House with 15M underground tunnels for sale for 300k

A Tilehurst property is being sold with an extraordinary hand-excavated subterranean complex that descends more than 15m across four levels and offers around 1,300 sq ft of tunnels, storage rooms and engineered features. Civil engineer Tony Deane and his family dug the network over roughly two decades using buckets and wheelbarrows, adding hand-cast concrete where needed. The build includes a hand-built railway for moving chalk, a four-layer goods lift rated at one tonne, secret entrances (one hidden inside a 23ft-high rocket by the pool) and a 1.5-tonne sliding concrete wall that forms a concealed door. Early works in the 1960s included underground changing rooms adjacent to the pool.

The site also comprises a gated driveway, a 2,500 sq ft three-storey workshop, parking, gardens and a large swimming pool with changing rooms. West Berkshire Council granted planning consent in December 2024 for a 5,000 sq ft, five-bedroom two-storey house on the pool site and for conversion of the workshop into a three-bedroom house. The property is listed with a guide price of £300,000-£325,000 and will be offered in a BTG Eddisons live-stream auction on 28-29 October. Suggested uses range from secure storage or a fallout shelter to an EMP-resistant data centre or prepper base.