'Harry Potter' legend Miriam Margolyes quits UK for Italian farmhouse bought in 1973

Miriam Margolyes has decided to leave the UK for Italy to live with her partner Heather Sutherland following a series of serious health woes. 

The 84-year-old actress, best known for her role as a professor in the Harry Potter films, previously opened up about relaying on a walker and struggling with reduced mobility, which she believes is primarily due to her weight. 

Margolyes has been in a relationship with Heather, 82, for over more than five decades, and the pair now plan to settle together in Tuscany.

Currently they live separately as Margolyes is based in London, while Heather lives in Amsterdam. 

Interestingly, The Age of Innocence star purchased a home near Siena in Italy, back in 1973, and the couple will make it their permanent residence.

This major lifetime decision comes after the star had underwent a transcatheter aortic valve replacement operation last year, a procedure she chose to avoid more invasive open-heart surgery. 

Speaking to The Observer this week about the move: 'The world around us has lost its charm. And we just want each other in a beautiful place which we know. 

'We can toddle along and laugh and just quietly subside into old age. But together. We are here for such a short time. It's gone so fast. Mentally, I am still fairly crisp.'

The couple first met in 1967 and the pair have been together ever since. Heather is an Australian historian, is a former professor in the Netherlands,  while Margolyes graduated from the University of Cambridge. 

In her 2021 autobiography, This Much Is True, she reflected on their bond and the secrets of their decades-long romance.

'Do not look for others. Be happy with you have got. She insisted that 'adultery is nonsense. Cherish what you have.