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Prue Leith’s £10m home is haunted, niece claims

Prue Leith  - Mike Lawn /Shutterstock
Prue Leith - Mike Lawn /Shutterstock

Prue Leith's sprawling country home has been sold. But the lucky buyer might want to be aware that it is haunted, according to her niece.

Chastleton Glebe, a manor house near Moreton-in-Marsh, in the Cotswolds, is thought to have sold for around £10million.  The chef and Great British Bake Off presenter announced earlier in the year that she was selling with a heavy heart after 44 years and many happy Christmases at the home with her extended family.

However, one member of the family who was not quite so happy when Christmas rolled around was Ms Leith's niece. Peta Leith, 32, has revealed that she seldom got a wink of sleep on the night before Christmas due to "the hauntings".

Speaking to her brother Sam, a literary editor, and Ms Leith at an online event for the Spectator magazine on Tuesday night, Peta said she was constantly "terrified" in Ms Leith's house.

Prue Leith home
Prue Leith home

"I found Prue's Christmases as a child really thrilling because on the one hand I was very excited about Christmas, which all children are, and on the other hand I was absolutely terrified of Prue's house," she said.

Peta revealed that she would get wound up into a "complete frenzy about the hauntings" after the children swapped ghost stories.

"The room we stayed in supposedly had a woman bricked up in the wall," she said. "There were horror stories about the house. We were told Father Christmas wouldn't come unless we were asleep but of course I was too terrified to sleep."

Prue and Peta Leith  - The Vegetarian Kitchen
Prue and Peta Leith - The Vegetarian Kitchen

The manor house, which Leith has previously described as 16th-century with Victorian and interwar features, has reportedly been bought by classic car showroom owner Gregor Fisken. The Great British Bake Off star is downsizing and moving to a property nearby.

Her second husband, John Playfair, also has his own home in the area but the couple have never actually lived together.

A spokeswoman for Leith said that Chastleton Glebe was not haunted, adding that Peta had been frightened by her three brothers.

''Her brothers made it up to scare her. She is the only girl and she has three brothers who thought what fun it would be to wind her up,' she told the Sunday Telegraph.

Leith, 80, took over as a judge on the Great British Bake Off from Mary Berry in 2017.  She now hosts the show with fellow judge Paul Hollywood and presenters Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding.  Prue and Peta Leith were discussing their new cookbook The Vegetarian Kitchen.