Uncovered anything interesting when developing a house?

KGeeson

KGeeson

Property Forum Staff
Forum Partner
I've been on 2 development projects (one for an investment company and one for family) that have uncovered some weird and wonderful surprises. The first one, was developing an old property in a market town into flats, and we found a deep well in the (what was to be) kitchen! They decided to turn it into a feature within the kitchen floor, with internals lights and a glass top so you could walk over it! Very unusual.

The second one was the renovation of a very old period cottage on the coast, and my family discovered there was actually a hidden room (entirely bricked in, no door entrance or windows). It appeared to be some sort of bakery room but quite strange!

Anyone else had some strange / wonderful discoveries?!
 
Nicholas Wallwork

Nicholas Wallwork

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Premium Member
Wow those are very interesting finds!

I've not found anything quite so unusual but I did find 2 basements in our last development which we will develop into kitchens freeing up the ground floor rooms into lettable bedrooms and thus increasing the profit on the building by around £1,400pm... Can't argue with that!
 
Nicholas Wallwork

Nicholas Wallwork

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Premium Member
I also met a guy last week who found a whole swimming pool underneath the rear "mews house" extension at the rear of his property, a previous owner had just built over it with floor joists and a suspended floor... Now it's an amazing split level cinema room! Pretty cool...
 
KGeeson

KGeeson

Property Forum Staff
Forum Partner
Wow those are very interesting finds!

I've not found anything quite so unusual but I did find 2 basements in our last development which we will develop into kitchens freeing up the ground floor rooms into lettable bedrooms and thus increasing the profit on the building by around £1,400pm... Can't argue with that!

Wow! So there was no details of these on plans etc? How bizarre! (But what a bonus! :)
 
Nicholas Wallwork

Nicholas Wallwork

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Premium Member
Yup none at all, what seemed insignificant to the seller was a massive benefit to us and actually made the property more valuable...

Goes to show what is someone else's trash...
 
P

PropEx

Member
I did read the other week that a guy in Florida(Miami, I think) was flattening the property he bought to build another property. While it was being demolished he found a safe vault in the foundations. It is even more interesting, considering the previous owner of the property was none other than Pablo Escobar! I haven't heard what the outcome was as I'm sure there will be some red tape to get through, but one would imagine there would be a pretty penny inside it. At the peak of his "powers" Pablo was spending $2,000 on elastic bands a month to keep his money(according to some book I read)!

In fact, I have just found a link to the story http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article56514733.html
 
N

nmb

Well-Known Member
Back in my hometown village there was always a rumour that one of the pubs had a tunnel which went for about 2 or 3 miles to a castle over on the other side of the river. Everybody said that the tunnel was now blocked in because it contained poisonous gases. I never got to the bottom of the story!
 
M

michael1978

Member
My brother does constructions and renovations and he found lots of jewelry, gold, diamonds.. He returned it to the owner and the owner did not even know about it.
 
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diyhelp

Active Member
There is a pub in the town where I come from which has an underground tunnel leading for a good 2 or 3 miles to a local castle (even goes under the river!). It hasnt been opened for years because of the risk of toxic gas but that always fascinated me.
 
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