The former home of a world-class scholar and expert on 19th-century Russian literature, is on the market.

Paul Foote, who died in March aged 83, translated works by great Russian writers, including Lermontov and Tolstoy, into English.

Mr Foote was also renowned for entertaining students and fellow academics to long Sunday lunches, prepared using Russian ingredients and recipes at his Edwardian house in Hill Top Road near South Park, Oxford.

His son, television cameraman Stephen Foote, said: “We moved to the house in 1964 when I was a child, so I grew up there.

“We almost always had a house full of visitors, mainly academics. He would often invite his favourite students for dinner or lunch which went on long into the evening.

“I have good memories of being in the garden for outdoor parties during the summer.

“Many of his former students wrote to us after he died and said how they remembered coming to the house for those wonderful Sunday lunches.”

Mr Foote was born in Dorset but came to Oxford in 1948 as an undergraduate at St Edmund Hall where he achieved a double first in Russian and German.

He was appointed as a lecturer in Russian in 1954 and elected a fellow of The Queen’s College a decade later.

After his wife Ann died of cancer in 1968, he brought up their two daughters and a son alone.

A memorial service was held for Mr Foote at The Queen’s College earlier this month.

The house includes four reception rooms, a kitchen, cellar, five bedrooms, bathroom and garage and is set in grounds of a quarter of an acre.

Number 72 Hill Top Road is on the market for offers over £1m.

For more information, contact agents Kemp & Kemp on 01865 510000 or visit kempandkemp.co.uk