Can I dig it? Robbie Williams vs Jimmy Page: round two

At the time, Williams declined to comment. Instead, last month, he submitted further planning proposals, this time for a two-storey basement under his rear garden, complete with a new pool, gym and recording studio.

In fairness, it’s not hard to see why he would make a few changes. Though the Queen Anne-style mansion, built in 1876 by Richard Norman Shaw for the artist Luke Fildes, looks ordinary on the outside, with a neat front garden and awning over the door, inside it is, as Winner once put it, ‘completely over the top’. With more than 40 rooms, it already boasts a private cinema, Jacuzzi and ballroom-sized master bedroom. Walls are decorated in flamboyant reds, pinks and greens, and ceilings adorned with chandeliers. ‘It’s a great property, but it’s higgledy-piggledy,’ says Alan Waxman, whose company Landmass London drew up redesign plans in 2012 shortly after the house first went on the market, so viewers could see the building’s potential. ‘There are too many small rooms, nooks and crannies, and staircases.’

Page, meanwhile, is thought to be a more ardent preservationist than most. In 1972 he paid a reported £350,000 to Harris for the heavenly stairways of Tower House, outbidding David Bowie, at a time when he was better known for sex, drugs and an interest in the occult than a love of Victorian architecture. He has kept it in pristine condition. One neighbour I spoke to likens it to a ‘museum’. Every room is said to be themed: the hall is ‘time’, the drawing room ‘love’, and the dining room ‘fame’, with a frieze of fairy tales on glazed tiles.

Page, it transpires, is no stranger to firing off opinionated missives to the council. According to documents held by Kensington and Chelsea, he recently objected to works proposed by another neighbour, which included adding a basement, and which he said could have ‘catastrophic’ consequences (the case is ongoing). He has also criticised the ongoing £80m re-development of the Commonwealth Institute on Kensington High Street (which will host the Design Museum), and joined Richard Curtis in blocking the recent attempt to turn the nearby Odeon cinema into flats, which he said would ‘destroy yet another architectural, historic and aesthetic gem’.

Still, the scale of Williams’ works would be enough to aggravate even the most mild-mannered neighbour. According to planning documents, the changes detailed in the first application could take nine months and involve up to six large vehicles making deliveries every day. As for the basement, this would take about 18 months, according to Fulham-based architect Ian Hogarth, who has worked on similar developments. He estimates there will be six months spent hollowing out space for the basement, six months building it and six months fitting the pool, gym and studio: ‘After you’ve created the hole, it’s almost like building a building inside.’

Page isn’t the only one concerned. The council has also received notes from local residents Charles Booth-Clibborn, founder of art publishers Paragon Press, and Odran Jennings, one-time member of 1990s alt-rockers Out of My Hair — who took it upon himself to hand-deliver a selection of architectural books, including a volume on Burges, to Williams’ house: ‘I put them in the letterbox with a very respectful note offering them as reading material... I’ve not had any response but I know they’ve been taken as they’re no longer visible,’ he told me. His worry is for the architectural integrity of the two houses, as well as the potential upheaval. ‘There will be vehicles that need to come and go — it’s going to be quite a disruption.’ It’s a view that is echoed by many on the street. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ huffs Margaret Leigh, who has lived across the road for 20 years. ‘It’s too extensive for that period house.’ ‘We’re worried, of course,’ another neighbour, Karim Ghazzaoui, tells me. ‘As long as it brings disturbance, we’re against it.’

Even more alarming is the risk of subsidence — that is, when the earth on which a house stands sinks — which has become associated with such developments. Hogarth stresses that this is rare, and Williams’ plans look sound. Nevertheless, there have been recent horror stories. In 2012, a basement commissioned by Goldman Sachs banker Christoph Stanger for his Kensington townhouse reportedly caused so much subsidence that neighbours were unable to open doors in their flats. Stanger apologised and the flats have since been repaired at his expense. And in 2013, Clare Latimer, one-time Downing Street cook, claimed to have suffered thousands of pounds worth of damage to her Primrose Hill flat during a neighbour’s excavations. The owner of the property has conceded that there has been some damage, which, after assessment by a party wall surveyor, will be fixed under the terms of the insurance.

Kensington and Chelsea council — which last year registered 393 applications for basements, up from 129 five years earlier — recently introduced new rules limiting them. As well as restricting underground digs to a single storey in most cases, it discourages developments beneath listed buildings. Williams may get around this as his proposals aren’t directly under his house.

So who will emerge victorious? A final decision isn’t expected until March. Currently, Williams is thought to be in LA. Many on Melbury Road view the building work as an unfortunate inevitability. Still, Page is not to be written off. Let’s not forget this is a man who, it was rumoured, used to travel with a suitcase of whips, and was so taken with the philosophies of occultist Aleister Crowley that, in 1971, he bought Crowley’s former Loch Ness home. As one local points out, if anyone’s got the stomach for a fight, it’s him: ‘He’s a bloke who doesn’t give a monkey’s what anybody thinks — and I don’t think he ever did.’