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Camden New Journal - by RICHARD OSLEY
Published: 8 November 2007

The front room on the ground floor

Recluse who lived in squalor

Revealed: Inside the home where Allan Chappelow met a mystery end

FOR years, writer Allan Chappelow refused to let anybody into his listed Hampstead home as it crumbled around his ears.
Now – for the first time in two decades – the mystery of what lies behind the front door of the ramshackle house in Downshire Hill has been revealed.
Photographs of rubbish piled high, vegetation growing off the walls, rusted pipes and collapsed floors were last night (Wednesday) posted on Camden Council’s planning website as the owners of the building applied for permission to shore up the house.
Ringline Properties want to send a team of scaffolders in, although all work must first be run by planning officials and experts from English Heritage.
The structure of the building has been marked “dangerous” by surveyors Ove Arup with some rooms now inaccessible owing to collapsed floors. The walls are uneven and it is impossible to gain access to the roof, their report said.
It added: “The house is considered to be in a dangerous condition. Safe access to the interior is only possible in limited areas and there is a concern that vibration or movement cause by temporary works could cause further damage.”
Directors at Ringline include board members of the William Pears Group of property investors and Anthony Joseph, who lives close to Mr Chappelow’s former home.
Their application for remedial works includes demolition of some of the building with experts recognising that parts of the house are now beyond salvage.
Mr Chappelow, 86, was found dead in mysterious circumstances inside in June 2006. As police sorted through the piles of rubbish looking for clues in the days after the discovery, a fire ripped through the house causing further damage.

• Wang Yam, 42, is awaiting trial at the Old Bailey charged with Mr Chappelow’s murder.

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