• librasteve an hour ago |
    sorry for the ads … but this made me smile
    • throooooo 40 minutes ago |
      You'd probably be interested in this person's work: https://youtu.be/6CLF4QrYmYg
      • librasteve 34 minutes ago |
        oh yeah! tunnel merch
      • ljf 5 minutes ago |
        Ha I came to see if anyone had posted her. I love her Instagram, so much of it is the logistics of moving all the rock out and supplies in. Fascinating problems to solve on a small scale.
    • hermitcrab 17 minutes ago |
      The online versions of local British Newspapers are almost unreadable now with all the chumbox ads and continual page repainting. Ugh.
      • tejohnso 12 minutes ago |
        I didn't see a single ad. Why not use an ad blocker, or just use Brave?
  • looperhacks an hour ago |
    lowercase m. 15 meters, not 15 million tunnels :D

    If you're interested in secret tunnels, check out Colin Furze on Youtube!

    • hidelooktropic an hour ago |
      Thank you. I definitely read this as million.
    • wincy 44 minutes ago |
      If you’re instead interested in a book about a house with 15 million tunnels, read House of Leaves!
      • wafflemaker 16 minutes ago |
        This is a very scary horror, tho the book (like other books by the author) is published in a very quality way.
    • librasteve 43 minutes ago |
      oops … sorry … now fixed
    • foobarian 43 minutes ago |
      That is still an impressive water table. I wish ours was that low :-)
    • shagie 35 minutes ago |
      Relatively secluded and private, Seymour Cray was also a tunneler... he wouldn't have been making videos about it

      The story about him in Time at the time: https://web.archive.org/web/20080521163217/http://www.time.c...

          For Cray, the excavation project is more than a simple diversion. "I work when I'm at home," he recently told a visiting scientist. "I work for three hours, and then I get stumped, and I'm not making progress. So I quit, and I go and work in the tunnel. It takes me an hour or so to dig four inches and put in the 4-by-4s. Now, as you can see, I'm up in the Wisconsin woods, and there are elves in the woods. So when they see me leave, they come into my office and solve all the problems I'm having. Then I go back up and work some more."
      
      And an article someone wrote later... https://michael-starobin.squarespace.com/blogcontent/digging...
    • Freak_NL 31 minutes ago |
      I wasn't impressed by the 15 metres, but it turns out that is the maximum depth reached, not the length of a tunnel.
    • Scubabear68 26 minutes ago |
      I read it as 15 million tunnels too, was very confused. Thank you!
      • kzrdude 23 minutes ago |
        I figured 15 meters tunnel is not worth mentioning, so had to be 15 miles.
    • tecleandor 7 minutes ago |
      Yeah, I though it was 15 meters of length, not that impressive... but it is 15m underground and '... 1,300 square feet of underground space, including tunnels and storage rooms'.
  • dotancohen an hour ago |
    That 15 meters underground, not 15 million tunnels.
    • rzzzt 40 minutes ago |
      The title is "not even" clickbait, just very confusing.

      "The unique complex contains more than 1,300 square feet of underground space, including tunnels and storage rooms - and even a hand-built railway."

      (Edit: I mean the original article, not the submission)

      • librasteve 36 minutes ago |
        well I (the submitter) messed up and wrote 15M in the submission title (note the cap) in error just to add to the confusion (now fixed, soz.) … I thought “best” just to repeat the article title
        • rzzzt 28 minutes ago |
          No worries, I take issue with the person who concocted the original title. I got here after the capital-M change and it was still confusing that they didn't mention the space that was dug out at this depth, instead paint a picture of a system of tunnels under a normal house(?)
    • librasteve 40 minutes ago |
      sorry for the capital M … I have fixed in the title to 15m as in metres

      that’s ~ 45 ft underground, I believe … perhaps not that impressive, but quite funny since I would hesitate to undermine my own house and surely this makes it worth less

  • werdnapk 41 minutes ago |
    So you just go digging under neighbours properties? What about underground infrastructure?
    • Sharlin 33 minutes ago |
      I don’t think it extends beyond property limits.
  • aeve890 40 minutes ago |
    15 meters deep underground in 4 levels, not just a 15 meters long tunnel.
  • fusslo 38 minutes ago |
    I, too, one day dream of using my children as labor for my underground tunnel system. To fight the ant, you must become the ant

    I'm joking, but it's heartening to see quirky hobbies by qualified people (he was a civil engineer).

    • spyspy 19 minutes ago |
      Homes need more whimsey. I recently discovered one of my interior doorways is actually a stone archway that someone had squared off, drywalled and installed a cheap hollow door for no apparent reason. Working with a stonemason to re-point/parge it and bring it back to glory. Will I ever see a return on this investment? Probably not but fuck it it'll make my house just that much cooler.
    • hermitcrab 16 minutes ago |
      If I had 6 children, I would probably take up tunnelling.
      • WithinReason 6 minutes ago |
        The children yearn for the mines
  • runako 37 minutes ago |
    Researching what the article meant by "rocket" (I assumed it was a Britishism), I found this article that includes more pictures.

    https://www.aol.com/articles/unassuming-bungalow-hides-netwo...

    • librasteve 36 minutes ago |
      aol wtf
      • Steaglsz 4 minutes ago |
        AOL has never done me dirty, asked for me to buy cloud data, auto deleted emails. Aim account still going strong for email
  • samstress 37 minutes ago |
    One room even features a secret entrance — hidden inside a rocket by the pool. — Ey — pshhh! :-)

    I used to live in the inner city of Leipzig during my university days, and we had a door in the basement that led to wartime tunnels connecting it to other houses. It wasn't like a massive maze, just a hub with three other paths, each leading to another house nearby. From there, however, if they'd unlocked their doors, you could travel farther.

    I was on a mission back then to befriend and convince random neighbours across the street to open their access doors and get some kind of network going, but I didn't meet with much enthusiasm.

    • pluc 27 minutes ago |
      Underground kiez would kill in Berlin
    • librasteve 27 minutes ago |
      Reading (the largest town in the UK btw) has other tunnels … for example https://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/14492484.sneak-a-pea... and there is a rumour of secret escape tunnels from the (medieval) abbey.
      • hermitcrab 22 minutes ago |
        Swindon has a significantly larger population than Reading.
        • librasteve 16 minutes ago |
          dang … guess I am stuck in 1961 https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/census/EW1961PRE/1?utm_so...

          fwiw I just threw this in since many on HN probably don’t know much about Reading

          red face

          • hermitcrab 6 minutes ago |
            Swindon has been growing like crazy. ~92,000 in 1961 to ~233,000 in 2021. Passing Reading's population in the 90s.

            >many on HN probably don’t know much about Reading

            Maybe it is better that way. ;0)

  • dgrin91 35 minutes ago |
    Maybe I missed it through all the ads, but it's pretty disappointing that there is no direct link to the listing?
  • artisinal 33 minutes ago |
    Freestanding house with a pool for 300k? That is incredibly cheap. Perhaps I should move there.
    • gib444 27 minutes ago |
      Suspiciously cheap. There are no detached (what we call 'freestanding') properties on Right Move in the area under £400k. The cheapest is £450k

      EDIT: oops, forgot to select the 'Bungalow' filter too (ugh). 2 properties: £375k and £350k (very small, 60m2). Still...nothing detached around £300k

      EDIT2: ohh auction...230m2...yeh won't go for £300k, way more

    • bluGill 23 minutes ago |
      UK money. Still that works out to about $400k in us dollars. You can find better deals in the US, but probably none with tunnels - and unlikely to be places you want to live though not bad places (bad places in the US that would be around $120k)
    • hermitcrab 21 minutes ago |
      It does seem cheap for a house in Reading, even factoring in that it is a bungalow. Maybe they factored in increased subsidence risk?
    • manarth 20 minutes ago |
      Auction pricing.

      It'll start out at £300k (to market it attractively) and end up selling for £500k+.

  • x187463 33 minutes ago |
    Colin Furze has entered the chat.
  • _jholland 29 minutes ago |
    The listing of the property on the auction site:

    https://www.btgeddisonspropertyauctions.com/properties/20260...

    It includes many more photos than the article, as well as floor plans for the subterranean areas

    • librasteve 26 minutes ago |
      I claim 1% commission if anyone on HN buys it
    • idbnstra 24 minutes ago |
      it seems as though it hath been hugged to death
  • meindnoch 27 minutes ago |
    Reminds me how rich people in historic areas of London took on the habit of extending their properties downwards, keeping the above-ground parts intact due to conservation laws.

    Then everyone acted surprised when entire streets started sinking, or whole buildings collapsed into the ground: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/nov/03/london-stree...

  • jvanderbot 25 minutes ago |
    would love to see the radon measurements in those tunnels/basement.
    • fred_is_fred 24 minutes ago |
      Is that an issue in the UK?
      • hermitcrab 20 minutes ago |
        It is in some areas with a lot of granite, such as Cornwall. I'm not aware it is a factor in Reading.
        • wafflemaker 6 minutes ago |
          Granite tends to contain Radon as it's in the decay chain of Uranium, which is often found in Granite.
      • jvanderbot 20 minutes ago |
        It comes out of the ground. UK has some of that I think.

        Tunnels and basements just trap it so it can't blow away.

      • manarth 15 minutes ago |
        In granite bedrock areas such as Cornwall, yes, radon is a significant concern that requires measurement and usually remediation (extraction fans).

        The chalk bedrock in Reading isn't generally susceptible to radon.

        UK radon mapping data: https://www.ukradon.org/information/ukmaps

      • louthy 4 minutes ago |
        Very much so.
  • TYPE_FASTER 25 minutes ago |
    Cool! Here's another example of a tunnel house: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestiere_Underground_Gardens
  • TheOtherHobbes 17 minutes ago |
    300k in Tilehurst for a house with a pool is incredibly cheap.

    [Looks at interior photos]

    Ah. Anyway.

    Curious how he got planning permission. Or if he got planning permission.

  • traxler 13 minutes ago |
    This misses the most important question.

    Why is it for sale?

  • Archit3ch 9 minutes ago |
    15 meters is a tragedy. 15 million is a statistic.
  • Luc 6 minutes ago |
    What are those dark brown cylinder shapes in the sides of the roughly hewn tunnel (first image on the right)?