Tunnels of love! House with incredible underground network of passages and rooms dug by engineer and his children as fun family project sells for £375,000

A house with an underground maze of rooms and tunnels has fetched £375,000 at auction.Tony Deane, a civil engineer, spent two decades digging the network by hand across more than 1,300 square feet of subterranean space.Hidden beneath a property in Tilehurst, Reading, the complex descends through four levels and reaches more than 15m below ground.The late Mr Deane, whose initial day job was in the construction of aerodrome and airport infrastructure, started the project by himself during the 1980s and 90s.He was later assisted by his six children, with the family using nothing more than buckets and wheelbarrows to conduct the digging.The network includes a hand-built railway while one room features a secret entrance – hidden inside a rocket by the pool.There is a one-tonne goods lift and two secret doors – one formed by a 1.5-ton sliding concrete wall.The lot came with planning permission for development at a guide price of £300,000-£325,000 – but sold on Wednesday for £375,000. A house with an underground maze of rooms and tunnels has fetched £375,000 at auction Tony Deane, a civil engineer, spent two decades digging the network by hand across more than 1,300 square feet of subterranean space The complex, hidden beneath a property in Tilehurst, Reading, descends through four levels and reaches more than 15m below groundRichard Worrall, auctioneer and consultant at BTG Eddisons Property Auctions, 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.'The Deane family's subterranean projects began even earlier, in the 1960s, with the construction of underground changing rooms next to the property's swimming pool.The entrance was hidden behind a 23ft-high rocket, which is still in place today.Despite the scale of the project, its existence is understood to have remained largely unknown outside the family, including to neighbours in the surrounding residential area.Mr Worrall added: '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.'Mr Deane also constructed a railway through the tunnels to transport the excavated chalk, as well as building a four-layer, one-tonne goods lift to carry it to ground level.' A view of the garden of the property - which bears no sign of what lies underneath The network includes a hand-built railway while one room features a secret entrance – hidden inside a rocket by the pool Despite the scale of the project, its existence is understood to have remained largely unknown outside the family Richard Worrall, auctioneer and consultant at BTG Eddisons Property Auctions, said: 'In all my years as an auctioneer, I've never seen anything like this before' The lot came with planning permission for development at a guide price of £300,000-£325,000 – but sold on Wednesday for £375,000The site is accessed via a secure gated driveway and includes a 2,500 square foot workshop arranged over three floors, parking, gardens, a large swimming pool and changing rooms.Planning consent was granted by West Berkshire Council in December 2024 for a 5,000 sq ft, five-bedroom, two-storey house to be built on the site of the swimming pool, while conversion of the workshop has consent for conversion to a three-bedroom house.Mr Worrall said: 'The underground space is obviously a game changer to say the least and we believe it could offer an imaginative buyer a range of potential uses, anything from secure storage, a fallout shelter or an EMP-resistant data centre to a prepper's paradise.'