Home for sale hides underground network of rooms the owners dug by hand

Tony Deane spent 20 years digging the underground network at this Reading property (Pictures: BTG Eddisons Property Auctions) A Berkshire property hiding four underground levels, a hand-built railway and a sliding concrete door weighing 1.5 tonnes is heading to auction.

Its owner spent 20 years digging the network by hand beneath his property in the Reading suburb of Tilehurst.

Civil engineer Tony 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, which is quite a commitment to creating a little extra storage.

Two secret doors are among the features that a buyer will inherit. There’s also a one-tonne goods lift that Tony built to bring excavated chalk to the surface.

The family’s taste for underground construction began in the 1960s, with changing rooms beside the property’s swimming pool. Even then, they went to some pretty astounding lengths to conceal the entrance.

Access to the changing rooms was hidden behind a 23ft-high rocket beside the pool. The rocket is still in place today. And it looks just as odd as it did when it was first built.

Tony’s early career involved the construction of aerodrome and airport infrastructure.

During the 1980s and 1990s, he undertook work creating the large subterranean network beneath the workshop at the home.

He worked on the tunnels himself, with help from his six children. Despite the scale of the project, its existence is understood to have remained largely unknown outside the family, including to neighbours. Who surely must’ve been wondering what Tony was doing out there all that time.

The family used buckets and wheelbarrows to move the chalk that they dug out by hand. 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.’

Tony also constructed the railway to carry chalk through the tunnels. Worrall described the lift that took it to ground level as ‘a four-layer, one-tonne goods lift’.

The auctioneer 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.’

Above ground, the site includes a 2,500 sq ft workshop arranged over three floors, parking and gardens. There’s also the large swimming pool and changing rooms. A secure gated driveway provides access.

Planning consent was granted by West Berkshire Council in December 2024 for a five-bedroom house on the site of the swimming pool. The plans allow for a two-storey home covering 5,000 sq ft.

The workshop has separate consent for conversion into a three-bedroom house. Those permissions give a buyer scope for residential development alongside the underground complex.

Worrall suggested that the subterranean space could be used for secure storage, a fallout shelter or an EMP-resistant data centre.

He also described it as a potential ‘prepper’s paradise’, although those are suggested uses rather than facilities that have already been established.

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The property has a guide price of £300,000 to £325,000. It will go under the hammer at BTG Eddisons Property Auctions’ live-stream auction on October 28 and 29.

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