House available to rent with a shark in the roof

In some of the most bizarre news to land on our desk recently it has been revealed that a quirky home owner in Oxford is renting his house out with a peculiar decorative feature – there’s a 25 foot shark in the roof.

In leafy Oxford among a row of unremarkable terraced houses sits the now famous Headington Shark – a 25 foot fibre glass sharks tail that has been designed to look like an enormous shark his crash landed through the roof.  The whacky design is the same height as the house and is visible from a distance.

This isn’t a new installation from somebody who has taken leave of their senses though, owner Bill Heine, actually installed the humungous plastic fin 30 years ago this week. In an unsurprising twist the local council planning committee were somewhat displeased with Bill’s new feature and demanded he take it down. What followed was a six year legal battle with the planning committee that was rejected at every level until it remarkably landed on the desk of then Environment Secretary, Michael Hesseltine.

A government inspector finally attended the property and ruled in favour of Heine, saying that “any system of control must make some small place for the dynamic, the unexpected, and the downright quirky”. Thrilled with his victory Bill went on to explain that the unusual decoration was actually a piece of art that was designed to make a statement against atomic warfare.

The tail was installed in the early hours of the morning on the 41st anniversary of the Nagasaki atomic bomb. In an interview with The Telegraph Bill said “When we took it from where we got it made, it was put on the back of a 12ft-long truck, with the tail hanging off. We didn’t tell anyone what it was going to be. We told the driver to avoid the police.”

If this sounds like your cup of tea then the “Tardis-like” house has three en-suite bedrooms, and is available for £2,300 per month, according to chancellors.co.uk