Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the loft … Headington’s famous shark house has been put up to rent. The property, which is perhaps the east Oxford suburb’s most notable residence, is being advertised at £519 a week, or £2,250 a month, and is being marketed at families or mature students.
Letting agents at Scott Fraser describe the three-bedroom house on New High Street, as a “period cottage with stylish modern interiors forming part of a famous city landmark”. The rent is higher than the average for Headington quoted by property website Zoopla, which puts the typical cost of a three-bedroom home at £335 a week. However, all of the bedrooms are ensuite and the property has been recently refurbished.
The 7.5 metre fibreglass shark attracted worldwide fame when it arrived on this otherwise fairly remarkable street in August 1986, on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, seemingly as a statement of the homeowner’s feeling of despair at the nuclear threat of the time. Despite the local council’s attempts to get rid of it, the shark survived, thanks to an appeal to the then secretary of state for the environment, Michael Heseltine.
It has been a feature of the Headington skyline ever since, and the brochure quotes a previous tenant of the house saying: “You quickly get used to people taking photographs outside and it does not really affect living there. On the rare occasions that we are asked about the shark the people have always been very polite and genuinely interested in the story. It has been a lot of fun living in such a local landmark.”
The advert suggests that it might be: “suitable for a family who are passionate about being involved with the local community and who will enjoy not only living in but living with the famous Headington shark,” adding “sorry no pets”. As if your goldfish would ever have been happy living there.
