A Berkshire property featuring four underground levels, a hand-built railway and a sliding concrete door weighing 1.5 tonnes is heading to auction. The owner, civil engineer Tony Deane, spent 20 years digging the network by hand beneath his home in the Reading suburb of Tilehurst.
20 years of manual excavation
Deane created more than 1,300 sq ft of tunnels, corridors and storage rooms underneath his house. The complex reaches more than 15 metres below ground. Two secret doors are among the features a buyer will inherit, along with a one-tonne goods lift that Deane built to bring excavated chalk to the surface.
The family’s underground construction began in the 1960s with changing rooms beside the property’s swimming pool. Access to the changing rooms was hidden behind a 23ft-high rocket beside the pool, which is still in place today.
A family project
Deane’s early career involved construction of aerodrome and airport infrastructure. During the 1980s and 1990s, he worked on the large subterranean network beneath the workshop at the home, with help from his six children. The family used buckets and wheelbarrows to move the chalk they dug out by hand, and the work continued over two decades, creating four levels beneath the site.
Richard Worrall, auctioneer and consultant at BTG Eddisons Property Auctions, said: ‘Most of these tunnels were dug through chalk, which is naturally self-supporting, while, in some places, where required, structural concrete was used and cast by hand. Incredibly, absolutely everything was excavated manually.’
Above ground and development potential
Above ground, the site includes a 2,500 sq ft workshop arranged over three floors, parking, gardens, a large swimming pool and changing rooms. Planning consent was granted by West Berkshire Council in December 2024 for a five-bedroom house on the site of the swimming pool, allowing for a two-storey home covering 5,000 sq ft. The workshop has separate consent for conversion into a three-bedroom house.
Worrall described the lift as ‘a four-layer, one-tonne goods lift’ and said: ‘In all my years as an auctioneer, I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s utterly amazing and, I think, unique. What a feat to create this as a family project and as a hobby.’ He suggested the subterranean space could be used for secure storage, a fallout shelter or an EMP-resistant data centre, and described it as a potential ‘prepper’s paradise’.
The property has a guide price of £300,000 to £325,000 and will go under the hammer at BTG Eddisons Property Auctions’ live-stream auction on October 28 and 29.
