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William Lyttle (1931–2010) was a British
''BBC'', 19 June 2012.
''Londonist'', August 2015. He created a network of tunnels, wide and narrow, on several levels. Tunnels led in all directions, some of them up to in length, and reaching as far down as the
''The Guardian'', 8 August 2006. When asked by journalists why he had excavated the tunnels, he said "I'm just a man who loves to dig" and that he just wanted "a big basement". He also said that "There is great beauty in inventing things that serve no purpose." Lyttle was dubbed "The Mole Man of Hackney" by the press.
''The Independent'', 19 June 2010.
Some 33 tonnes of soil and debris were removed from Lyttle's former garden and from some of the rooms, including the wrecks of three cars and a boat. In 2012 the property was sold for £1.1 million. By 2020, the house had been renovated by the architect David Adjaye to form a home and studio for the artist
William Lyttle (1931–2010) was a British civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...
notable for digging
Digging, also referred to as excavation, is the process of using some implement such as claws, hands, manual tools or heavy equipment, to remove material from a solid surface, usually soil, sand or rock on the surface of Earth. Digging is actuall ...
an extensive network of tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...
s under his home in London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.'Mole Man' home in Hackney sold for £1.12m''BBC'', 19 June 2012.
Excavation
Lyttle, originally from Ireland, inherited a 20-room property in theLondon borough
The London boroughs are the 32 local authority districts that together with the City of London make up the administrative area of Greater London; each is governed by a London borough council. The present London boroughs were all created at ...
of Hackney. In the mid-sixties he dug out a wine cellar
A wine cellar is a storage room for wine in bottles or barrels, or more rarely in carboys, amphorae, or plastic containers. In an ''active'' wine cellar, important factors such as temperature and humidity are maintained by a climate control system. ...
under his home. Having done so, he said that he had "found a taste for the thing" and kept on digging, for some forty years.Great London Eccentrics: The Mole Man Of Hackney''Londonist'', August 2015. He created a network of tunnels, wide and narrow, on several levels. Tunnels led in all directions, some of them up to in length, and reaching as far down as the
water table
The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated.
T ...
. One excavation connected with the Dalston Lane tunnel, and the railway line.
Lyttle dumped the clay he dug up in his garden and sometimes in empty rooms of the house. At some time he stopped maintaining his house and the building fell into disrepair.
Lyttle's work attracted complaints from neighbours when sinkhole
A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as ''vrtače'' and shakeholes, and to openi ...
s began to appear in the pavement, and when water and power supplies were interrupted. The local pub also expressed concern that its cellar could collapse into one of Lyttle's tunnels. Serious complaints to Hackney Council may have started around the turn of the century, leading to inspections but at first not to firm actions. Because of the state of the house and the complaints an ultrasound
Ultrasound is sound waves with frequency, frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing range, hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hea ...
inspection was carried out in 2006, revealing the extent of the tunnels.After 40 years' burrowing, Mole Man of Hackney is ordered to stop''The Guardian'', 8 August 2006. When asked by journalists why he had excavated the tunnels, he said "I'm just a man who loves to dig" and that he just wanted "a big basement". He also said that "There is great beauty in inventing things that serve no purpose." Lyttle was dubbed "The Mole Man of Hackney" by the press.
Legal challenges
Lyttle was evicted in 2006, andHackney Borough Council
Hackney London Borough Council is the local government authority for the London Borough of Hackney, London, England, one of 32 London borough councils. The council is unusual in the United Kingdom local government system in that its executive fun ...
filled the tunnels with aerated concrete
Autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) is a lightweight, precast, foam concrete building material suitable for producing concrete masonry unit like blocks. Composed of quartz sand (SiO2 with impurities), calcined calcium sulfate (CaSO4, a.k.a ...
. He contested the decision in court and returned to his home for a short time. In 2008, the High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Courts of England and Wales, Senior Cou ...
ordered that Lyttle cover the costs of the council making the structure safe, at a total of £293,000.
After this, Lyttle was moved to a hotel for three years, before being rehoused in an apartment in a high-rise building. He was put on the top floor, to discourage tunnelling. While there he knocked a hole in a dividing wall between two rooms.Meanwhile, the 'human mole' bites the dust''The Independent'', 19 June 2010.
Property after Lyttle
Some 33 tonnes of soil and debris were removed from Lyttle's former garden and from some of the rooms, including the wrecks of three cars and a boat. In 2012 the property was sold for £1.1 million. By 2020, the house had been renovated by the architect David Adjaye to form a home and studio for the artist Sue Webster
Timothy Noble (born 1966) and Susan Webster (born 1967), are British artists who work as a collaborative duo. They are associated with the post-YBA generation of artists.
Early lives and careers
Noble and Webster attended fine art foundation ...
.
See also
*Hobby tunneling
Hobby tunneling is tunnel construction as a diversion. Usually, hobby tunnelers dig their tunnels by hand, using little equipment, and some can spend years or even decades to achieve any degree of completion. In some cases tunnels have been dug ...
* Williamson Tunnels
The Williamson Tunnels are a series of extensive subterranean excavations, of unknown purpose, in the Edge Hill area of Liverpool, England. They are thought to have been created under the direction of tobacco merchant, landowner and philanthrop ...
Sources
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lyttle, William 1931 births 2010 deaths British civil engineers British people of Irish descent People from De Beauvoir Town Tunnels in London