Celebrity beauty Liz Hurley and Shane Warne will be able to move into £6 million Donnington Hall on the edge of the Dean within weeks.

Current owners Roger Gouldstone and wife Jane are due to leave their 187-acre Georgian mansion and move to the US.

Mr Gouldstone refuses to confirm or deny widespread reports that the globetrotting actress and her cricketer beau have bought the £6 million pad on the edge of the Forest.

Estee Lauder model Liz, 47, is currently visiting Shane in native Australia where he has just put his sprawling mansion home, which has a swimming pool with his cricket number etched into the ground, on the market.

The engaged couple are said to be keen to put their 18-month-long distance relationship on a more permanent footing in a brand new home in England before they get married.

Back in England Mr Gouldstone denied reports he was set to leave this weekend but said: "The house has been sold and I will be moving in a few weeks.

"I cannot say who the new owners are because that is confidential but I have been showing them around and they love it.

"The people who are buying it are very nice people and I'm sure they would not have bought it, if they didn't love it.

"It's a wonderful place and we have enjoyed living here, but we are moving to be near our grandchildren in the United States."

The Gouldstones' four children, were brought up in Brooms Green and America, and the couple understand Donnington Hall will continue to be used as a family home.

"I have only met the parents but that is my understanding," he said.

And Liz will not have to worry about kitting the 13-bedroom mansion out from scratch.

"We are not taking a lot with us because it would not work where we are moving to," he said.

"It will be a good opportunity to clear out everything we have collected over the past 20 years."

With five bathrooms, the mansion is big enough to cater for Liz's son Damian, and Shane's three children Brooke, 14, Jackson, 12, and Summer, 10.

Many villagers are excited by the prospect of their new neighbours but others have spotted the paparazzi in the area and are hoping the star-studded arrivals will not change their rural idyll.

Sketch writer Quentin Letts, who lives in nearby Ross-on-Wye, has penned a piece appealing for Liz not to try to change the old-fashioned nature of the area into a corner of the celebrity studded Cotswolds.

Barbara Davis, an expert on the Dymock poets, agrees and fears too many newcomers could change the rural area which inspired the poetry.

"People seem to start making changes immediately they move in," she said.

"They add modern accoutrements or change the names of nice old cottages, but all these little tweaks just destroy what is already there. Whoever moves in, I would urge them to be respectful of the local customs and ways."

But nearby neighbour Sally Plummer joked: "I'm just hoping Hugh Grant comes to visit. He is the godfather of her child and they are still friends, but I'm guessing we won't see much of any of them."