The most unusual property sales of 2024 — from a lighthouse to a nuclear bunker

Scrolling on Rightmove presents 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, and, er, a flat with a police holding cell, listed here are a few of the most uncommon properties to have hit the market this 12 months.

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 might be virtually not possible to overlook. Inbuilt 1867 by the Victorian architect Charles Henry Driver —well-known for utilitarian tasks 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 Nineties, whereas the station’s reserving corridor grew to become a industrial house. In September, it was listed for £850,000 with Ralph James. It’s nonetheless available on the market.

“It was even handier coming dwelling, as a result of while you’re dwelling you’re actually dwelling, you haven’t received to leap in a cab or stroll ten minutes,” the present homeowners, who’ve lived there since 2006, advised The Instances. And it’s been nice for our two sons rising up right here. It provides them the liberty to leap on the prepare to enter London with their pals.”

This Victorian cottage had sat derelict on a primary Notting Hill road 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 believed 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 reasonably unhealthy state inside, but it surely’s strong, the bricks are good. Somebody may make it actually particular,” she mentioned.

The boarded-up home had develop into a supply of native intrigue —and occasional ire— however doesn’t seem to have offered, in response to Land Registry data.

Manna Home seems to be 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 inbuilt 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 model. Roberts chosen the timber 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 mission over two years. Roberts by no means noticed his dream dwelling completed. “After we took it on, it was completed to medieval requirements, but it surely 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 available on the market 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.”

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 inbuilt Australia in 1988.

Spanning 4,306 sq. toes over three decks with capability for 250 individuals, The Endeavour was marketed with a variety of potential makes use of, together with vacationer attraction, travelling restaurant, social gathering boat, marriage 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 believe it’s a great, enjoyable alternative – it in all probability received’t go to your common homebuyer.” The Endeavour duplicate seems to have been offered.

This lighthouse keeper’s home on Copinsay, an uninhabited Orkney Island in Scotland, was the right property for consumers searching 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 Nineteen Thirties, the buildings have been dwelling to the lighthouse keeper’s household and the farmer, who had 13 youngsters, plus a resident trainer. The lighthouse, which was not included within the sale, was inbuilt 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 Okay Allan Properties and marketed as “the renovation alternative of a lifetime”. After receiving “worldwide curiosity”, it offered just lately to a neighborhood, who, say the brokers, “considered and understood the properties’ distinctive location…we sit up for watching this property be reformed into its former glory.”

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 accomplice in 2011. “The inner 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 accomplice have used the property as a inventive escape —Simmons even used the “distinctive” acoustics to report a basic guitar album there— and distinctive social gathering pad. They listed the property for £450,000 with Clarke & Simpson this summer season, full with planning permission so as to add an expansive glazed room on the previous gun deck, an open-plan residing house on the primary ground and bed room, utility room, bathe room and cloakroom on the decrease ground. It has now been offered.

In July, a nuclear bunker that ticked all of the containers went up for public sale: outside house (rolling Cumbria countryside), good transport connections (near Dent station) and, crucially, protected from nuclear assault. The bunker was constructed within the Fifties as a spot from which Royal Observer Corps volunteers may safely report on the ability, 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, but it surely’s both going to be someone trying to do one thing entrepreneurial, or someone 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 army historical past to draw consideration this 12 months, although. A contemporary Cornish property with a 50-person, World Battle 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.

In April, two neighbouring South Kensington rooftops hit the marketplace for £200,000 with Subsequent Dwelling 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 Highway, have been linked and registered as a separate deal with with their very own title deeds. They have been owned by a retired lord who bought them in 2012 and needed to money in on his asset.

The rooftops have 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.

This 12.4-metre-high water tower close to Newbury was the right Grand Designs mission 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.

This flat in Dudley’s former police station got here with an fascinating 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 lease for £750pcm with Taylors property brokers.

“That is the primary flat I’ve ever provided to let with such an uncommon function, and it’s actually a fantastic speaking level,” mentioned Charlie Tank, Head of Lettings at Taylors. “A future tenant may have a variety of enjoyable with it.”