is up for sale

A quirky house known by generations of Bristolians as ‘Pooh Corner’ with claims it was the ‘birthplace’ of Winnie-the-Pooh is up for sale in Clifton Village.

The house on the corner of Wellington Terrace and Royal York Crescent dates from around 1790 and is a two-bed listed building over four floors with a distinctive curved front.

But what makes the home even more notable is its links to Winnie-the-Pooh, and in particular, the illustrator who brought AA Milne’s stories to life for millions of children across the world.

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It’s on the market with local estate agent Haighs, who said that the links to Winnie-the-Pooh began at the very start of the collaboration between author AA Milne and EH Shepard, the illustrator of all the Pooh books in the 1920s and 30s.

The house was a teashop for many decades before being converted back to a home in the 1950s. “It was during its teashop era, in the early 1920s, when it was frequented by an author who was creating stories inspired by his son Christopher’s teddy bear, and a well-known cartoonist and artist,” a spokesperson for Haighs said.

“It is believed that it was during one of these visits to the teashop that the first sketched ideas of a ‘silly old bear’ were drawn and discussed by author AA Milne and illustrator EH Shepard, and Winnie The Pooh was born,” he added.

“Later on, probably in the 1930s, Ernest Shepard created an oil painting of Winnie, the only one he ever painted, and donated it to the teashop, where it was on proud display for many years ... meaning this property became known locally as ‘Pooh Corner’,” he said.

“There are houses that have an interesting tale to tell, and this adorable Grade II-listed terrace is most definitely in that category. Nowadays, the house offers charm and character in abundance over four floors, with two bedrooms, two large reception rooms and a kitchen in the road-level ‘lower’ ground floor,” he said.

The teashop on the corner was indeed known as Pooh Corner, and for around 30 years or more did have a painting by EH Shepard of Winnie-the-Pooh - the only one he ever did - hanging proudly inside. But how that came about is something of a mystery.

In 2000, long after the Pooh Corner tea rooms closed and the painting had disappeared after being sold into private hands, it came up for auction at Sothebys.

Back then, in October 2000, the Bristol Post reported the sale and explained that the painting showed the famous bear outside his house holding a pot of honey, and was painted by EH Shepard in the 1930s for the Pooh Corner tea shop.

There was no reference included at that time to the story that the reason EH Shepard gifted the only painting of Winnie the Pooh he ever did to the Pooh Corner tea shop was because it was where he and AA Milne met to discuss the illustrations before the publication of the first Winnie the Pooh books in the mid 1920s.

The painting was bought in November 2000 by an internet bidder on behalf of the city of Winnipeg in Canada. People there had heard about the sale and organised a fundraiser to get enough money to buy the painting for the city.

The real life stuffed toy bear called Winnie-the-Pooh was, of course, named that by AA Milne’s son Christopher Robin Milne after he visited a real-life bear called Winnie, or Winnipeg at London Zoo, who had been a mascot for Canadian troops in the Great War.

The house in Clifton that lays claim to a key link to the Winnie-the-Pooh books is on the market for £675,000, and commands stunning views across the western end of the Floating Harbour and across to South Bristol. The lower ground floor at road level has a kitchen and boiler room basement, the upper ground floor at the level of the raised pavement has the sitting room and a bedroom, the first floor has a lounge and bathroom, with a small bedroom on the second floor above that.