Whisper it quietly, rather than shout it from the rooftops, but Dracula’s Castle, in Transylvania, is on the market. Not in the conventional fashion, with estate agents staking their For Sale signs in the ground, but in a quiet, offers-are-invited-from-the-right-people sort of way.

“If someone comes in with a reasonable offer, we will look at who they are, what they are proposing, and will seriously entertain the idea,” says Mark Meyer, of Herzfeld and Rubin. The New York law firm is handling the sale.

The property comes with a long list of previous owners: everyone from Saxons to Hungarians to Teutonic knights. And although the facilities may not be exactly state-of-the-art (the plumbing is reported to require some work), there’s no questioning the detachedness of the property. It stands on top of a hill, and is most definitely not overlooked by neighbours. 

...The question is, of course, how much will the castle cost? It’s been reported that Archduke Dominic offered it to the Romanian government for $80million (£47million), but Meyer is not prepared to quote a figure.