Mindless tunnels

I was searching for something today (which I found) and, quite by chance, came upon the story of the infamous Hackney Mole Man. Apparently the story took on gigantic, country-wide proportions when it all came out. I can’t say I read anything about it.

William Lyttle lived in Hackney in a Victorian house left to him by his parents. For 40 years, he spent a lot of his time digging tunnels underneath it. According to him, he started building a wine cellar but enjoyed it so much that he just kept going.

He was evicted by the council in 2006 when it received a few complaints from his neighbours. They were concerned that their houses might sink into the voids he was creating. They also complained about the strange noises coming from beneath their back yards. There was also the small matter of the pavement collapsing outside his house.

The cost of repairs (to the council) was £293,000, which they billed him for. Of course, he didn’t have any money so the council ended up footing the bill. They also had the cost of housing him ‘temporarily’ in a hotel…for three years. They, meanwhile, made the house safe. This increased the overall cost to £408,000. (And we wonder why council tax is so high.)

When the council cleared the property they removed over 33 tons of debris from the back garden – I think ‘garden’ is a bit strong as it sounds more like a scrapyard. There were four cars, a boat and bits of old bathroom as well as an awful lot of dirt. The tunnel network went as deep as eight metres and spread out from the property up to 20 metres.

William died in 2010 and the search was on for his heirs. They were eventually found though their identity is a bit of a secret. The agents working on their behalf put in a planning application in 2011 to build two four storey town houses on the plot but the council refused it, saying they wanted the house to remain and be “…restored to its former glory”. Presumably from before the digging started.

The house was then put up for sale at £500,000 in 2011 but did not sell. Eventually the planning application was amended to include bulldozing the house and the council was forced to allow the development by the government’s planning inspectorate.

Finally the property was once more put up for sale and sold, at auction, in 2012 for £1.12 million! The plan was to redevelop the property into two three storey town houses and call them ‘Molehole’. But the new owners (a couple of, clearly, well heeled artists) want to preserve the memory of William and plan to ‘fix it up’ with the help of an excellent firm of architects.

This new ‘development’ in the Mole Man’s house will use most of the existing structure. The new plan will include a rather spacious basement.