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Woman wins £800,000 mansion after buying a £2 raffle ticket in Lancashire

Melling Manor in Lancashire: winacountryhouse.com
Melling Manor in Lancashire: winacountryhouse.com

A woman has won an £800,000 mansion after buying a £2 raffle ticket.

Marie Segar, from Warrington, won the 18th-century, six-bedroom property and also received the title Lady of Melling, which was raffled off with the house.

Melling Manor, in Lancashire has a ballroom, cinema room, wood-burning stove and parking for six cars.

Ms Segar, who bought 20 tickets, apparently thought she was being wound up when found out she had won.

“I’m just in shock. I can’t believe it, I just can’t. I don’t have a plan, I entered and I never thought for a moment ... you know I haven’t even told anybody! Thank you so much!” Ms Segar told the Blackpool Gazette.

Dunstan Low bought the property six years ago but was struggling to sell it.

The 37-year-old decided to raffle the house with each ticket available for £2. He was able to comfortably recoup the £585,000 he spent on the house in 2014, selling 500,000 tickets.

The raffle attracted entrants from around the globe including from Russia, China and Mauritius.

"Over the past six months we have sold 500,000 paid entries to our raffle and we have had around 12,000 free entries,” Mr Low told the Bolton News.

"We have people from Bentham, Lancaster, all the way to the Bronx, New Zealand enter the competition."

From the money raised Mr Low has made a £30,000 donation to the St John’s Hospice in Lancaster and a £10,000 donation to the children's charity NYAS (National Youth Advocacy Service) based in Birkenhead.