Stephen Fry’s Childhood Home Has Hit The Market

Following last week’s news that Oscar Wilde’s bachelor digs – and inspiration behind The Importance of Being Earnest – were up for grabs, it seems only fitting that the former home of Wilde’s biggest fan, and recent Earnest star, Stephen Fry, should follow it onto the market.

Discover Booton House In Norfolk

The childhood home of actor, comedian, big-dog Faithful and all-round national treasure Stephen Fry is up for sale. While it doesn’t quite compare to the Traitors castle where the nation last watched him hunting down murderers and brushing up on his Shakespeare – for a seven-bedroom home (plus two-bedroom annexe) nestled in the Norfolk countryside, Booton House’s £1.3m guide price is an absolute steal. 

Located in the quaint and quiet village of Booton near the Norfolk town of Reepham, Fry first moved into this period property in 1965 when he was just eight years old. It’s clear that the Blackadder star has happy memories of his childhood home; in his 1997 autobiography Moab is my Washpot, Fry writes that he was so fond of Booton House that he kept a ‘tattered and torn’ photograph of it in his wallet.

Now back on the market, Booton House was last sold in 2010 for £935,000. Set across three floors, the main home provides 7,000 sqft of living space plus a separate two-bedroom annexe and additional ancillary building. The kitchen is complete with wooden beams, a black and white diamond chequered floor, a playfully purple kitchen island (including sink) plus a characterful and colourful tile backsplash above the Aga. From the kitchen the house opens up onto a sun-soaked conservatory with views of the grounds, and connects through to the dining room on the other end.

Rich in period detailing, the home feels very on-brand for Fry: complete with floral motifs, original mouldings, ornately carved marble fireplaces and historic wooden frames. It is easy to imagine the arch-Faithful holed up in the plaid-wallpapered snug/library with a good book in hand. Meanwhile, memories of Booton’s time as a family home persist in the sailing boat wallpaper and a Beatrix Potter-esque mural found in the upstairs bedrooms.

Outside, the house opens up through a gated entrance in a large private courtyard with off-road private parking. Set within nearly an acre of grounds, the home features a landscaped garden complete with an orchard, trees and bushes. Located roughly 13 miles from the centre of Norwich, the home is within easy driving distance of the city. It is also close to the waterways of the Norfolk Broads and the rugged North Norfolk Coast.

Stephen Fry’s Memories Of His Childhood Home

It was as a young boy, and potentially in this very same house, that Fry watched a film adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest on a very shaky black and white television. He revealed at our inaugural Chelsea Arts Festival last summer how this moment changed his life for good. As he learnt more about Wilde’s tragic story, and his own sexuality, the playwright’s experience ‘vindicated and validated’ him. He told the audience: ‘I shared his “nature”, as he called it, and that did me enormous good. I felt less alone. He gave me a kind of education and an introduction to literature and art and culture that I would otherwise never have had.’

Fry went on to play the famed playwright in the titular biographical film Wilde in 1997 and more recently starred as Lady Bracknell in the West End revival of Oscar Wilde’s iconic play, The Importance of Being Earnest at the Noel Coward Theatre in 2025.

However, Fry’s childhood wasn’t all discovering literary heroes and making wholesome memories. In 1975, the summer after he failed his A-Levels at aged 17, Fry stole a credit card from a family friend and ran away from his Norfolk home to Swindon, using the stolen credit card on a string of hotels and taxis along the way. His ‘galloping kleptomania’ (as Fry himself put it) eventually landed him in a three-month stint at youth detention centre Pucklechurch prison, with a charge of credit card fraud.

Stephen Fry at Chelsea Arts Festival 2025

‘It was an absolute breeze to anyone who had been through the English public school system,’ he jokes. He was nicknamed ‘The Professor’, for his academic poshness, and taught his cellmate how to read and write. When he eventually left, his parents had had enough. ‘I wouldn’t say they’d given up on me,’ he says, ‘but they basically said, “We’re not going to push you into any other schools. You must now decide what you want to do.”‘ Thankfully for Fry’s fretting parents, his next-steps saw him admitted to Queen’s College, Cambridge. From here he joined the Footlights, and so his path to national treasure began.

Where Does Stephen Fry Live Now?

Born in Hampstead in London, Fry was originally raised in Chesham in Buckinghamshire before his family’s move to Booton. Loyal to his native Norfolk, Fry currently lives in the village of West Bilney near King’s Lynn. He also has another home in his birthplace (and celebrity hotspot) of West Hampstead in London. ‘I fell in love with this extraordinary house,’ he said of his London home. ‘It’s an ordinary terraced house, but an architect scooped out the inside and created all these different levels. There are two trees growing through the middle.’

On the market for £1.3m. Find out more at jackson-stops.co.uk