For sale: two bedroom flat in a 130-year old church, complete with arched ceilings

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Photos courtesy RightMove.

Aisle House” is a two bedroom flat now for sale in Scarborough, England. The cool part? It’s one of 11 apartments built into Holy Trinity Church, a stone chapel built in 1880.

Okay, so if you can ignore the penis shape in this window, it's an incredible room.

The place is going for £124,950 — about $205,000 — and that doesn’t seem like a bad price. You’d get to open the building’s double oak doors, walk down this stone-paved hallway

and past those loverly stained glass windows. You’d tuck into bed in a supercool bedroom:

What an unusual and beautiful home for a lucky Briton.

Learn more at RightMove.co.uk.

Comments on For sale: two bedroom flat in a 130-year old church, complete with arched ceilings

  1. You can see that Church from my Uncle’s house!

    I always thought it was a normal working church and not someone’s home though. I think this post has been my new fact learnt for the day.

  2. Um.
    I would feel weird about doin’ the dirty. Or being naked. Or cursing. Or thinking about cursing. Or thinking about–
    My point being. It would be really weird for me. Haha.
    Still, I can’t help but feel that a church with penis windows is welcoming me.

    • And for my dirty, evil little brain that’s entirely the appeal. Besides, all feelings of shame would vanish when I looked at that penis window and considered that someone had planned to cut the apartments like that.

  3. In my parents small town in Harlan, IA they had a church that was for sale, and the people that bought it turned it into a fracking sweet house. I am trying to find pics of it online.

  4. As awesome as this place it, I couldn’t live there. Even though I am not religious, growing up my mother had me go to Sunday School for years (I chose not to continue when I hit my teen years), there is still something about a church to me that is special.
    Its a fantastic idea to turn a church that has maybe lost its congregation over the years and turn it into something useful so it doesn’t degrade. Still, I personally just couldn’t do it.

  5. As a kid watching HGTV, I had seen a few church conversions. I always wondered,” if this is a house of god, and he’s supposed to be present— how does it just turn back to a building?” As I got older and studied medieval history- I realized the early Christians didn’t have churches and congregations were on the down low (due to polytheistic Roman guys- (until the Council of Nicea 325CE) the building doesn’t really matter- they just needed to convert everyone so Jesus would return within their lifetime.(super condensed version) I’m an atheist, always have been, so I could totally live in a church. The only things that would creep me out in a really old church (prior to 1600) would be the creepy things that went on (Indulgences etc-praying upon families to pay for their loved ones to not have spits up their bums rotating in fire with nails through them)– not my actions in a “sacred” building. (Seriously- the things I had to read for class on purgatory were horrifying. If you got in there for a few blasphemes— I wonder what hell would have been like!)PS. I wonder what you could do to paint the penis window so it wasn’t so….. penis-y? haha.

    • God is everywhere 🙂 and churches which aren’t in use are deconsecrated. Deconsecration is the act of removing a religious blessing from something that had been previously consecrated by a minister or priest of that religion. So it isn’t disrespectful to live in ‘God’s house’.

      I think if they added curtains to the window to cover the top (or head) and some of the sides it wouldn’t look bad (except from outside, maybe shutters?) At least they can’t do much to make it worse unless they paint it pink!

  6. 🙂 I think when I was younger I spoke to someone about renovating a church into an awesome house. I have to say- penis window or not I would adore one of those flats. The kitchen alone would make me want, but the windows! Hopefully it will set a trend and someone will build a complex for condos like that here in California so I can have one!

    (lol, plus I think the penis window problem could be solved with some heavy drapes to at least cover the head and make it sing-song less “giant penis in your faaaaaace” and more “romantic window to show your spaaaace” …… please don’t ask why I think windows sing.)

  7. In my (English) husband’s hometown, there’s a church that’s been converted into apartments. I’ve always wondered what they look inside, so this is fantastic! (Next time we visit, I’ll have to keep an eye out for window shapes…)

  8. So, it’s not a church but in Lansing (Michigan) there was a Masonic Temple that was turned into a (from what I hear) grungy college student dance club. The bad economy kind of killed it before I could legally go to it in college but it never failed to amuse me. ;P

  9. I’ve been to a few old churches that have been converted to theatres/studio spaces, and have seen a number of smaller country churches that have been converted to family homes (although I’ve never been inside). There’s an old United Church in our pastoral charge that is at risk of closing its doors, and if that ever happened, I dream of being able to buy it and turn it into an open concept house/studio.

    I think there are a few companies in Toronto/Montreal that specialize in condo-conversions, which makes sense given the number of houses of worship in those cities+declining number of congregants.

  10. There are lots of churches in England which have been converted to flats. I’m not religious but I couldn’t live in an old church. Just like I would never want to live in a converted synagogue or mosque. Just seems weird! The architecture is beautiful though.

  11. We’re looking to buy a place soon, so I’m going to try and persuade OH this is within reasonable commuting distance – well, if we had a car, it would be. AND it’s in our price range!

    And as far as I’m concerned, the willie window is a selling point 😉 If we DID buy the place, I would totally paper that wall with that tear-off wallpaper featured a few weeks ago…

  12. This looks amazing! My dorm for this year is in a restored Gothic stone building, so I get the same feel. 😀 But this place totally tops that.

  13. Well from the outside it’s not SO penis-y….just…why did they have to make THAT be the cutoff of the first and second floors???

    That is WAY cool. Put another point in the column of why England is cooler than the States. 🙂

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