Gone are the days when a tree house was a hastily-constructed platform with limited protection from the elements.

Gone, that is, for Scottish author JK Rowling and her two younger children.

The woman behind the Harry Potter books, whose fortune is estimated at £560m, is planning a construction wonder costing up to £250,000 per child for her north Edinburgh garden.

She lives there with her husband, their two young children, and her teenage daughter from a previous marriage.

-- Advertisement --

Plans for the luxury tree houses, to be built by Tunbridge Wells-based tree house architects Blue Forest, bear a striking resemblance to the castle turrets of fictional Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Rowling's own brain-child.

They will be two storeys tall with conical roofs and bay windows, and be linked by a rope bridge.

Rowling's children, aged nine and seven, will be able to access their tree houses through tunnels in the garden, and escape them through a trap door and fireman's pole in one, and a spiral staircase or stainless steel slide in the other.

The tree houses have been designed to be out of sight.

Andy Payne, the managing director of Blue Forest, said: "Tree houses have always been a symbol of imagination and creativity."

Rowling bought a £1m house next door to her own home and has received planning permission to demolish it and extend her garden.

(NE)