For sale: the home where Rudyard Kipling wrote 'Kim' "We moved here in 1974," says John. We were married and had two small children, and since then we've had a third child here. I was vaguely aware of the Kipling connection - I'd lived in Tisbury since I was four, and the Kipling parents are buried in the churchyard here. But it wasn't a factor in our buying - we just liked the house. It wasn't in the best of states when we arrived, though. We had to do quite a lot of work. There was a garage where they used to keep the trap from the horse and trap, and above it was a hayloft. So we turned that into a living room and some new bedrooms, so the house now has five bedrooms in total. Other adjustments were needed to bring the property up to speed. We also raised the roof by 3ft, and added new windows. We found a stone wall in the garden, so we could use exactly the same Chilmark stone for the new bits - you can't even see the joins. Sadly, the work didn't lead to the discovery of any hidden caches of unpublished Kipling works. "When John died, everything unwanted was burned in the garden," says Louise. We're always hopeful when we look under the floorboards, but we've never found any writing. We did find some bottles of medicine from New Brunswick, in Canada, where Rudyard caught a chest infection. Those are the only relics. But I've always been interested in his work. It's lovely to think that we've lived in a house he spent so much time in: sitting in this room, or writing at this window, or eating at this table. The Kipling connection is only one half of the house's story. Its other unique property is from that great feature of colonial life: cricket. The Young family are keen cricketers - John, his father and son all played for Dorset up to under-19 level. Thirty years ago, a five-acre plot of land next to the house came up for sale, and John couldn't resist the opportunity to have his own pitch. "It plays very nicely," he says, "and has a decent-sized boundary." The pitch has hosted all sorts of games, including one where three generations of our family played at the same time. It's even been graced by cricketing royalty, in the form of former England fast bowler Gladstone Small. We got to know him on tour, when we were following England around, and he agreed to come down for the afternoon to open the bowling for our team. Sadly, we still lost - but it was a tight game. The Youngs have another property by the sea, and now their children have offspring of their own, there is less demand for the cricket pitch. "It feels a bit silly to keep the pitch up to scratch when nobody's playing on it," says John. Also we're getting older and it will be nice to have everything we need right on our doorstep. But it's been a lovely house for us, and the children loved growing up here. The new owners don't have to be cricket-mad. The ground would be perfect for horses, too, and there's a floodlit tennis court. A 19th-century family home that combines impeccable literary pedigree with unmatched sports facilities, in a beautiful part of the English countryside? Just so. The Gables, Tisbury, Wiltshire, is on the market for £950,000 through Strutt & Parker (01722 344010)