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Hidden London Mansion Transports You Back to 1741, Asks $4.3M

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Live out your Miss Havisham fantasies here

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Location: East End London, United Kingdom

Price: £2,950,000 ($4,299,000)

If you've ever fantasized about holding court like a modern Miss Havisham in a historic English mansion filled with all manner of antiques and curiosities, paintings and taxidermy, here's your rare chance.

The Malplaquet House is a recently-restored 18th-century Georgian double-fronted house located in the historic East End of London. The atmospheric four-story 4,460 square-foot mansion features five bedrooms, seven "reception" rooms, a courtyard full of climbing roses, ivies, wisteria, and jasmine, a back garden, and numerous other historic details.

The house was completed in 1741 by Thomas Andrews, a speculative builder, then sold to and altered by Harry Charrington of the eponymous brewery between 1778 and 1827. Following his death in 1833, the house slid into disrepair, and it wasn't until 1997 when the Spitalfields Trust acquired the Grade II listed property that the new owners Tim Knox, director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan painstakingly restored the home according to whatever historic documentation and surviving evidence they could salvage.

Now, stepping into the stunning, "secret" house is like traveling back in time. The mansion is set back from Mile End Road by wrought iron railings and brick piers guarded by stone eagles that are exact copies of the original, while the marble path and stone steps leading to the original entryway were recently restored. Other historic details include original plaster cornices from 1795, a mahogany handrail staircase, original floorboards, joinery, windows, shutters, stone-flagged floors, and wall paneling, and painted surfaces that were carefully matched to the home's original schemes. Once you step inside, you may never want to leave.