Scrolling on Rightmove offers many pleasures: glimpses inside aspirational homes, plenty of questionable design choices and —a Homes & Property favourite— those rare, quirky properties that make the mind boggle.
From a Grand Designs-esque Martello tower to a painstakingly created Tudor house in Kent, here are some of the most unusual properties to have hit the market this year.
The ultimate commuter home
This property is located inside Box Hill and Westhumble station, with two trains an hour to London
Ralph James/Rightmove
It is not possible to live closer to the local station than this: 1 Boxhill Station House is located inside Box Hill and Westhumble station, with the tracks right outside the window.
The Surrey station is served by two trains an hour to London – which, clearly, it would be almost impossible to miss. Built in 1867 by the Victorian architect Charles Henry Driver —famous for utilitarian projects such as the Thames Embankment and pumping houses at Abbey Mills and Crossness— the former station house was converted into two cottages in the early 1990s, while the station’s booking hall became a commercial space. In September, it was listed for £850,000 with Ralph James. It is still on the market.
“It was even handier coming home, because when you’re home you’re really home, you haven’t got to jump in a cab or walk ten minutes,” the current owners, who have lived there since 2006, told The Times. And it’s been great for our two sons growing up here. It gives them the freedom to jump on the train to go into London with their friends.”
Mysterious Notting Hill cottage
The Walmer Road property has been derelict for more than a decade
Maskells
This Victorian cottage had sat derelict on a prime Notting Hill street for more than a decade before it was listed with Maskells for £1.75 million in January. Located next to Avondale Park, the cottage is thought to have been built for a groundskeeper.
It was purchased for the same price by Danish-born interior designer Julie Simonsen in 2015, whose plans to turn it into a grand residence never came to fruition. “It’s in a pretty bad state inside, but it’s solid, the bricks are good. Someone could make it really special,” she said.
The boarded-up house had become a source of local intrigue —and occasional ire— but does not appear to have sold, according to Land Registry records.
Despite its authentic Tudor exterior, construction on Manna House began in 2004
Wards of Kent
Manna House looks like something straight out of Elizabethan England, with its mullioned, two-storey oriel window jutting out into the street and its studded oak front door. But although this anachronistic house in Upnor, Kent, is every bit the Tudor masterpiece, it was built in 2004.
Walter Roberts, the house’s previous owner, designed the property for an imaginary Elizabethan naval commander, and used Tudor carpentry methods to construct it, with bricks produced locally in Tudor style. Roberts selected the trees for the wood panelling inside himself, adding leaded windows, ornate mouldings, stained glass and a 10-inch-long front door key.
But after six years of construction, Roberts’ resources had begun to dwindle, and in 2013, he sold the house to Richard and Anne Emerson, who completed the project over two years. Roberts never saw his dream home finished. “When we took it on, it was finished to medieval standards, but it wasn’t habitable by any other standards,” says Richard. “I wasn’t expecting to love it.”
After 11 happy years in Manna House, the Emersons put their home on the market for £400,000 with Wards in September, and it has since had a £25,000 price reduction. “In most ways it’s a completely practical, normal house,” says Richard. “It just has more carvings and big oak beams.”
Replica of Captain Cook’s boat
The replica is 40% of the size of Captain Cook’s original ship
Nationwide Business Sales
The HMS Endeavour, which British explorer Captain James Cook sailed on his three-year expedition to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia, is one of history’s most famous boats. In September, one of two existing replicas of the boat was listed with Nationwide Business Sales for £750,000.
The Endeavour replica was constructed between 2001 and 2002, built to around 40% of the original boat’s size. It has been open to the public as a tourist attraction in Whitby since 2018 and was purchased by its current owner in 2022. The original Endeavour had been sunk by British forces in 1778, while the other replica was built in Australia in 1988.
Spanning 4,306 square feet over three decks with capacity for 250 people, The Endeavour was marketed with a range of possible uses, including tourist attraction, travelling restaurant, party boat, wedding venue, casino, holiday let or large, one-of-a-kind houseboat.
“It’s the visual impression that people get – there’s only one other boat like it in the world, and that’s in Sydney,” said Simon Burbridge, head of sales at Nationwide Business Sales. “I think it’s a good, fun opportunity – it probably won’t go to your average homebuyer.” The Endeavour replica appears to have been sold.
Lighthouse keeper’s buildings on uninhabited Scottish island
Copinsay is an uninhabited island which lies north of John O’Groats
Tom O’Brian/K Allan Properties
This lighthouse keeper’s house on Copinsay, an uninhabited Orkney Island in Scotland, was the perfect property for buyers in search of solitude. Accessible by boat or helicopter —there were two helipads— the sale included a seven-bedroom house in need of full refurbishment, 1.45 acres of land, two sheds, two quad bikes and a dinghy.
In the 1930s, the buildings were home to the lighthouse keeper’s family and the farmer, who had 13 children, plus a resident teacher. The lighthouse, which was not included in the sale, was built in 1915 and automated in 1991, which was when the seller bought the adjacent building to use as a holiday home.
It was listed for £80,000 with K Allan Properties and advertised as “the renovation opportunity of a lifetime”. After receiving “worldwide interest”, it sold recently to a local, who, say the agents, “viewed and understood the properties’ unique location…we look forward to watching this property be reformed into its former glory.”
This Martello tower has been used as an unusual retreat
Clarke and Simpson
This Grade II-listed sea fort on the Suffolk coast was converted into a quirky home by its previous owners, and purchased by artist Julian Simmons and his partner in 2011. “The internal 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 partner have used the property as a creative escape —Simmons even used the “exceptional” acoustics to record a classic guitar album there— and unique party pad. They listed the property for £450,000 with Clarke & Simpson this summer, complete with planning permission to add an expansive glazed room on the former gun deck, an open-plan living space on the first floor and bedroom, utility room, shower room and cloakroom on the lower floor. It has now been sold.
The bunker, used by the Royal Observer Corps, was built in the 1950s
SDL Property Auctions
In July, a nuclear bunker that ticked all the boxes went up for auction: outdoor space (rolling Cumbria countryside), good transport connections (close to Dent station) and, crucially, safe from nuclear attack. The bunker was built in the 1950s as a place from which Royal Observer Corps volunteers could safely report on the power, location and fallout of nuclear attacks. It was purchased as a retreat in 2008, with the owner refurbishing the bunker and adding a shed, driveway and gate outside.
“You can never tell who’s going to buy, but it’s either going to be somebody looking to do something entrepreneurial, or somebody that just wants to while away the time and be at peace,” said Jim Demitriou, valuer at SDL Property Auctions. The bunker, which had a guide price of £15,000, eventually sold for £48,000 at auction, attracting 65 different bidders.
It wasn’t the only piece of military history to attract attention this year, though. A modern Cornish property with a 50-person, World War Two air raid shelter in the garden was listed for £799,950 with Clive Pearce Property, while a concrete bunker in Surrey from the same period was auctioned with Strettons for a guide price of £165,000.
The two connected rooftops were listed for £200,000
Next Home Ltd
In April, two neighbouring South Kensington rooftops hit the market for £200,000 with Next Home Ltd. The agent, Glenn Jacobs, was approached after he successfully sold a balcony nearby for £35,000. “I like a quirky instruction,” said Jacobs. “Something that gets the creative juices flowing.”
The rooftops, on Gloucester Road, were connected and registered as a separate address with their own title deeds. They were owned by a retired lord who purchased them in 2012 and wanted to cash in on his asset.
The rooftops were marketed as a potential development opportunity, subject to planning permission, with Jacobs receiving an immediate surge in enquiries. In the end, Jacobs says there was a “contract race” between three purchasers, with the rooftops selling to a local investor for £200,000 this month.
Savills
This 12.4-metre-high water tower near Newbury was the perfect Grand Designs project when it was put up for auction for £45,000 with Savills in April. The property was marketed as “of interest to developers” and was sold with planning permission to convert it into a three-bedroom home with a roof terrace and two car parking spaces. Previously, it had also had permission to install solar panels and a wind turbine on the roof.
The water tower was withdrawn before it went up for auction.
Taylors/Rightmove
This flat in Dudley’s former police station came with an interesting relic: a holding cell, complete with floor-to-ceiling wrought iron bars and secured with a lock and key. The property was described as a “large studio with a feature holding cell” and was listed to rent for £750pcm with Taylors estate agents.
“This is the first flat I have ever offered to let with such an unusual feature, and it is certainly a great talking point,” said Charlie Tank, Head of Lettings at Taylors. “A future tenant could have a lot of fun with it.”