Is digging a tunnel under your house the perfect life escape? | Eva Wiseman
Life and style | The Guardian
The Mole Man of Hackney certainly thought so, perhaps he was on to something
There are places you return to in your dreams, a great-aunt’s cottage or primary school canteen, repurposed by your subconscious as a location for flirtation, horror or something dental. Since I first learned about it in the early 2000s, when I lived down the road, one of mine has been the Mole Man’s house.
He was William Lyttle, a civil engineer who liked to dig. In his Hackney home he dug and dug, burrowing and nibbling through the earth, hollowing out a web of tunnels and caves, some 26ft deep, some hung or strewn with objects, like bath tubs, old fires and TV sets. There was also a boat down there, and the wrecks of three Renault 4 cars.
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