On top of the world

As part of the retirement experience, I today visited a property auction. It was not a random action, but one tied in with number two son looking out for a property to buy. One of the lots was a two bed flat in a small block of three. His sister already owns one so we had the thought that eventually we could own all three and be able to sell for a higher margin than individually.

As it happens the reserve price was set above what we thought was reasonable and the flat remained unsold.

It was a particularly interesting auction. Very few lots sold, and one which went for a much higher amount  than the estimate gave me the feeling that the owner was in the room bidding up the hammer price. Not a very honourable thing to do but they appear to have pulled out at the right time to let the underbidder be successful.

The one property which did catch my eye though was  large house in Birkenhead which backed onto the Park. This property had some provenance as it was the residence in the early part of the twentieth century by Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine, the famous mountaineer.

George Mallory was a more well known  English mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s. During the 1924 British Mount Everest Expedition, Mallory and his climbing partner Irvine both disappeared somewhere high on the North-East ridge during their attempt to make the first ascent of the world's highest mountain. The pair's last known sighting was only about 800 feet from the summit.
Mallory's ultimate fate was unknown for 75 years, until his body was discovered on 1 May 1999 by an expedition that had set out to search for the climbers' remains. Whether or not Mallory and Irvine reached the summit before they died remains a subject of speculation and continuing research.

The house in Park Road was presumably Irvine's family home given he was only 22 when he died, and still at Oxford University. It is a huge pile, which most recently has been some sort of social or working men's club. It has a crown green bowls links in the back garden and has had a tennis court there at some stage.

The architecture on the roof alone is staggeringly impressive and is not done justice by any current photo, I fear though that many original features inside have long been removed. The next auction is at the end of February so it will be interesting to see if it comes up again. The guide price is £350,000 which was clearly too much even for the property developers.