With its well-maintained roads, large gardens and picturesque views of the channel, these four- and five-bedrooms homes should be some of the most sought after properties along the Kent coast.
The hilly cul-de-sac also has its own playground only boasting its credentials as very idyllic spot to raise a family.
However, far from brimming with life and activity, the estate is eerily quiet with every window covered in steel shutters, every front door bolted and every garage locked.
And Old Park Close in Dover has been this way for the past 30 years.
This is because the homes once housed the families of soldiers based at the nearby Old Park Barracks until it closed in the 1990s leaving the homes as time capsules to a bygone area.
Indeed, unlike other abandoned estates, the houses do not look derelict and many even look ready to be moved into.
Although some are draped with ivy, with satellites rusting and tiles coming loose, others stand almost pristine, waiting for someone to pull the shutters down and breathe life into this once-vibrant neighbourhood.
The houses themselves are large and typical of their era. They are the kind of family homes that would now fetch large sums if they were on the market.
Far from brimming with life and activity,Old Park Close in Dover is eerily quiet with every window covered in steel shutters, every front door bolted and every garage locked
Old Park Barracks was first built in the 1930s and went on to play an important role during the Second World War.
In later decades, it became home to the Royal Corps of Signals. Old Park Close was where soldiers’ families were based – children growing up on its quiet cul-de-sacs while parents went to work at the camp across the road.
When the barracks closed in the 1990s, the Army families left too. The houses were shuttered, and the garages locked.
The Ministry of Defence put the 225-acre Old Park Barracks up for sale in 1991, with the caveat that the 91 acres of woodland was to be preserved.
The houses on the site were still occupied by the Argyll and Sutherland Highland Regiment and were being considered for retention.
While there were ideas of converting the site into a sports college, in 1992, the homes were included in the package of MOD houses sold to Annington Homes.
They were still empty in 1996 when the decision was taken that the families of Gurkhas, stationed in Hong Kong, were to be returned to Nepal prior to the Transfer of Sovereignty on July 1, 1997.
In a letter to The Times newspaper, Chris Barnett, the then-director of health and housing at Dover District Council, put the case for 120 Gurkhas and their families to be housed in the still-empty homes at Old Park.
The hilly cul-de-sac also has its own playground only boasting its credentials as very idyllic spot to raise a family
With its well-maintained roads, large gardens and picturesque views of the channel, these four- and five-bedrooms homes should be some of the most sought after properties along the Kent coast
Annington Homes did not take up the idea, and the houses remained empty.
Since then, it has remained in this strange suspended state.
It is surplus to requirements at the moment, though there are a lot of what-ifs and maybes to be answered.
The MOD is exploring the possibility of re-using it for military accommodation, and has also considered asking Dover District Council if it would want to take on the site.
If both schemes fall through, it will go on the open market, where a developer would surely demolish it and double the number of homes here.
Cllr James Back, whose ward includes the estate, said it’s ‘almost like it’s out of sight, out of mind’.
‘Could the council have done more to try and get them back or even purchase them or rent them? I think so,’ said Cllr Back.
‘I don’t think that any properties should be standing empty wherever; it doesn’t matter where they are or who they belong to, they shouldn’t be standing empty.
‘It wouldn’t be that difficult to come up with some way of being able to use them as council properties.’
Dover is a town shaped by its military past. From the Western Heights to Fort Burgoyne, reminders of the Army are everywhere.
Old Park Close is part of that history – not a ruin, not a redevelopment site, but a perfectly preserved echo of a different era.
