Why has Richard Hammond bought the house next door?

A report in The Sun has claimed that Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond has bought the house next door to his. It's not known why he has chosen to double the size of his country estate, but the story mentioned that there have been disagreements between him and his neighbour in the past.

Hammond owns a £2 million mock-castle in the Herefordshire countryside near Ross-on-Wye. The six-bedroom property has plenty of room for his family and his collection of classic cars, and they have lived there since 2008.

The house next door is another six-bedroom home, with a completely different architectural style - sitting in 14.5 aces of land. It was on the market for £1.25 million. If Hammond has indeed bought the property, the family of four can now boast 12 bedrooms between them.

Mega-property?

If the family chooses to keep both properties, they won't be the first celebrities to expand by buying the house next door. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Jamie and Jules Oliver, who bought the house next door to their Primrose Hill property and knocked the two together to create a mega-mansion.

However, in this case, the development was helped by the fact that the houses were already attached, whereas there are acres of land surrounding each of Hammond's properties.

The question of why Hammond bought a second home next door is made even more intriguing by the fact that The Sun reported there had been some disagreements in the past with the neighbours over livestock.

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Celebrity neighbours

It's not known why the Hammonds made the purchase, and whether the past disagreements had anything to do with the decision. Only the families involved can know whether the row was anything more than the natural consequences of families living next door to one another and finding a way to get along.
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What we do know is that celebrities are not immune to the kinds of neighbourly disagreements that happen all over the UK. Back in May, for example, Fiona Fullerton's neighbours complained after it emerged she was planning to chop down two trees in her garden. She explained that she was doing it for safety reasons, but neighbours complained to the newspapers that they were much-loved and they didn't want them to go.

Last September Nick Ross managed to upset 19 of his neighbours over his plans for his property. He submitted radical plan to change his Grade II-listed Hyde Park mansion, which one of the planners described as 'a bit like Marmite'. Some 19 neighbours objected, but he was given permission to make the changes anyway.

Helen Flanagan, meanwhile, had a very public spat with her neighbours: she wrote a letter and put it on Instagram. It read: "Your language and men's voices so loud are intimidating for a woman on her own trying to sleep. There are other people living here apart from you - like ME." She added: "I have reported you. This happens again I shall be ringing the police and I suggest you find a new home."

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