If you buy my house you must run my book club

Want to own a 200-year-old former rectory in beautifully tranquil surroundings? Then join the club.

To be more precise, if you want to buy the one for sale at £700,000 in the sleepy Dorset village of Stratton, you'll have to go one better and run the club.

For seller Gilly Savage, 56, has made it a condition of sale that any buyer must continue to host meetings of the book club which she has run on the third Tuesday of every month for the past 11 years.

The grandmother added the unusual clause to the deeds of her home to ensure her friends are not left without a venue for their literary evenings when she sells up.

It means the purchaser will also have to help choose the books for the group to read, lead discussions on the texts and provide tea and coffee.

Mrs Savage, who gave up working part-time as a membership secretary earlier this year, said last night: "I have always hosted book club at my house.

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"It has a literary connection as it was built by the architects Crickmay, who Thomas Hardy worked for. It also has high ceilings and stained-glass windows - it is a very stimulating environment.

"But I have decided that it's time to move on and sell my house. The group were very worried when they heard; they were concerned about what would happen to the club. It is such an integral part of the village.

"As I am selling my house privately, I jokingly asked my solicitors if I could include a clause in the deed that means the new owners have to hold the meetings.

"I was amazed when they said I legally could."

Mrs Savage has lived in the detached rectory for 13 years and helped set up the book club in 1996. Since then, the 15 or so members - currently 14 women and one man - have remained largely the same.

Members take it in turn to select a book for the two-hour meetings, with the local library agreeing to try to stock extra copies.

"We don't do anything like Joanna Trollope, but we are not afraid of the occasional sex scene," said Mrs Savage.

"It's not just what I've learned about books, but what I've learned about the people.

"Very often people choose books that reflect their own lives and I might never have known that someone was a missionary in Africa or knew a well-known author."

She hopes the new owners would see the clause as a bonus rather than a chore, adding: "The people in the club are so wonderfully diverse - it will be like a ready-made group of friends for them."

As for Mrs Savage, she is not cutting all ties with the club.

"I may be moving away but I will still come back for the meetings - I could never miss book club," she said.