A “fairy house,” buried beneath the wilderness for forty years, has suddenly emerged from its slumber on a suburban road.
Before it was sold at auction last year, the three-bedroom detached property with an 800-foot rear garden was invisible to anyone walking along the road in Gedling, Nottinghamshire.
It was rumored to be ‘abandoned’, but in reality it was home to a world famous beekeeper, David Kemp.
He occupied the property from 1974 until shortly before his death in February 2022 and turned it into a paradise for wildlife.
Occasionally he would emerge from his wild habitat, dressed in an immaculate suit and often with a big bow, to inspect bees, give talks to local groups and even make a radio series about bees for the BBC.
Locals were stunned when a fairytale house by David Kemp emerged from behind heavy bushes in Gedling, Nottinghamshire
The shrubs covered the house and have since been cut away, exposing the historic features of the red brick house.
Before and after photos show how the house was covered in shrubs (left) before they were cut away by the new owner (right)
The house was rumored to be ‘abandoned’, but in reality it was home to a world famous beekeeper, David Kemp (pictured)
But for many locals his house, which sold at auction for £455,000, simply did not exist.
Dog walker Cheryl Wood, 57, had stopped to take a photo: ‘I’ve been coming down this road for 47 years and can’t remember ever seeing this house. It was just trees and vegetation.”
Lynda Glover, 71, who lived next door to David for 22 years, said she missed her “unique neighbor.”
“He just turned it over to nature,” she said. ‘We placed a camera in our garden to record everything. It was incredible: foxes raising their cubs in his dilapidated barn, deer, badgers and an owl who lived in a big old oak tree and hooted every evening.
‘Our dog Willow, a Jack Russell cross, would sometimes go through the fence and hang out with the foxes.
‘He was a nice guy and always very well dressed in a suit. It’s really a shame to see this all disappear. David would be angry, but it’s inevitable.’
Now the neighbors don’t know what will happen.
Over the past two months, dozens of trees have been cut down, the house has been exposed to the road and there have been many rumors.
‘We heard they are going to demolish it and build one big house, and we heard they have plans for several bungalows. That shouldn’t be the case because we’re on the green belt.’
When potential buyers viewed the property, they found a tree growing out of the attic, a fireplace, stained glass windows, several pairs of old shoes and a copy of the Daily Express from 1983.
An aerial view reveals the drastic work underway to clear the land surrounding the property
The house was almost completely hidden from locals in Gedling before the work began
Neighbor Alison Cooper (pictured), 68, described Mr Kemp as a ‘nice guy’
The garden, now without a shed or many beehives, remains a mess with honey pots scattered on the ground and an old barrel of Woodpecker cider.
Other neighbors have mixed feelings about what will happen next.
Software engineer Jeff Lofts, 55, said: “I wouldn’t want a lot of houses there. It was a wild space and it was nice to have wildlife so close.”
Craig Howkins, 36, commercial manager, added: ‘I always wondered how anyone could live there. He was covered from head to toe in ivy, but when you saw him he was always very smart.
‘I saw him sitting in his white van with a suit on. He was certainly one of a kind.
‘I think it is good that the area continues to develop. If they want to build one of those grand designer homes, it can add value to the area.”
Another neighbour, aged 80, who asked not to be named, said: ‘He once came to my WI (Women’s Institute) group to give a talk on bees and he came with a big bow.
‘He looked really good and it was hard to believe he had walked out of that house. You simply couldn’t see it.
‘We once had thousands of bees in our garden and my late husband went to ask him about them and he just said, ‘That’s what they do… they move around.’
Alison Cooper, 68, said: ‘He was a nice guy, very nice. We once had a nest of bees in our front yard and he came over in his beekeeping gear, smoked them out and put them in his beehive.
‘The only downside was that you couldn’t hang up your laundry because the bees would fly over and drop yellow pollen everywhere.
‘There was so much holly growing in his front garden that people stopped their cars at Christmas to pick some.
“Over the past two months, more and more people have been showing up and more will disappear, and now we can see into the valley.
An aerial photo shows that the thick undergrowth still covers almost the entire house
Mr Kemp lived in the property (pictured) from 1974 until shortly before his death in February 2022 and turned it into a haven for wildlife
“Nobody knows what they’re going to do with it next.”
Another local resident, also a housebuilder, said: ‘We’ve lived here for 30 years and it was like living in time travel.
‘The bees were a problem, especially if you had a white car; they dropped so much shit.
‘David moved away towards the end of his life, but his cousin brought him back to sit in the front garden. He loved it here. He was a unique neighbor.”
David was a regional bee inspector for decades, originally employed by the Ministry of Agriculture and was the leading figure in the Nottinghamshire Beekeepers’ Association.
As a young man he spent ten years tending the bees at Buckfast Abbey, a monastery in Cornwall, before returning to his native Nottinghamshire.
Author Steve Donohoe, who wrote an obituary about David, said: ‘I spent a lovely afternoon with David in one of his favorite pubs in Kelham, Nottinghamshire, in the summer of 2017.
‘He was an incredible character with an endless supply of stories, laughter and enthusiasm for life and nature.’