Now that’s going up in the world!
It’s Britain’s tallest folly, once housed notorious sex parties — and could be yours for a (knockdown) £1.6m . . .
Do you have lofty aspirations? or perhaps you’re nurturing a Rapunzel complex — perfect for these self-isolating times.
or maybe just the thought of owning your very own Grade I-listed, 175ft, eight- storey tower, complete with 400 stairs, a basement media room that once doubled as a sex dungeon, communal ornamental pond, metrethick walls, a crenellated coffee terrace and sweeping views over pretty much the whole of Kent are enough to put a spring in your step. If so, read on. Because there is a silver lining to the upheavals of recent times — for buyers, if not sellers. Property prices are being slashed and, suddenly, properties that most of us could only dream about are now far more affordable. (If only we were able to move.)
one of these — after a huge £400,000 price drop — is Hadlow Tower, the tallest folly in the country (soaring even higher than Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square), which dominates the village of Hadlow near Tonbridge, Kent, and could now be yours for £1.6 million.
For the price of a bog-standard terrace house in Fulham, London, you could live an entirely new life. Each morning you’d wake in your four-poster bed to the sound of nesting peregrines, take your morning cuppa to the viewing platform on the eighth floor, run up and down the two staircases for exercise — or take the lift, if you’re feeling lazy — gaze down on the peasants of Hadlow from your mullioned windows and, well, generally, behave as if to the manor born.
As current owner Christian Tym puts it: ‘you can see it from about two miles away and whenever you even approach it, it puts a smile on your face. I don’t think I’ve ever looked at it and not felt lucky to own it.’
Perhaps, like Christian and his wife Rebecca, both 43, you’ll host endless murder mystery parties, snap up your very own suit of armour online and dream of designing your own crest — ‘I would like one, but my wife said it was pretentious!’
Next you could pin up some family portraits and study your brand-new ‘ancestral’ home’s history to wow your friends. Hadlow Tower has certainly had its fair share of excitement.
Built in 1838 and originally attached to Hadlow Castle, it was the brainchild of Walter Barton May, a wealthy merchant who, legend has it, used it to spy on his errant wife as she canoodled with a farmer. During World War II it was used as a lookout post.
While the castle was torn down in 1951, the tower remained, but fell into disrepair before being rescued by artist Bernard Hailstone. OvER
the next few decades, arty owners came and went. But its raciest years came during its 26-year ownership by a flamboyant hotelier who used it as a venue for sex parties.
What is now Christian’s sleek media room and wine storage area was a sex dungeon, the bed in the Rapunzel room was awash with cavorting couples and the spiral stairs were crammed with bare bottoms and leather whips as people rushed up and down to join in the fun.
‘The poor local residents weren’t very happy to be woken up by leather-clad people asking where the sex party was,’ says Christian.
Sadly, some of them also weren’t very pleased either, when, in 2017, Christian snapped it up from the receivers for £425,000.
‘I got a very good price.’ he says. ‘The place was amazing, Gorgeous, the craftsmanship, the finish, the very modern fittings!’
His timing was immaculate. The hotelier had been forced to sell, and between 1997 and 2012 the tower had been given £3.25 million in grants to repair and restore it.
And, driven by the very passionate local Save Hadlow Tower Action Group, it had been sold for £1 to the vivat Trust — a charity that preserved historic buildings — and transformed from storm-damaged wreck to a gleaming, beaming, beacon of extravagance again, and perfect as an eccentric holiday rental for about £1,900 a week.
But then vivat went bust and Christian spotted an opportunity.
Cannily, he also secured planning permission to change its use from holiday let to private residence and in 2017 he, photographer wife Rebecca and their four sons, now six, eight, 11 and 12, moved in.
‘The boys love the idea of living in a castle. That’s the main reason why we bought it,’ he says. ‘But perhaps we did so with heart over head.’
Indeed within a year, and after having made only cosmetic changes to the decor, it was back on the market. This time for a cool £ 2 million. ‘ We realised it didn’t suit our needs quite as well as we’d hoped,’ says Christian.
Two of their four boys are deaf, and, while most people might welcome the muffling effect of three- foot- thick castle walls, they’re not helpful to the hard of hearing.
Sadly, despite a flurry of interest, it didn’t sell. Perhaps all the stairs were a turn-off. And there are also a couple of teeny snags for any owner to negotiate — two covenants that still today have more than two years to run. To ensure your new home is well maintained at all times and — rather r ather more onerous — to open it up to the public 28 days a year, if required. ‘It’s surprisingly flexible. you could just do the whole of January if you like,’ insists Christian. ‘ People book ahead online but we don’t get much interest.’ Last year he held just three open days. Meanwhile, a friend of Christian’s suggested raffling it. ‘It wasn’t a bad idea,’ he says. ‘We thought we could make a bit of money for deaf charities, too.’ So in 2018, he started selling raffle tickets for £4.50 each with the idea that, when he hit a certain amount, he’d draw a winner. If the members of the action group were cross about him snapping up the tower for a song and trying to sell it on for £2 million, they were apoplectic at the indignity of a raffle. Even Andrew Lloyd Webber waded in at the time, saying: ‘I don’t think the public purse should be used to speculate.’ ‘ We never really understood why they were all so against it,’ says Christian. ‘It wasn’t us who received the grants. That was way before our time.’
In the event, the raffle didn’t go to plan, either. Ticket sales were disappointing. Eventually a cash prize of an undisclosed sum went to the winner.
So the Tyms carried on living there, admiring the views, the peregrines and the craftsmanship and throwing murder mystery parties. until a couple of weeks ago, when it went back on the market again, this time at a discounted price.
‘We’re trying to be realistic — we’ve had Brexit and now this awful Covid thing,’ says Christian. ‘of course we’ll all shed a tear when we leave.’
So here, dear reader, is your chance — if you have a spare £1.6 million to hand — to move up in the world in every possible way.