When an entire residential road lost power and an eight-foot sinkhole opened up in the street, the north London council of Hackney could no longer turn a blind eye to the rumours surrounding the ‘mole man house’—a property owned by notorious amateur tunneller William Lyttle. 

When British artist Sue Webster purchased the property at auction in 2014, she was well aware of the former owner’s illustrious history. In the 1960s William ‘mole man’ Lyttle began excavating the foundations of his house to build a wine cellar, but failed to stop there. Instead, he spent the next forty years digging a complex labyrinth of tunnels up to twenty meters long, leading from his house to the surrounding neighborhood. 

Decades of local complaints, more sinkholes and 100 cubic meters of soil later the local government eventually evicted the ‘mole man’ after structural engineers deemed his home was no longer safe. Lyttle died  in 2010 but not before witnessing the local council clearing 33 tons of debris from his house, of which included three cars and a boat. 

Webster enlisted the help of renowned architect David Adjaye to convert the dilapidated warren into a studio-home. To preserve the authenticity and eccentric history of the building, Webster chose to integrate Lyttle’s haphazard alterations into the new design plans. Depressions in the earth were turned into a sunken landscaped garden, a central staircase connects the concrete living spaces, and a slate pitched roof replaced the original that had collapsed years before. 

“What’s fascinating is that it’s almost like a piece of [mine and Tim Noble’s] work,” says the artist, who rose to prominence in the mid-nineties with her partner for their signature DIY approach of aggregating discarded objects and turning debris into art. “It’s a piece of trash we will recycle into something that will become a piece of history.”

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