Nestled several feet below this UK port city are a network of vaults with a fascinating history which have gone up for sale for just shy of £1m.
Although they may look like secret prison cells designed to cage the most heinous criminals or even a passageway for smuggling illicit items, these vaults beneath the streets of Hull actually had a slightly more mundane purpose.
The subterranean network of rooms and tunnels were in fact built as safe-deposit spaces for the city's businesses for well over a century, Hull Live reports.
But while serving a practical purpose underground, the vaults were nonetheless ornately designed by the same company who drew up those for Harrods.
During the Second World War, the vaults were used to house city dwellers escaping raining German bombs, with Hull city centre almost flattened in the Blitz due to its significance as a port city making it one of Hitler's prime targets.
Currently sitting beneath a solicitors chambers, staff inside regular open them to the curious public – but now the firm is looking to move, with the future of the vaults to be handed to somebody else.
“This is a beautiful building and we are sad to be leaving it," the firm's senior partner, David Rosenberg said.
"We are five floors and everyone has a big office but we just can’t really justify it anymore, we have to be more energy efficient."
Mr Rosenberg added: “When we have our open days, we get hundreds of visitors coming in for a tour of the building, although it does get less interesting higher up. Our old offices are beautiful with some lovely features – I have views out over St Mary’s [Church].
“We have all these wonderful safes underneath the building – there are doors and doors – and people have loved going down there on our open days.
"The safes are massive, they are about 6ft high and very deep; there must be 20 or 30 of them.”
Behind the imposing stone facade of the building are large boardrooms and ornate mosaic floors at ground floor and basement levels.
The staircase is of fine Edwardian construction, and understood to be one of the reasons Ocean Chambers is Grade II-listed.
Most interest tends to be piqued, however, by the spacious vaults which were built to be flood proof as well as fire and theft proof, as prior to the building of Hull's Tidal Barrier, the area would be regularly flooded by the Humber.
The internal workings of the safe doors were built by the same company that installed the Harrods’ store vaults and also the Army and Navy Safes in Rotterdam, as evidenced by plaques inside the vault doors.
Mr Rosenberg said: “We are clearing out the piles of things we know we can put in storage.
“We are all very sad to be leaving but this is a new chapter for Burstalls. Things have changed over the last few years, we just need to adapt with the times.”
Ocean Chambers is for sale for offers in the region of £975,000 or for rent at £85,000 per year.
Garness Jones said: “The property is an iconic building within the city centre.
"The building has a great deal of potential with high ceilings and natural light with attractive views overlooking Lowgate.”
