Renovating a Victorian house already comes with its share of surprises, but one London couple got a shock they never saw coming: an architect told them their home contains an entire hidden room.
Rachel Gagie, who lives in South London with her partner, shared the discovery on Instagram via her account 39andfine, announcing, “we have a hidden room in our house.” The timing didn’t help—she found out just weeks before Halloween—and she admitted the eerie twist left her more than a little unsettled.
“I love reading thrillers but it means I have a wild imagination and I’ve definitely been assuming the worst,” Gagie told Newsweek. “I like to make it sound lighthearted but I am panicked that it could be bad!”
Home renovations are rarely calm experiences. In one survey of nearly 1,000 U.S. homeowners conducted by Schlesinger Group for renovation service Sweeten, 85 percent described renovating as stressful.
For Gagie, the work on their Victorian-era property is the price of finally living where they’ve always wanted to be. “We really wanted to live on this street, it’s been our dream, but all the houses are done up and we couldn’t afford them,” she said. “Then two years ago this one came on the market and had lots of damp issues etc which made it affordable. So we’ve lived in it the last two years saving up and are just about managing to do it!”
Balancing budgets has been the hardest part. Alongside full-time jobs and a second business, the couple are trying to keep costs under control while pushing through the physical grind. “We’re really stretching ourselves mentally and physically to do this,” she said. “We hope to do some of it ourselves as well so that we can make it work but we’re two weeks in and already exhausted—but it’s worth it.”
The hidden room surfaced as one of the first big curveballs. From outside, the back of the house shows what looks like a boarded-up window and door. But inside, both points are sealed off with brick.
“From the back of our house there looks to be a boarded up window and a boarded up door but they are actually bricked up on the inside. So we can’t access it at all,” Gagie explained. “From the inside the bathroom door leads to what would be the downstairs restroom and the window we assumed led into a cupboard. We weren’t aware there was anything else there.”
The mystery only became clear after they hired an architect to conduct a measured survey—essentially a precise mapping of the building so renovation plans can be drawn accurately. That’s when the mismatch appeared.
“It was only then that we realized that the measurement inside the bathroom wasn’t the same externally,” she said.
So far, they haven’t broken in to see what’s behind the wall. Social media commenters have suggested everything from an old toilet to a pantry—useful finds, if true. Gagie is hopeful, but not fully convinced. “All the comments seem to suggest it’s a toilet or pantry which would be great but I’m also concerned it’ll be absolutely foul in there,” she said.
What puzzles her most is why anyone would brick up a functional space and leave it that way for decades. “We can’t believe someone would close off a space in a house that’s usable?! Which is also why we hope it’s something fun!”
Either way, the mystery won’t last long. The couple are planning an extension, and that section of the house will have to come down. “We’re actually doing an extension so we will need to completely knock it down regardless,” she said.
Soon enough, they’ll find out whether their hidden room holds a forgotten convenience—or something far stranger.
