A 300-year-old house, rich with an incredible history of Antarctic explorers, fossil hunters, secret tunnels and the stone trade, has gone on sale in Swanage.

The three-bedroom, four-reception room terraced house on the High Street dates back to 1703 and is on the market for £425,000.

It is now a family home, but over the years it has been the headquarters of the Swanage stone masons and a pub, known first as the New Inn but later renamed the Stonemasons Arms.

During the 1700s it is thought to have been linked by a secret tunnel to the Black Swan Inn, further along the High Street, which served as an escape route for canny young men avoiding Navy press gangs trying to sign up new recruits.

And in 1912 Edgar "Taffy" Evans is thought to have left the house to embark on the ill-fated expedition to the South Pole where he perished alongside Captain Robert Scott and three others.

But perhaps its most unusual feature only dates back to the 1980s when a fossil collector took over the property. He planned to turn it into a museum, and got as far as installing fossilised stone window ledges, ammonites in walls, fossils in a fireplace and dinosaur footprints in the garden and a wall.

But then he uncovered a very rare specimen which made his fortune, and abandoned the project to travel the world.

Jan Tidd, of Kings Somborne, Hampshire, whose parents bought it a decade ago, said their research had helped reveal its chequered history.

"It was my mum's pride and joy," she said. "She put her heart and soul into trying to restore it. But sadly she died six years ago and it is now a bit big for my dad.

"It's a very reluctant sale. We all love it and if we could afford to keep it we would. It's one of those places you just fall for as soon as you see it."

Neal Wilson, manager of agents Goadsby, Swanage, said: "This historic character cottage is bound to be of interest to anyone who has a passion for history."