The quirkiest homes for sale in 2019: from a 'carnival' fun house to a castle owned by Henry VIII's wives

A flat with a Flintstones-style cinema room and the Queen's honeymoon home also made the list of the most unusual homes for sale this year.
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Anna White6 January 2020

A carnival-themed home on the south coast filled with arcade games and featuring a tenpin bowling alley is on the market for £1.5 million

With an illuminated cross above the bed and fairground signs hanging from the walls, it’s one of the quirkiest homes to be listed for sale on Rightmove this year.

The East Sussex fun house is the frontrunner among the property website’s five most unusual properties to go on sale in 2019

It’s joined by a Grade I-listed castle in Wiltshire that dates back to 1080, a London penthouse with a stone-clad cinema cavern, a Maltese villa where the Queen once lived and a windmill in Skegness, Lincolnshire.

“Stepping through the front door of each of these properties is like being transported into another world, because the unique quirks of each home are like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” says Miles Shipside, director at Rightmove.

Of course, turning your hallway into a bowling alley or creating a cinema cave may seem a good idea at the time but can make the property harder to sell. It’s a question of questionable taste.

“The first problem with such unusual properties is pricing them. Typically a valuer uses comparables. However, in the case of a castle, windmill or Hobbit Hole [a previous Rightmove listing] there are no benchmarks in the area,” says Marc von Grundherr of estate agent Benham & Reeves. “It’s better for the seller to start optimistically and adjust downwards rather than underpricing and selling too quickly,” he adds.

The five most unusual properties of 2019 are all still up for grabs. Homes & Property takes a tour.

The East Sussex fun house

The four-bedroom, three-bathroom detached family home in St Leonards-on-Sea has been in its time a Victorian Turkish bath, a school swimming pool and a glass factory.

Period features have been retained, including timber beams, exposed brickwork and vaulted ceilings. On paper it’s a classical restoration job.

Modern materials have also been used. For example, polished concrete worktops and copper doors.

Then comes surprise after surprise - the tenpin bowling lane behind the kitchen, the sports lockers for storage, the spiral stair and submarine-themed utility room. There’s an illuminated clown face and carnival sign above the door.

Just across the road from the sea, and half-a-mile from the station, it’s on the market with Platform Property.

Live like royalty

Grade I-listed Devizes Castle, overlooking the Wiltshire town of Devizes, is split into two 10-bedroom homes, one of which is up for sale.

The first property on the site, which dates back to the 11th century, was a Norman fort. It burned down and was rebuilt during the reign of King Henry I, becoming a popular retreat for following generations of the monarchy

King John often visited between 1204 and 1216 and a few hundred years later Henry VIII’s wives stayed there - not at the same time, of course.

A Royalist stronghold, it was destroyed again in the Civil War and it wasn’t rebuilt until the 19th century

Today’s castle was designed in the 1830s by Bath-based architect H.E. Goodridge and features turrets and battlements - useful when keeping a lookout for unwelcome neighbours.

Period features include stone-mullioned windows, stone archways, oak floorboards, a wide wooden staircase and a spiral stone staircase.

The grounds are landscaped with mature trees, herbaceous borders and rosebushes.

It’s been on the market since June through Savills with a price tag of £3.25 million.

Meet the Flintstones cinema room

At New Atlas Wharf, a small development on the Thames in Millwall, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment for sale has been kitted out with a bar and inset flat TVs throughout, plus a large cinema screen in the media room – a cavernous space with stone-lined walls and a submarine-style metal hatch with a wheel-door handle.

£2 million: a two-bedroom flat at New Atlas Wharf, with large cinema screen in the media room

The roof terrace features a hot tub from which to soak up panoramic views of Canary Wharf.

The Docklands Light Railway is just half-a-mile away and service charge on the apartment is £3,500 per year.

It’s been on the market with Hamptons International since 2017, priced at £2 million.

The Queen’s honeymoon home on Malta

Villa Guardamangia served as a royal residence for the newlywed Princess Elizabeth for three years between 1949 and 1951 before she became Queen.

She lived on the island while Prince Philip served as an officer with the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean fleet, before her coronation in 1953 following her father's unexpected death.

In autumn 2019 the Maltese government purchased the ruined palazzo-style property intending to turn it into a tourist attraction. It is now on the market for around £5 million and is likely to attract a hotelier to convert it.

With six bedrooms, three bathrooms and a grand “sala nobile” living room, the property includes many of its original architectural features such as an imposing, wide-fronted façade and elaborate porch.

It has two garages, along with stables, cellars and servants quarters.

On the outskirts of the island’s capital Valletta, the villa has far-reaching views of Marsamxett Harbour.

A windmill near Skeggy

In the small market town of Burgh le Marsh, about four miles inland from the Lincolnshire seaside town of Skegness, a restored 1850s windmill towers above the other homes, set in a wide plot at the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The mill was converted into a residential property in 1989.

£425,000: this 1850s restored windmill in the small market town of Burgh Le Marsh

Now a five-bedroom, four-bathroom home, it comes with a workshop and a garage and boasts panoramic views of the town from its observatory.

The circular kitchen-diner is the heart of the house and fills the whole of the ground floor of the converted mill, with windows that look out on to the front garden.

The interiors need modernising but the home covers a generous 3,152sq ft and is on the market with Hunters Turner Evans Stevens for £425,000 - the cost of a new-build studio apartment in some parts of London.

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