Traditionally, the British have been a fiercely proud home owning nation and since the Queen came to her throne in 1953, the proportion of owner occupiers in England has steadily increased from 32% up to a peak of about 75% in 1981 (70% today).

Homeowners have always found ways of showing-off their property whether it be thousands of gaudy lights at Christmas, an over abundance of colourful hanging baskets in Spring or simply by building a property larger than your next door neighbour. Showing off by building tall buildings has been in vogue for centuries – in the picture postcard village of San Gimignano in Italy, the local wealthy merchants built taller and taller towers to signify their wealth and importance and that was back in the 11^th to 13^th Century. Even today, designers and architects cannot help themselves but build higher and higher skyscrapers all over the world, to impress.

Saying that the latest trend in the golden commuter land of Surrey – where turning your house into a skyscraper is just not an option – is to bury underground and build enormous basements. This is due to tough greenbelt policies which normally allows an owner of a modest-sized house on a good-sized garden plot to add to or rebuild his house with just 30% extra floor space. This leaves owners with only one choice, which is to dig down and create space underground. London terraced-house owners have been doing this for the last 20 years – creating rooms where the cellar was – often making laundry rooms and play rooms.

The problem with these underground rooms is the difficulty in getting any good natural light to the subterranean room. But architects have become more and more wily at stealing light from up-stairs that quite often now you would not know that you had gone underground. However, whilst it might seem attractive to extend your house by 5,000 square feet or even a lot more, what can you actually do with all that space?

The answer is that you become creative in the type of rooms you install and with some careful planning and consideration this space can become life changing. James Wyatt, Managing Director of Barton Wyatt in Virginia Water had some enlightening information on what goes on downstairs:

“There are a few fairly obvious choices, firstly the plant room. Not of the green and leafy variety but the machinery which is required to run your home – industrial sized boilers – man-enough to heat the pool, AC units – man-enough to cool it down. Electronic wizardry to run your alarm, your lighting system and phones. Maybe the latest state-or-the-art music system with the ability to pipe any song ever written through to any room you desire.

“You might want a communications room containing racks and racks of audio visual machinery and patch panels with wiring that would frighten most. In a large house this might contain numerous satellite boxes, a number of huge hard drives for your new music and video collection and so the list goes on.

“The next obvious room to bury is the laundry.  American top load washing machine, tumble dryer, maybe a spare fridge/freezer and plenty of space to store, iron and fold. It is not uncommon to find a laundry shoot from the upstairs bathrooms – saving the bore of carrying it all downstairs. 

“Cinema rooms come high on people’s lists for very clear reasons and with improvements in technology, these can be incredibly grand affairs. It is of course budget dependent but anything from a run-or-the-mill sofa to luxury reclining leather seats. 

“Wine cellars are an immensely sensible thing to put underground, since every wine maker in Europe stores their wine beneath the ground – then why shouldn’t us mere mortals. 

“Swimming pools are proving to be increasingly popular for underground space. A reasonable-sized indoor pool with seating areas, changing rooms, Jacuzzi, sauna, steam room could use up as much as 2,500 square feet. Multi gyms are also in vogue with an array of gym equipment and the latest pilates apparatus to ensure supreme fitness.

“Garaging – well that speaks for itself. And of course staffing accomodation – out of the way of the main part of the house but still close enough for child care.

“Maybe all of the above might seem rather obvious – this space is yours to do what you like with – a hair dressing salon, massage room, fake tan spraying booth or in one rather extreme case – a gift wrapping room.”

Example of a house available in the locality of Barton Wyatt which include underground space:

Green Hedges, on the Main Island of the Wentworth Estate,is a spectacular imposing new Georgian style mansion with Corinthian columns giving the front elevation a timeless classical appeal. 

Ground floor comprises a fabulous kitchen/breakfast and 4 reception rooms First floor includes four very large bedrooms with en-suite ‘wet room’ showers. The second floor has a further two beds with en-suite.

A sweeping marble staircase leads down to the large basement which includes – swimming pool, gymnasium, changing and WC facilities, a large games room also with a light well has a bar/kitchenette making it suitable for a variety of uses as is the home cinema with the adjoining shower room which could become staff accommodation if required. The utility room also adjoins the cinema and could double as a kitchen for a staff flat.