If you could choose one special feature to add to your home, what would it be? A swimming pool? A walk in wardrobe, maybe a library? How about a series of winding tunnels resembling something from an Arthurian legend?
They might not be the most common ‘dream home’ addition, but a complex of secret passageways are by far the most fun. Why are they there? What do they lead to? What did the people who dug it know that we don’t? All of these questions and more can be asked of one five-bed property in Sandwich, Kent, which is currently up for sale.
On the surface (literally), this is a lovely, if pretty standard, five bedroom countryside cottage. The dining room has exposed beams and a wood-burning fireplace, there’s an Aga in the kitchen, and the roofs are just the right amount of higgilty-piggilty. It’s straight out of a Beatrix Potter story; until you look below.
This home has the only entrance to a series of tunnels which sprawl nearly 50 feet below the nearby village of Eastry. The Rightmove listing casually lists this as a feature, stating: ‘Outside there is a Victorian stable… trees and a front garden with specimen trees and a treehouse’, and ‘caves access’. You know, standard stuff.
To make matters even more mysterious, nothing is known for sure about why the caves exist, or who built them in the first place. Local legend states that Thomas Becket used them as a hiding place from King Henry II in the 12th century, but other sources suggest that they weren’t built until the 1800s. The house itself dates back to the medieval period, so it’s really anyone’s guess as to when the tunnels were added. Perhaps if you buy the house you can solve the puzzle – or just host the best murder-mystery parties the town’s ever seen.
The house is going for the pretty lofty sum of £1 million. That is quite a lot of money, but think about how much fun it’ll be to say ‘yeah we should go back to mine, I can show you the tunnels’ at the pub. That’s priceless.
Here’s what the above-ground levels of the house have to offer:
And, more importantly, here’s that elusive tunnel system:
You can see the full property listing on Rightmove here.
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