Victorian water tower
Robust and grandiose, the 1870-built Lymm Water Tower in Cheshire is what owner Robert Harris calls a "classic Rapunzel tower". The five-storey conversion took seven years and the Harris family now uses the tower itself for bedrooms and the ground floor extension for kitchen and living space. A decked roof garden with a teak hot tub offers stunning countryside views.
Railway station
The disused Tisted Station was turned into a private home in 1980. The owners reinstated the track and even had a steam engine running on it. Current residents Alex and Susy Evans bought the station in 1997 and it's still a "work in progress". Although they no longer have a working train in the garden there is a first class carriage for guests.
Disused lighthouse
The granite-walled, 850-ton Belle Tout lighthouse at Beachy Head, near Eastbourne appeared in Bond movie The Living Daylights and 1980s TV series The Life and Loves of a She-Devil. But international fame was sealed in 1999, when owners Mark and Louise Roberts paid £180,000 to move it back 50 feet from the chalk cliff edge, to avoid erosion for another 60 years.
Torpedo boat
In 1942, Motor Torpedo Boat MTB 219 sank the German ship Seeadler in the English Channel. The wooden-hulled vessel, which also took part in a historic attack on the battleship Scharnhorst, was converted into a houseboat in 1966. Moored at Chelsea with one of the best river views in London, she still proudly bears the scars on her bows of a pair of 20mm shells.
Solent sea fort
No Man's Land is one of four 19th-century sea forts built to defend Portsmouth from Napoleon's navy. Decommissioned since WWII, it is 'easily accessible' - by helicopter. It has two helipads, 24 bedrooms, indoor swimming pool, jacuzzis, gym and its own lighthouse with 360-degree views of the Solent. Fresh water comes from a bore hole sunk deep below the sea floor.
Nuclear bunker
The Glasshouse in Chislehurst, Kent was one of four government nuclear bunkers dating from the early Cold War. The £3 million house shares the same 647m2 footprint but a striking timber-framed glass roof now floods the once pitch-black interior with natural light. Dominated by a central indoor swimming pool, the house has won several architecture and design awards.
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