Mansion bigger than Buckingham Palace left abandoned by builders for 20 years

Hamilton Palace has been left standing half-finished for more than two decades after the millionaire owner fell out with his architect. Urban explorer-style pictures show the mansion remains frozen in time

With scaffolding permanently up, building blocks discarded and signs warning to keep out, Hamilton Palace looks like a scene from a horror film.

The £40 million Sussex property has a façade that is longer than Buckingham Palace and was once thought to be one of the most expensive private houses under construction in Britain.

But 37-years on from when work first started, the abandoned palace remains frozen in time.

The home was designed for British multi-millionaire Nicholas van Hoogstraten — a 77-year-old former property tycoon and convicted criminal — but attempts to finish the grand palace have stalled over the years.

Those looking to gain access are greeted by signs declaring CCTV to be in operation, “Danger – Shooting in progress” and “Warning, dogs running free”.

Not everyone has paid attention to the notices, however.

Last year, urban explorer-style photographs emerged showing the inside of the half-finished property.

The images show a large unfinished staircase, with just its concrete frame completed, that looks like it was planned to be the lavish centrepiece of the mansion.

The metallic frame of abandoned scaffolding acts as a spiky armour around the palace — thought to have been named after the capital of Bermuda — while unused outdoor paving lies in overgrown weeds.

The latest photos appear to show that the vast property is still languishing, with SussexLive reporting that very little has changed in the most recent drone shots.

Construction first started in 1985 but the grand would-be home has been dubbed the “Ghost House of Sussex” by locals.

A reporter who managed to get inside the countryside property in 2000 — when it was said to be two years away from completion — described a grand central staircase and reception hall.

There were lift shafts already installed and expensive stone balustrades and pillars in place.

One entire floor was due to house van Hoogstraten’s art collection, with a mausoleum also included in the blueprints.

But the owner — who previously branded his neighbours “moronic peasants” — is understood to have fallen out with the architect Anthony Browne, with the work having stagnated for more than two decades.

There had been hope that the appearance of cars inside the property gates might be a hint that building work was due to continue.

Yet, the urban explorer photos show that the property is not all that different to how the reports described the interior 22 years ago.

Many urban explorer videos posted on YouTube show intrepid adventurers scared-off going near the property due to hearing gunshots or finding shotgun cartridges in the long estate grass.

Hamilton Palace is situated in Uckfield in East Sussex in an otherwise untouched part of the picturesque Wealden countryside.

In 2002, there was a three-way dispute between the estate’s owners, the Ramblers and East Sussex County Council.

The Ramblers took legal action after the council diverted a 140-year-old walking path which crossed the van Hoogstraten property and had not been properly maintained.

After six court cases, the right-of-way was cleared in 2003, with the industrial-sized fridges, half-a-dozen concrete piles, barbed wire and other impediments removed to allow access once again.

Six years ago, neighbours called for the property to be used for the homeless.

But van Hoostraten — who is said to have changed his name to Nicholas Adolf von Hessen — called the idea “ludicrous”.

Speaking to The Mirror in 2016, van Hoostraten said the “majority” of people living on the streets were there “by their own volition or sheer laziness” and called them “one of the filthiest burdens on the public purse today”.

He also stated that work was continuing on the Hamilton Palace grounds.

Denying accusations that his ambitious mansion-building project had stalled, the owner said: “Even the most moronic of peasants would be able to see from the pictures that we have been busy landscaping the grounds of the palace.

“Hamilton Palace is far from ‘crumbling’ and was built to last for at least 2,000 years.

“The scaffolding only remains as a part of ongoing routine maintenance such a property would require until completion.”

Van Hoogstraten, who was first jailed in 1968 for hiring thugs to throw a grenade at the home of a former business associate, is believed to spend most of his time in Zimbabwe. He reportedly was a friend of the east African country’s former dictator Robert Mugabe.

His four eldest children reportedly look after his former business empire, acting under the name Messina Investments, having taken control of van Hoogstraten’s reported £500m wealth.

The colourful character was successfully sued for £6m in 2005 after a civil court found on the balance of probabilities that he had recruited hitmen to murder a Pakistani landlord and estate agent Mohammed Raja.

But a judge accepted in 2018 that von Hoogstraten did not have the money to pay the bill.

A criminal conviction in 2002 for the manslaughter of Mr Raja was quashed a year later, with van Hoogstraten acquitted at a 2003 retrial.