Your backyard is a great place to display fun outdoor decor. Or maybe you put a patio set back there with a fun garden gnome or two. This south London property developer installed an authentic, roughly 10-foot section of the Cold War’s most famous barrier in his back garden: the Berlin Wall, all 6,200 pounds of it. There was just one problem. He never got planning permission, and now the local council is investigating.
For Thorpe, 65, it was no novelty purchase. He was born in 1961, the year the Berlin Wall went up, and he told the Daily Mail that its fall in 1989 was “the biggest thing” to happen in his lifetime. He’s clearly been attached to the wall, with a wealth of experiences attached to it. So the wall, to him, is living history, not just some random decoration.
Getting a slab of the wall into a London garden is a feat in itself, though. Thorpe first learned that pieces were available when he heard a grain farmer in Germany had been using hundreds of them to line his sheds. He took a friend and went over to choose a section, grabbed import licenses, and had it shipped to the UK by truck and ferry. Then came moving the enormous slab into place. That took a custom dolly, winches, scaffolding, ramps, and heavy machinery, all done in early 2025.
But not everyone understands or wants the piece of the wall there. A neighbor questioned the project the day it was finished and later filed a formal complaint with Southwark Council. They argued that a structure that size needed permission first. Thorpe has since filed a retrospective planning application, maintaining that he never believed a historical artifact needed the same sign-off as an ordinary building. The council is now investigating, with a site inspection set for July 15.
How a Chunk of the Berlin Wall Ends Up for Sale
The short answer is that there’s a lot of the Berlin Wall to go around. The barrier that split the city for nearly three decades ran for more than 90 miles. When it fell in 1989, Germans and souvenir hunters went at it with hammers and chisels. Most of the concrete was later carted off and crushed into road gravel. But the segments that did survive got scattered around the world.
Today, those pieces turn up in unlikely places, outside museums and corporate headquarters, in city plazas, even in a Las Vegas casino men’s room. Owning one is perfectly legal. Moving a monument across borders is a job, though. It takes export and import paperwork, a lot of money, and the stubborn determination that leads a man to build his own dolly in this case.
Will He Be Able to Keep It?
Passion aside, the wall now faces a very ordinary test. In the UK, putting up a large structure on your property usually requires planning permission. A 10-foot concrete slab visible from neighboring homes is something that gets neighbors talking, so it’s not guaranteed that the application will be approved. Thorpe skipped that step, believing a historical artifact fell outside those rules.
Southwark Council has confirmed the complaint and set a site inspection for July 15, after which it will decide whether any enforcement action is needed. If it grants permission, the wall stays. If it refuses, Thorpe could be ordered to haul three tons of history back out of his yard. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the story to see what ultimately ends up happening to this slice of the wall.