TONY Blair is selling his former constituency home for £300,000.

Myrobella House, Trimdon Grange, County Durham, once provided the backdrop for a photo session during the visist of US President George W Bush.

The £300,000 price tag represents 10 times what the Blairs paid for the four-bedroom pit manager's house in 1983 when he was elected as MP for Sedgefield.

It was remortgaged five years ago for £297,000, when the couple bought a home in London.

In 1997, the young would-be prime minister strolled from his home with family in tow across the open playing field to his local polling station on his last day as Leader of the Opposition.

In November 2003, he invited US President George W Bush to see how a British prime minister lived.

The modest home, at the end of a terraced row built for pitmen, was a stark contrast from Buckingham Palace, where the president and his wife Laura had stayed the night before.

The village had seen nothing like it when the president's two Sikorsky Black Stallion helicopters landed on the field outside Myrobella.

They lunched on fish and chips in the Dun Cow pub a few miles away in Sedgefield.

French former prime minister Lionel Jospin was also a visitor to Sedgefield in 1998.

The house is being sold by Robinson's estate agent in Sedgefield, where a spokesman said: ''It is a beautiful big period property.

''We hope to generate a quick sale, we like to do our best for all our vendors.''

Since the ex-prime minister stood down as an MP, Myrobella has served as the headquarters of the Tony Blair Sports Foundation.

The organisation, which supports young people and coaches to get into sport, said today it was moving to bigger premises in Newcastle.