By Alex Jones
AN OLD gravedigger’s cottage has recently hit the market for a cool £3,250,000 – and the current owner has dug up something extraordinary in the garden.
Stunning photos of the four bedroom home North Lodge, situated in the heart of London, show a classy modern property – including a cute exterior shot of the brick cottage built at the tail end of the 19th Century; a meticulously kept garden with unusual glass slabs; and tastefully decorated living space just minutes away from Barons Court tube station.
However, the property’s ace in the hole is stunning excavation below the home’s manicured garden. The curious-looking glass fittings are actually skylights, flooding a cavernous yet tranquil subterranean studio space.
London in the 1800’s was in desperate need of additional cemeteries, as a booming population and spate of grave robberies put the already strained existing facilities into overdrive. In the 1880s, Hammersmith Graveyard was established to ease the burden and give more space for the dead to be buried and mourned. A grave digger was housed on site in the North Lodge and kept guard over the burial ground – to a greater or lesser extent at least.]
For many years the property was inhabited by a series of characters – some who were discharged from their duties after he was found to be drunk and disorderly and some who insisted on a suitable standard of dress before mourners were allowed into the cemetery to grieve – until the cemetery was devastated in the Second World War. It has since been re-established as Margravine Gardens, a peaceful green spot amongst the hurly-burly capital lifestyle.
For decades North Lodge was kept as an outbuilding before tightening budgets saw Hammersmith Council sell the property a little over a decade ago. It was swiftly transformed into a family home before current owners, Andrew Robinson and Madeleine Reissiger, bought the lodge in 2012 and totally overhauled the house.
After years of research into the area and its morbid history, he began excavating below the garden to create a much larger four-bedroom property whilst keeping the property’s original footprint.
The house now boasts two en-suite bathrooms alongside its bathrooms, an aesthetically pleasing open plan kitchen/dining/living space, off street parking, a south west facing garden, as well as the aforementioned studio space with its 13-foot high ceilings, accessed via a spectacular spiralling stairwell.
North Lodge, nestled between Hammersmith and West Kensington, is currently on the market with luxury estate agents Hamptons International for £3,250,000. A spokesperson for the prestigious firm was delighted to have such a rare property on their books – especially one that has the scope to become even more spacious.
“A unique and very rare opportunity to acquire North Lodge, a piece of history in the Barons Court area,” states the listing.
“Totalling in excess of 2880sqft in its current form, the property has potential to extend to approximately 5000sqft.
“There are currently two separate schemes planned with potential to extend both into the basement and upper ground floor.”
For more information, please visit https://www.hamptons.co.uk/buy/property/4-bedroom-detached-house-in-london-w6-ref-4675276/
