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May 24, 2007

Harry's Hampstead Home Sweet Home

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What price a corner of Hampstead Heath?

Harry Hallowes has got one for nowt. Well, not nothing. It cost him twenty years of squatting and a 2 year legal tussle with frustrated swanky flat developers and the Land Registry. However, it seems that Harry’s finally earned the right to call his exclusive, secluded plot of heath land home. Now that’s perseverance paying off.

Harry started sleeping rough on the heath when he got thrown out of his council house in Highgate in 1987 and subsequently built himself a 12ft by 8ft wooden shack.

The plot is estimated to be worth around £2 million (probably more without the shack) but Harry seems unfazed by his sudden landed wealth. Delightedly musing on what he might do next and bringing out the line he's surely been working on for years, he declared:

I won't be having a bird sanctuary or anything like that. Maybe I'll build myself a house to live in – everybody else around here seems to love building houses!

In other words, and hoorah for the solitary underdog; in your face, luxury developers.

Glorious image of Harry's Heath courtesy of SlipStreamJC's Flickrstream.

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