Scrolling on Rightmove affords many pleasures: glimpses inside aspirational properties, loads of questionable design selections and —a Properties & Property favorite— these uncommon, quirky properties that make the thoughts boggle.
From a Grand Designs-esque Martello tower to a painstakingly created Tudor home in Kent, listed here are a number of the most uncommon properties to have hit the market this 12 months.
The last word commuter dwelling
This property is positioned inside Field Hill and Westhumble station, with two trains an hour to London
Ralph James/Rightmove
It isn’t potential to reside nearer to the native station than this: 1 Boxhill Station Home is positioned inside Field Hill and Westhumble station, with the tracks proper outdoors the window.
The Surrey station is served by two trains an hour to London – which, clearly, it will be virtually unimaginable to overlook. Inbuilt 1867 by the Victorian architect Charles Henry Driver —well-known for utilitarian initiatives such because the Thames Embankment and pumping homes at Abbey Mills and Crossness— the previous station home was transformed into two cottages within the early Nineteen Nineties, whereas the station’s reserving corridor turned a business area. In September, it was listed for £850,000 with Ralph James. It’s nonetheless in the marketplace.
“It was even handier coming dwelling, as a result of whenever you’re dwelling you’re actually dwelling, you haven’t bought to leap in a cab or stroll ten minutes,” the present homeowners, who’ve lived there since 2006, informed The Occasions. And it’s been nice for our two sons rising up right here. It offers them the liberty to leap on the practice to enter London with their pals.”
Mysterious Notting Hill cottage
The Walmer Street property has been derelict for greater than a decade
Maskells
This Victorian cottage had sat derelict on a first-rate Notting Hill avenue for greater than a decade earlier than it was listed with Maskells for £1.75 million in January. Situated subsequent to Avondale Park, the cottage is assumed to have been constructed for a groundskeeper.
It was bought for a similar worth by Danish-born inside designer Julie Simonsen in 2015, whose plans to show it right into a grand residence by no means got here to fruition. “It is in a fairly unhealthy state inside, nevertheless it’s strong, the bricks are good. Somebody might make it actually particular,” she mentioned.
The boarded-up home had turn into a supply of native intrigue —and occasional ire— however doesn’t seem to have offered, in response to Land Registry data.
Regardless of its genuine Tudor exterior, development on Manna Home started in 2004
Wards of Kent
Manna Home appears like one thing straight out of Elizabethan England, with its mullioned, two-storey oriel window jutting out into the road and its studded oak entrance door. However though this anachronistic home in Upnor, Kent, is each bit the Tudor masterpiece, it was in-built 2004.
Walter Roberts, the home’s earlier proprietor, designed the property for an imaginary Elizabethan naval commander, and used Tudor carpentry strategies to assemble it, with bricks produced domestically in Tudor fashion. Roberts chosen the bushes for the wooden panelling inside himself, including leaded home windows, ornate mouldings, stained glass and a 10-inch-long entrance door key.
However after six years of development, Roberts’ sources had begun to dwindle, and in 2013, he offered the home to Richard and Anne Emerson, who accomplished the undertaking over two years. Roberts by no means noticed his dream dwelling completed. “After we took it on, it was completed to medieval requirements, nevertheless it wasn’t liveable by some other requirements,” says Richard. “I wasn’t anticipating to find it irresistible.”
After 11 pleased years in Manna Home, the Emersons put their dwelling in the marketplace for £400,000 with Wards in September, and it has since had a £25,000 worth discount. “In most methods it’s a totally sensible, regular home,” says Richard. “It simply has extra carvings and large oak beams.”
Reproduction of Captain Prepare dinner’s boat
The duplicate is 40% of the scale of Captain Prepare dinner’s unique ship
Nationwide Enterprise Gross sales
The HMS Endeavour, which British explorer Captain James Prepare dinner sailed on his three-year expedition to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia, is one in every of historical past’s most well-known boats. In September, one in every of two current replicas of the boat was listed with Nationwide Enterprise Gross sales for £750,000.
The Endeavour duplicate was constructed between 2001 and 2002, constructed to round 40% of the unique boat’s measurement. It has been open to the general public as a vacationer attraction in Whitby since 2018 and was bought by its present proprietor in 2022. The unique Endeavour had been sunk by British forces in 1778, whereas the opposite duplicate was in-built Australia in 1988.
Spanning 4,306 sq. toes over three decks with capability for 250 folks, The Endeavour was marketed with a variety of potential makes use of, together with vacationer attraction, travelling restaurant, get together boat, wedding ceremony venue, on line casino, vacation let or massive, one-of-a-kind houseboat.
“It’s the visible impression that individuals get – there’s just one different boat prefer it on the planet, and that’s in Sydney,” mentioned Simon Burbridge, head of gross sales at Nationwide Enterprise Gross sales. “I feel it’s , enjoyable alternative – it in all probability gained’t go to your common homebuyer.” The Endeavour duplicate seems to have been offered.
Lighthouse keeper’s buildings on uninhabited Scottish island
Copinsay is an uninhabited island which lies north of John O’Groats
Tom O’Brian/Ok Allan Properties
This lighthouse keeper’s home on Copinsay, an uninhabited Orkney Island in Scotland, was the proper property for consumers in the hunt for solitude. Accessible by boat or helicopter —there have been two helipads— the sale included a seven-bedroom home in want of full refurbishment, 1.45 acres of land, two sheds, two quad bikes and a dinghy.
Within the Thirties, the buildings had been dwelling to the lighthouse keeper’s household and the farmer, who had 13 kids, plus a resident instructor. The lighthouse, which was not included within the sale, was in-built 1915 and automatic in 1991, which was when the vendor purchased the adjoining constructing to make use of as a vacation dwelling.
It was listed for £80,000 with Ok Allan Properties and marketed as “the renovation alternative of a lifetime”. After receiving “worldwide curiosity”, it offered not too long ago to a neighborhood, who, say the brokers, “seen and understood the properties’ distinctive location…we stay up for watching this property be reformed into its former glory.”
This Martello tower has been used as an uncommon retreat
Clarke and Simpson
This Grade II-listed sea fort on the Suffolk coast was transformed into a unusual dwelling by its earlier homeowners, and bought by artist Julian Simmons and his companion in 2011. “The interior vault is unexpectedly cathedral like,” says Simmons. “It’s like being in Kubrick’s white rotating space-station, from 2001 [A Space Odyssey].”
Simons and his companion have used the property as a inventive escape —Simmons even used the “distinctive” acoustics to document a basic guitar album there— and distinctive get together pad. They listed the property for £450,000 with Clarke & Simpson this summer time, full with planning permission so as to add an expansive glazed room on the previous gun deck, an open-plan dwelling area on the primary ground and bed room, utility room, bathe room and cloakroom on the decrease ground. It has now been offered.
The bunker, utilized by the Royal Observer Corps, was constructed within the Fifties
SDL Property Auctions
In July, a nuclear bunker that ticked all of the containers went up for public sale: out of doors area (rolling Cumbria countryside), good transport connections (near Dent station) and, crucially, secure from nuclear assault. The bunker was constructed within the Fifties as a spot from which Royal Observer Corps volunteers might safely report on the facility, location and fallout of nuclear assaults. It was bought as a retreat in 2008, with the proprietor refurbishing the bunker and including a shed, driveway and gate outdoors.
“You’ll be able to by no means inform who’s going to purchase, nevertheless it’s both going to be anyone trying to do one thing entrepreneurial, or anyone that simply desires to whereas away the time and be at peace,” mentioned Jim Demitriou, valuer at SDL Property Auctions. The bunker, which had a information worth of £15,000, finally offered for £48,000 at public sale, attracting 65 totally different bidders.
It wasn’t the one piece of navy historical past to draw consideration this 12 months, although. A contemporary Cornish property with a 50-person, World Warfare Two air raid shelter within the backyard was listed for £799,950 with Clive Pearce Property, whereas a concrete bunker in Surrey from the identical interval was auctioned with Strettons for a information worth of £165,000.
The 2 linked rooftops had been listed for £200,000
Subsequent Residence Ltd
In April, two neighbouring South Kensington rooftops hit the marketplace for £200,000 with Subsequent Residence Ltd. The agent, Glenn Jacobs, was approached after he efficiently offered a balcony close by for £35,000. “I like a unusual instruction,” mentioned Jacobs. “One thing that will get the inventive juices flowing.”
The rooftops, on Gloucester Street, had been linked and registered as a separate handle with their very own title deeds. They had been owned by a retired lord who bought them in 2012 and needed to money in on his asset.
The rooftops had been marketed as a possible improvement alternative, topic to planning permission, with Jacobs receiving a right away surge in enquiries. In the long run, Jacobs says there was a “contract race” between three purchasers, with the rooftops promoting to a neighborhood investor for £200,000 this month.
Savills
This 12.4-metre-high water tower close to Newbury was the proper Grand Designs undertaking when it was put up for public sale for £45,000 with Savills in April. The property was marketed as “of curiosity to builders” and was offered with planning permission to transform it right into a three-bedroom dwelling with a roof terrace and two automobile parking areas. Beforehand, it had additionally had permission to put in photo voltaic panels and a wind turbine on the roof.
The water tower was withdrawn earlier than it went up for public sale.
Taylors/Rightmove
This flat in Dudley’s former police station got here with an attention-grabbing relic: a holding cell, full with floor-to-ceiling wrought iron bars and secured with a lock and key. The property was described as a “massive studio with a function holding cell” and was listed to hire for £750pcm with Taylors property brokers.
“That is the primary flat I’ve ever supplied to let with such an uncommon function, and it’s actually an important speaking level,” mentioned Charlie Tank, Head of Lettings at Taylors. “A future tenant might have loads of enjoyable with it.”
