Windmill Made Famous in ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ Is for Sale in England

A historic windmill within the English countryside that appeared alongside Dick Van Dyke and a magical flying automobile within the 1968 film “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” has gone up on the market.

The black-and-white Cobstone Mill, in Buckinghamshire, England, simply outdoors London, is a part of a property that additionally features a most important home, about 37 acres of land and a swimming pool. It might be yours for 9 million kilos (about $11.4 million).

The mill is believed to have been constructed round 1816 and was used to grind cereal till 1873, in line with Savills, the true property agency promoting the property.

In the movie, which was loosely based mostly on a youngsters’s e book by the James Bond creator Ian Fleming, the windmill served as the house for Van Dyke’s character, a nutty, widowed inventor named Caractacus Potts, who lives along with his youngsters, Jeremy and Jemima. Together along with his love curiosity Truly Scrumptious, performed by Sally Ann Howes, and his automobile, named Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for its distinctive engine sounds, they journey to the land of Vulgaria to battle the tyrant Baron Bomburst.

But the windmill’s movie trade connections didn’t finish there.

In 1971, the actress Hayley Mills purchased the property at public sale together with her husband, Roy Boulting, a movie director, and so they started restoration work.

The property was later owned by David Brown, an English industrialist and a former proprietor of the automaker Aston Martin. In the Nineteen Eighties, the property was bought to the present proprietor, in line with Stephen Christie-Miller, one of many realtors on the itemizing.

“It’s such a landmark when you drive through the valley,” Mr. Christie-Miller stated, “It dominates.”

Though the value tag is steep, there was curiosity within the property, Mr. Christie-Miller stated, particularly for the often gradual month of August throughout which many potential patrons are on trip.

“So many people know it,” he stated, including that he was planning to point out the windmill to 2 potential patrons on Wednesday and had already confirmed it to 1 couple who have been, he stated, “very keen.”

Since peaking in August final 12 months, home costs in Britain have begun to drop. Last month, costs fell 3.8 % in contrast with a 12 months earlier, in line with Nationwide Building Society, the steepest annual drop in additional than a decade.

Between the windmill and the home, the property has six bedrooms and 4 loos, in line with the itemizing. The windmill’s sails have been restored up to now 18 months, in line with Savills.

With views over the close by countryside, “the windmill itself would be a lovely place to have an office,” Mr. Christie-Miller stated, however added, “not that you’d get any work done.”

It’s not simply “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” followers who could be excited. The windmill seems over the village of Turville, the place scenes from the Nineteen Nineties English sitcom “Vicar of Dibley” have been filmed.

Mr. Christie-Miller stated the itemizing stands out in his 40-year profession. “It comes up once in a generation,” he stated. “It was last on the market in 1988. The next person will probably own it for another 30 years.”