Yours for £1.5m — the only desert in Britain
Eerily beautiful, teeming with glorious wildlife. Shame about the two nuclear power stations
‘What would happen in a nuclear disaster? It’s simple — I’d die!’
‘The wind is always there — it drives you mad’
FOR Sale! Britain’s only desert just 20 miles from Ashford International railway station. Nearly 470 acres of scrubby, desolate peninsula, it boasts a couple of pubs, a scattering of clapboard dwellings, a narrow-gauge railway, a smattering of windblown residents and, as of a few days ago, the very rare short-haired bumblebee.
Not forgetting two enormous nuclear power stations, two lighthouses (one Grade-II listed), endless electricity pylons, smashed up boats and rusting machinery, a very grey sea and a wind that whips and taunts and generally drives you mad.
A snip at £1.5 million, or the price of a twobedroom flat in Chelsea, the price tag includes 22 properties, mostly converted railway cottages, but not the power stations, pubs, lighthouses and railway.
Safe to say, however much of a bargain it may be, the privately owned Dungeness Estate in deepest, darkest Kent, is not the sort of place anyone in their right mind would buy on spec.
So I hopped on the train (just 38 minutes from St Pancras to Ashford International, as everyone in Dungeness reminds me constantly) to have a look and meet some of the potential new neighbours of the lucky buyer. It is not a welcoming place.
Bizarrely for a desert, it is on the tip of Romney Marsh. The road that loops in and then straight back out of Dungeness is pot-holed and tired.
The landscape is surreally flat. The sky is grey. An early evening bike ride takes me past rundown shacks, rotting furniture, flapping Ukip flags and snazzy new holiday rentals with names such as Pobble House and The Shingles.
The Dungeness B nuclear power station throbs in the background. The decommissioned Dungeness A station sits silent and brooding nearby. It is bleak and deserted — alive only with the howl of the wind, the shriek of gulls and the constant hum of nuclear power being generated.
But it is also strangely beautiful in an alien way. Huge skies. Endless horizons. More than 600 plant species, 300 species of bird and a lot of fish.
The whole estate is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The RSPB and Natural England take a keen interest of care. Which means that whoever buys it has their hands tied. No hotels, no golf courses, no new buildings. Residents aren’t even allowed to put up garden fences.
‘Even if we were, the wind would blow them flat again,’ says one.
As Mark McAndrew, from Strutt & Parker estate agents, puts it: ‘You’re not going to build a theme park. But you can provide better car parking, better access, working with the railway line. There’s an untapped tourism angle.’
Indeed. More than one million people visit Dungeness every year. In 2008, it was declared the top ‘authentic’ British holiday destination — much to Tory minister Michael Gove’s dismay. (He was worried his favourite place would be ruined by tea houses and scented candles).
Even better, the estate generates over £130,000 a year — a good chunk of which comes from EDF, owners of the nuclear power station. Income is also generated from commercial fishing licences, a peppercorn rent from the properties and filming licences.
Scenes from EastEnders, Doctor Who and the 1981 film Time Bandits were all filmed here.
One of the old shacks featured on a Pink Floyd album cover and Robbie Williams is rumoured to have filmed a pop video here once, though no one can remember ever seeing it.
Mark McAndrew insists the proposed sale by a private trust has produced ‘ an absolutely simply enormous amount of interest’ and that buyers are queuing up.
Some, because they’re interested in protecting the environment. Others, so they can say they own Britain’s only desert. A few, simply because they have so much money, they can buy anything.
‘Why do people buy a mountain in the Lake District? Or the Mull of Kintyre? Because it is what it is,’ he says.
And who are they? Individuals, environmental bodies?
‘Masses of famous people,’ he adds. ‘But, of course, I can’t tell you their names.’
Of course. Whoever, it would take a very particular type of person to actually live here. The nearest shop is a seven-mile round trip.
The bus stops a mile-and-a-half from the centre of Dungeness. There’s an awful lot of chat about shingle — even a quarterly magazine called The Shingle Issue.
Last orders at the pub are 8pm sharp in the winter. Broadband doesn’t work and the mobile phone reception is patchy. Some of the (very few) permanent residents are extremely taciturn.
‘It’s a Marmite place. You love it or loathe it,’ says Mike Golding, a semiretired property manager who has lived here since 1977. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And if you don’t like Dungeness, you’re unlikely to like the power station.’
Or, for that matter, living smack bang next to it. Like Millie Slater, 32, a lovely lady who lives in one of 11 EDF- owned terrace houses nestled in the shadow of the nuclear hulk and gets very irritated by people who ask if she ‘glows’.
‘Of course, we know the risks. Yes, it could explode, but so could a factory. So could the Tower of London. We do understand, but we’re happy to live here. You never know when you’re going to be hit by a bus, do you?
‘The rent is only £400 a month and the community spirit in our little street is amazing.’
Like 99 per cent of nuclear power s t ati ons, Dungeness has an exemplary safety record so far. There is no reason to fear anything. But equally there’s no pretending it’s not there.
As well as the vast grey bulk there’s the constant hum and the sporadic bleeping of alarm safety tests and steam being vented. ‘It sounds like a jumbo jet taking off from the roof of the house,’ says Millie. ‘Sometimes in the middle of the night.’
It might all sound a bit alien, but like all the Romney ‘Marshans’ as they call themselves, Millie adores living here.
‘People say: “How can you live here, it’s so desolate?” But Dungie is beautiful — the skies are gorgeous and the views are constantly changing,’ she says.
There are other practicalities in living next to a nuclear power plant. Everyone in the village is issued with an EDF calendar with glossy pictures of power plants on the front and emergency instructions on the back and a pack of potassium iodine tablets to take in the unlikely event of a bit of nuclear leakage.
‘But we’ve been here seven years and we haven’t had to take any tablets yet,’ explains Millie.
Mike Golding, author of a Dungeness newsletter, is more prosaic.
‘People ask me what I’d do in the event of a nuclear disaster and I say: “I would die,”’ he says cheerily as we admire his koi carp and the cosy home that once upon a time was a train guard’s van.
People started living here in the Twenties. The initial buildings were train carriages, like Mike’s, bought by railway workers.
Then fishing shacks and wooden huts sprung up. ‘The huts used to be two-a-penny,’ says local fisherman Mark Richardson. ‘They would change hands in a game of cards in my grandfather’s day.’
Back then, there were Christmas parties in a former air-raid shelter, church services in the chapel, a very active smokery and more than 20 fishing families.
In 1986, attracted by the cleansing feel of the place, the late film-maker Derek Jarman bought Prospect Cottage and constructed an extraordinary garden of beach flotsom and desert flowers. It became a tourist destination.
Today there are just four fishing families left . The smokery, community centre and chapel are no more. There are no Christmas parties. The lifeboat open day is the social event of the year. Only a handful of people live here full-time. Locals are being squeezed out by spiralling prices.
‘The latest fad is for to buy the old shacks, knock them down, rebuild them and then let them out on an extortionate holiday let,’ says Mark Richardson. ‘It’s nice to see new faces, but £1,500 for four days’ rent is quite steep for a sea view in my book.’
The holiday houses attract writers, photographers, artists, anyone wanting to get away from it all for a bit. But only a bit. ‘It’s the wind,’ says Millie. ‘Nine out of ten days — it gets to you. Drives you mad.’
‘Most people can’t take it for long,’ says Mark. ‘ And the rain here is sideways, rather than downwards.’ In winter, it’s even worse. ‘We all sort of hibernate until the worst is over,’ says Millie. ‘ But it’s the most wonderful place to live.’
Mark Richardson agrees. ‘I love it. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. Why would you?’
A good question to which, after 24 hours in this strange, humming, beautiful, grey and relentlessly windy and oppressive place I can think of many, many answers.
But that’s just me. If you have a spare £1.5 million or so (McAndrew insists it is bound to spark a bidding frenzy) and fancy your own desert, complete with majestic neighbouring power station, get your skates on. Just don’t forget your iodine tablets.