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FANS of JRR Tolkien will have a unique opportunity to pick up a piece of history this weekend.
Stephen Frankel, current owner of the Branksome bungalow in which the Lord of the Rings author retired, is selling off the contents of the home before it is bulldozed.
Planning permission has been granted for two four-bed family homes to be built on the Lakeside Road site.
So Mr Frankel, who brought the home from Tolkien in 1972, is generously offering the chance to pick up some unique memorabilia before it is lost forever.
"There will be bits of history for people to pick up," he said.
"We had work done to modernise the house but it is still as it was when he lived here.
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"I've had a lot of people go by and take pictures, so I just want to let people come and meander around."
Items previously owned by Tolkien likely to be available include mirrors, a corner unit and carpets.
WRITE STUFF: JRR Tolkien
The bungalow is where the great writer retired with his wife Edith in 1968 after his two best-known works, The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, had already made him famous.
Tolkien lived in the three-bed home, which backs onto Branksome Chine, until his wife's death in 1972 when he moved back to Oxford.
The property came on the market for £1 million in November and Mr Frankel says he will be sad to see it go.
"I am a bit upset I'm going and wish I could renege on the deal but it is done now," he said.
"It is a bit of history that is going to disappear from Poole."
Tolkien, who died in 1973, is said to have found respite from his growing fame in Branksome and at the Miramar Hotel, Bournemouth, which he and his wife frequently visited.
Mr Frankel will welcome visitors looking to acquire a piece of Tolkien history to 19 Lakeside Road on Saturday and Sunday any time after 9.30am.
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