From the outside it looks like any other modest mid-terrace home. Photo: Azeem / YouTube
From the outside it looks like any other modest mid-terrace home. Photo: Azeem / YouTube
From the outside it looks like any other modest mid-terrace home.
But step through the front door and it immediately becomes clear that this property in in the West Midlands of England, is far from ordinary - boasting not only two bedrooms, a lounge and a galley kitchen but alsoa hidden roof garden, impressive vaulted ceilings and even a secret cave.
The house in Bridgnorth, Shropshire is on sale for £200,000 (NZ$436,976) and was formerly owned by eccentric artist Antony Dracup, who spent years integrating the sandstone cave at the back of the property into his home.
Over the course of his lifetime Mr Dracup, who died in 2002 aged 72, left a personal stamp on each of the homes he lived in, adding arches, pillars and stained glass with this particular property undergoing a particularly impressive overhaul.
After moving into the house in the 1980s, Mr Dracup - who left his office job to become a professional artist in 1963 - spent years levelling the floors and then chiselling away at the cave by hand to create a huge entertaining space with vaulted ceilings and 24 pillars.
The gothic archways were made using recycled sand from the excavation, and the result of his hard work was around 650 sq/ft of extra accommodation, with the cave making up more than half of the home's overall footprint and giving it the properties of Doctor Who's Tardis - although it resembles more of a real-life Hobbit house.
The spacious excavated cave would make a great space for entertaining. Photo: Azeem / YouTube
"Not satisfied with the perfunctory cave in the back yard which came with the property, he set about levelling the floor and creating rooms further in," wrote Mr Dracup's son Dennis on a website dedicated to his work.
"In true Colditz style - a little every day but persistently - he chiselled away. His persistence was rewarded with noticeably stronger chest-muscles and extra living space."
He also turned around the staircase inside the house, and built an extra layer of bricks to sound-proof the property, while on top of the amazing cave, there are two bedrooms and an attic room. There is also a galley kitchen and a lounge downstairs.
The back garden of the property. Photo: Azeem / YouTube
Mr Dracup, who finished his work on the house in the mid 1990s, also created a stunning near-vertical garden terrace above the cave, filled with intricately designed features which led to a local aerial surveyor once mistaking it for a Roman ruin.
