At first glance, Rock Cottage, outside Kidderminster, looks like an archetypal English country cottage: white, with a gable roof, and surrounded by Worcestershire’s rolling countryside.
Its name, though, is a giveaway. Not only is this 1,800-square-foot house 515 years old, but it is an extraordinary cave dwelling, cut directly into the sandstone cliffs behind it.
After more than 60 years as a private family home, Rock Cottage could now be yours: it’s up for auction this month with bids opening at £450,000.
The property, which dates back to 1511, was originally carved from sandstone and later given a traditional 18th-century frontage.
The rooms at the front of the house, like the living room, dining area and two upstairs bedrooms, are more conventional, with timber beamed ceilings and windows.
But as the footprint extends backwards, the rooms are cut directly into the stone, with irregular, textured walls and ceilings, and rocky archways connecting the rooms.
Think less primitive cave and more modern home: both walls and ceilings are painted white, with clever lighting, lightwells and even windows to bring in light.
Arranged over four floors, the property’s most cave-like space is its workshop downstairs, with a more uneven, labyrinthine layout and rough-hewn walls and ceilings.
Upstairs, the dining room extends into a rocky country kitchen, with an Aga somehow negotiated into a brick-backed hearth.
There are a living room and study, also cut from the rock, downstairs, with two further bedrooms on the floors above.
The house, however, is not the property’s only cave. Outside, in its 2.5 acres of land, there are a handful of further cave-buildings, used as tool stores, sheds and outbuildings.
The land, which is divided into landscaped gardens with paths, terraces and seating areas, has three ornamental ponds, two waterfalls and a large fishpond with carp and sturgeon.
The owners have also built a detached timber lodge which contains an indoor hot tub.
Rock Cottage is currently owned by Lorraine and Martin Kendall, who acquired the property from his grandfather 1976, when Martin was 17. His grandfather had owned it since 1963.
"It's lovely and cosy, it's lovely and warm, and in the summertime it's lovely and cool,” Martin Kendall told the BBC earlier this year. “I don't think there's anywhere quite like it in the UK.”
Kendall added: “I just hope that whoever takes it on looks after it.”
After 63 years in the same family, Rock Cottage is due to be auctioned with Town and Country Property Auctions on 25 March. Opening bids start at £450,000, and the property is open to cash buyers only.
Rock Cottage is being marketed as a “unique rural retreat built into the rock with cave outbuildings”.
There are other cave dwellings in this part of Worcestershire, including the nearby Kinver Edge Rock Cottages, which are owned by the National Trust.
These became a tourist attraction at the turn of the 20th century, as the cottages’ inhabitants served tea to visitors in their rocky homes. Today, the most famous of these is Holy Austin Rock, which was restored as a family home in the 1990s and opened to visitors.
Few, though, are private residences, and it is unusual for these properties to come up for sale.
In 2024, an apartment in Nottingham with a cave cinema room was listed for sale for £300,000, while a complex of cave homes in Spain came on the market for £135,000 the previous year.
Last year, a Grade II-listed house in Hastings with a 184-square-foot cave in the garden was marketed for £600,000, with the cave proposed as potential dining or entertaining area.
“Offering privacy, charm, and a sense of timelessness, this is a residence unlike any other in the UK—a true sanctuary away from the bustle of everyday life,” reads the listing for Rock Cottage.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a private cave dwelling in the heart of Worcestershire, with 2.5 acres of landscaped gardens, historic charm, and modern comforts.”
