By Lisa Edser for Daily Mail Australia

Published: 6:15 PM EST, February 28, 2024 | Updated: 6:53 PM EST, February 28, 2024

By Daily Mail Australia Reporter

Published: 08:58 EST, February 8, 2024 | Updated: 09:02 EST, February 8, 2024

• A magnitude 3.3 earthquake struck regional Victoria
• It could have been felt about 35 km away from the epicenter

By Freddy Pawle for Daily Mail Australia

Published: 8:51 PM EST, February 5, 2024 | Updated: 9:22 PM EST, February 5, 2024

For more than 2,000 years, the lost city of Atlantis has fascinated treasure hunters and explorers.

But despite countless theories and decades of searching, the lost city has remained stubbornly lost.

While Atlantis itself may be nothing more than a myth, archaeologists have uncovered real sunken cities all over the world.

From a ‘cursed’ town in Germany to a mysterious underwater pyramid in Japan, these drowned worlds may be even stranger than any legend.

So if you feel like hunting for some lost civilizations, MailOnline has created this incredible interactive, revealing the lost sunken cities around the world.

The legend of Atlantis was mentioned in the writings of the Greek philosopher Plato around 360 BCE.

In his dialogues, Plato says that there was once a mighty advanced civilization that sunk into the oceans after being hit by violent earthquakes and floods.

However, it wasn’t really until the 19th century that some people began to speculate that there was some truth behind these tales.

In 1882, Ignatius Donnelly, an American writer and politician, published Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World which suggested that Atlantis was a lost continent destroyed by a biblical flood.

Since then, a number of wild theories have claimed that Atlantis is everywhere from Antarctica to the Bermuda Triangle.

Yet, while pseudoscientists looked for clues in Plato, real archaeologists have actually uncovered several remarkable sunken cities.

Using our interactive map you can explore the world of real sunken cities.

Simply click and drag to navigate the map, or use the compass needle in the top right corner to rotate.

To zoom in or out use the plus and minus keys, or scroll on your mouse while holding down ‘Ctrl’ on your keyboard. 

To learn more about these mysterious lost cities, click or hover over the pictures to bring up extra information. 

Thonis Heracleion, Egypt 

Hidden in the murky waters off Alexandria’s coast, archaeologists have discovered the remains of a once mighty city.

Thonis Heracleion was once Ancient Egypt’s gateway to the Mediterranean, a thriving harbour town built over an interlinked sprawl of islands and marshland. 

In a striking similarity to Atlantis, this great city, built 2,700 years ago, slipped beneath the waters after being struck by an earthquake. 

However, despite its once immense presence, this city soon faded into oblivion, remembered only as the place where Hercules first arrived in Africa and where Sparta’s Helen once took refuge in Greek legends. 

It wasn’t until 2000 that divers first stumbled across sunken artefacts that researchers realised the city had been hidden, just out of sight, for thousands of years.

Rungholt, Germany  

It was only this year that researchers uncovered the town known as ‘Germany’s Atlantis’.

The town of Rungholt was once a wealthy trading hub on the North Sea and was home to around 3,000 people.

But for centuries, researchers had wondered whether Rungholt was nothing more than a cautionary tale. 

According to legend, the town was cursed as punishment for its inhabitants’ drunken revelry and destroyed by a great flood.  

According to local legend, one group of locals even got a pig drunk before forcing a priest to give it last rites. 

However, archaeologists now know that there is more truth to these rumours than previously thought.

In 1362 a huge storm overwhelmed the town’s flood defences, drowning the settlement and leading to it being abandoned.

Since then, the town has lain buried 130 feet (40m) beneath the mud flats of Germany’s northern coast for over 660 years.

Experts are now using magnetic techniques to map the layout of the town and have even found the remains of its main church. 

Atlit Yam, Israel 

Atlit Yam is one of the oldest and largest sunken settlements ever discovered.

Ruins found in the sea off the coast of Israel near the modern-day town of Atlit date back to 7000 BCE and stretch over 40,000 square meters.

It is believed that its people lived on what was then the coast, farming the land and fishing in the sea for sustenance.

However, rising sea levels contaminated the wells and slowly submerged the entire town.

But, despite its incredible age, the town is remarkably well preserved.

Skeletons remain undisturbed in their graves and archaeologists have even found the remains of ancient weevils in the now-sunk grain silos.

Most strangely, a mysterious stone circle has been found submerged at the site, 

Pavlopetri, Greece

While it is widely acknowledged that Plato’s tale of Atlantis is a myth, some theories suggest that it could have been a reference to the mighty Minoan civilization. 

These ancient people ruled over much of Greece from around 3000-1100 BCE from their power centre on the island of Crete.

Pavlopetri, a sunken city in Southern Laconia, is one of the best preserved traces of this Bronze Age Empire.

Likely first settled almost 5,000 years ago around 2800 BC, it would have been a marvel of ancient organisation and home to around 2,000 people.

With semi-detached houses, gardens, and tidy streets it offers a rare glimpse into the power of this advanced early civilisation.

Yonaguni Monument, Japan 

In 1987, Kihachiro Aratake, a local diver, was startled to discover what appeared to be a vast pyramid off the coast of Japan’s southern Ryukyu Islands.

What Aratake found was a 165 by 65 foot (50 by 20 meters) edifice of seemingly-carved stone steps. 

Once nicknamed ‘Japan’s Atlantis’, experts believe the stacked pyramid-like structure is over 10,000 years old.

While some theories do get quite excited suggesting that this was built by an ancient super-civilization there might also be a more level-headed explanation. 

Much like the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, this could simply be a natural formation of basalt which tends to form very straight fractures.

However, for anyone brave enough to dive into this amazing structure in person that knowledge is unlikely to make it seem less eerie.   

Port Royal, Jamaica 

When we think about a city slipping beneath the waves we might tend to imagine this happening somewhere in the ancient past.

But Port Royal, Jamaica, actually experienced its cataclysmic moment less than 400  years ago. 

Now the site of modern-day Port Royal, and perhaps better known for being the home of Norman Manley International Airport, this settlement was once a notorious pirate hub.

The town was so infamous for its booze, sex workers, and violence that it was dubbed ‘the most wicked and sinful city in the world’. 

However, in 1692 a devastating earthquake struck the town, sinking 33 acres of the settlement and killing 2,000 people.

Many of the houses are still intact and more or less undisturbed just below the shallow coastal waters.  

Baiae, Italy 

Baiae might have been lost to time but 2,000 years ago this was the Las Vegas of Italy.

A veritable Roman Sin City, Baiea was a non-stop party town where the wealthy elite of the empire came to unwind and relax.

The town was made famous by its hot-springs and boasted a spa which claimed to cure any illness. 

However, the seismic activity which powered those springs was ultimately the town’s demise and caused it to slip into the Gulf of Naples.

Researchers have found intricate mosaics and marble statues now decorating the sea floor. 

The remains of baths and even the fish ponds used to breed eels for Roman gourmands offer a tantalizing window into the decadent lives of its residents.  

Remarkably well preserved the site is now a vital source of information about the Roman Empire. 

It is a question that frequently pops up on pub quizzes: how many of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World can you name?

Perhaps more pertinently, how many are still standing?

The answer, as a new book reveals, is only one: the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The Seven Wonders Of The Ancient World, by historian Bettany Hughes, tells the story of each of the glittering marvels of engineering.

Five of the six that are now lost to the past did exist, but the Hanging Gardens of Babylon is the odd one out.

While some suggest they may have been purely mythical, others are sure they did exist.

Below, MailOnline delves into the mystery, as well as the story of the six others.  

The Great Pyramid is the only one of the Seven Wonders which survives mostly intact.

It was built more than 4,500 years ago in around 2560BC for King Khufu, who was the second pharaoh of Ancient Egypt’s fourth dynasty.

Comprised of 2.4million limestone blocks, it stands at 480ft high and was built by 20,000 labourers.

Until the completion of Lincoln Cathedral in the 14th century, it was the tallest building in the world.

The pyramid, which was topped with a gold or electrum capping stone, was built as a sacred tomb for Khufu, who believed himself to be divine.  

As well as as surviving earthquakes and wars, it also weathered the the exploits of explorer Major General Howard Vyse, who in 1837 used dynamite to blast his way through the structure.

He discovered four inner chambers which he named after his friends: Wellington’s Chamber, Nelson’s Chamber, Campbell’s Chamber and Lady Arbuthnot’s Chamber.

The Great Pyramid is the largest of three which stand at Giza. The other two, built for pharaohs Menkaure and Khafre, were constructed decades later. 

Ms Hughes concludes of the structures: ‘Pyramids were men playing with the power of the earth, and the power of the human mind to bend the earth’s raw materials to their will. 

‘These Ancient Egyptians, with little interest in the past and the future, did not consider themselves to be standing on the shoulders of giants. 

‘Khufu et al. knew that in order to maintain the giant wonder of the universe, their involvement with it must have gargantuan scale and ambition.’

‘The Great Pyramid Wonder was a state-sponsored sycophant to individual ambition, and also celebrated our hyper-connectivity with other planets and the rest of the cosmos.’

Hanging Gardens of Babylon 

Did the Hanging Gardens of Babylon exist? That’s the big question that has long entertained scholars.

No one has been able to discover where they stood, or what they even were. 

They are believed to have been commissioned in around 600BC for Nebuchadnezzar II – the longest-reigning king of the Babylonian dynasty – as a symbol of love for his wife. 

However, there is no archaeological evidence for them, and ancient scholars give conflicting accounts on the subject.

Neither Xenophon or Herodotus – the famous historians of Ancient Greece – wrote about them, despite the fact that both ‘almost certainly’ visited Babylon, Ms Hughes says.  

Babylonian priest Berossus described the gardens as a series of terraces that were supported by stone columns and irrigated by pumps from the Euphrates river.  

Ms Hughes concludes that they did probably exist. She writes: ‘The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which surely must once have existed in some form, given their incidental evidence, and reputation, and the obsession of the Iron Age in tampering with nature (in contrast to the preoccupation of Egypt in becoming a part of the cosmos), evolved during antiquity into a vehicle for fabrication as well as for fact.’

She theorises that the absence of hard evidence for the gardens might be because they became synonymous with Babylon’s famous walls.

Mentioning the lesser-known but better-documented gardens at Nineveh, in what is now Iraq, she adds: ‘Could it be that Babylon’s and Nineveh’s gardens were such a natural and organic extension of great walls – protecting the cities and palaces themselves – that the two became synonymous?

‘It is, after all, Babylon’s walls rather than her gardens which appear time and again in ancient Wonder-lists.’

Temple of Artemis 

Located in the Ancient Greek city of Ephsus – in what is now Selçuk in Turkey – the earliest version of the Temple of Artemis was constructed in the Bronze Age.

After being destroyed by a flood, work on a larger and more impressive form began in around 550BC. 

However, in 356BC, the temple was again destroyed, this time by a fire started by an arsonist.

The culprit, a man named Herostratus, likely wanted to gain notoriety. He got his wish, but was also executed for his crime.

Ms Hughes tells how the Temple of Artemis was the first of the Seven Wonders to be accessible to commoners as well as kings. 

She adds that it was the only one that had women, both mythical and real, at the heart of its story.

Thousands of people worshipped the Greek goddess of the same name there, and sought her protection.

Ms Hughes writes: ‘Artemis was a goddess not to be messed with. With Zeus as a father and a Titaness as a mother in the Greek tradition, Artemis had strong genes. 

‘She was, moreover, the product of a rape, and was often a reminder of the pain as well as the pleasures of sex.’

She adds: ‘Artemis was also a goddess who punished the hubris of men, and who demanded gifts of the first fruits of the earth and of the humans on it.’

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia 

At 41ft high, the gold Statue of Zeus at Olympia was another giant of the ancient world.

Zeus – Artemis’s father – was the supreme master of all the Greek gods, and the statue of him certainly did his status justice.

The rulers of Olympia built the monument in 430BC in a bid to outshine the city’s rivals – those in Athens.

Thousands of pilgrims made long voyages to the temple where the statue was housed, so they could pay homage to Zeus.

It was made from around a ton of gold and a similar amount of ivory and was decorated with precious stones, polished bone and ebony.

As for Zeus’s head, it was crowned with golden olive shoots. 

In his left hand was a sceptre supporting an eagle, while in his right was a statue of Nike, the goddess of victory. 

The base of the main statue was made from marble from quarries near Athens. 

And inside the temple were objects including the shield of a soldier who had run from Marathon, the golden leg of Pythagoras and statues of Hesoid and Homer.  

The temple was damaged by an earthquake in 280CE. After the Olympic Games were banned by the Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 393 CE, the temple site was vandalised.

A terrible fire then tore through the area in around 426CE.

A decade after the fire, Zeus’s temple was reconsecrated to the God of Christianity. 

Ms Hughes tells how research  has confirmed that earthquakes and then tsunamis finally felled the columns of Zeus’s temple.

The statue itself was taken from the temple to Constantinople ‘at the end of late antiquity’, Ms Hughes writes.  

She adds that it was a ‘great trophy for the Byzantine emperors.’ 

In 476AD, the statue was destroyed by fire that started in Constantinople’s copper market.   

The Mausoleum at Halikarnassos

The Mausoleum at Halikarnassos was built for Mausolus, ruler of Caria, an ancient region of Asia Minor.

The building was so impressive that the late king’s name became the generic word for large funeral monuments.

The structure was a mixture of Greek, Near Eastern, and Egyptian design principles set in Anatolian and Pentelic marble.

When the tomb was excavated, sacrificial remains of oxen, sheep, and birds were taken to be the leftovers of a ‘send-off’ feast for the Mausoleum’s permanent tenant.

Constructed in 350BC in modern-day Turkey, it was destroyed by a series of earthquakes in the 13th century.

Colossus of Rhodes

A staggering feat of engineering and building, and the Colossus of Rhodes towered 108ft above the harbour in the Greek city of the same name.

The giant statue, which took about 12 years to construct, had an iron skeleton that was covered with bronze plates.

It depicted the Greek god of the sun, Helios.

Ancient artwork depicting the Colossus of Rhodes shows the statue straddling the harbour entrance, but researchers have determined such a feat would be impossible.

Instead, the god stood on a pedestal near the harbour’s entrance, welcoming visiting ships.

An earthquake brought about the demise of the statue, which survived for less than a century after its completion in 282BC.

The jumbled remains lay on the ground until at least the seventh century AD, when they were finally melted down for scrap. 

However, its image lived on in the imagination of the great and the good. It directly inspired the Statue of Liberty.  

Lighthouse of Alexandria

Built in the third century BC during the reign of Ancient Egypt’s Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Lighthouse of Alexandria is the youngest of the Seven Wonders.

It is believed to have soared 400ft into the sky, making it – behind the Great Pyramid of Giza – the second tallest man-made structure in the world for centuries.

Made up of three tiers with a circular top, its central feature was a huge mirror that reflected the sun during the day and firelight at night for miles to act as a beacon for ships. 

Incredibly, the lighthouse survived for more than 1,400 years, before it was gradually destroyed by three earthquakes between the 10th and 14th centuries.

Alexandria was then the gateway to Africa and where trade from the Middle East, East Africa and the Red Sea entered the Europe-oriented market.

But the port was also deadly for ships, many of which met their fate after being broken up by submerged rocks. 

Inside the lighthouse was a hoist to lift fuel and food up the tower.

Its light could be seen for nearly 40 miles. 

As well as serving as a warning for ships, it also acted as a form of communication that could be lit up along with other towers and beacons to relay messages across vast distances.

Ms Hughes writes: ‘The Pharos, the youngest of the ancient Wonders, channelled an idea that the oldest, the Giza Pyramid, also represented – that what matters to us, strange mammals that we are, is immortal fame. 

‘It is odd, is it not, that we should care so passionately not just about our legacies, but about the opinion of those, yet to be born, whom we will never know or meet?’

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, by Bettany Hughes, was published yesterday by W&N.  

Hugh Hefner's widow Crystal has claimed the late Playboy tycoon was secretly addicted to painkillers and Viagra with an 'earthquake stash of drugs' in his infamous mansion.

The former playmate, 37, who married the magazine publisher when she was 26 and he was 86 in 2012, said his pills were so bad that staff feared he would die of an overdose.

Hugh died in 2017 at the age of 91 due to heart failure and blood poisoning after contracting a deadly form of e-coli, leaving behind a fortune of $43 million.

In her new memoir Only Say Good Things, Crystal revealed that Hugh first became addicted to painkillers after being prescribed them for back pain.

He said he then began seeking out doctors to help feed his addiction with monthly refills, before staff felt the need to intervene when he started to become less coherent.

Writing: 'While so many celebrities are dying from overdoses from doctors giving them endless supplies, there were people around [Hugh] became more cautious and the opiates had to be given to him as he always gave us: in controlled doses.'

She also claimed that Hugh's hearing was 'shot' as a result of his overuse of erectile dysfunction medications.

Writing that the octogenarian would have rather 'given up a limb' before giving up Viagra as he tried to maintain his hard-partying lifestyle.

Viagra and similar impotence medications have been linked to hundreds of cases of sudden hearing loss around the world.

Elsewhere in the book, she recalled how her future husband gave her marijuana the first night they met, when she was 21, before the pair took part in an orgy.

Crystal claimed that not liking the taste led to her merely pretending to inhale, later discovering that “passing the pot” was Hugh's ritual with all the new women he slept with.

MailOnline has contacted Hugh Hefner's estate for comment.

Five days prior to their first wedding, Crystal called off their engagement so the couple could later rekindle their romance.

The Playboy impresario was previously married to childhood sweetheart Mildred 'Millie' Williams, after tying the knot in 1949.

In his E! True Hollywood Story revealed that Millie allowed the businessman to have extramarital affairs.

According to the show, this was a result of the guilt she felt for being unfaithful while he was in the military between 1944 and 1946.

They welcomed two children into the world during their marriage, Christie and David, before finally calling it quits in 1959.

Hugh married his second wife, Kimberley Conrad, in 1989. During their marriage, the couple had two boys, Marston and Cooper.

The couple separated in 1998, but did not officially sign their divorce papers until 2010.

It comes after Kendra Wilkinson revealed she was 'dying of depression' after struggling with 'unresolved trauma' from living in the Playboy mansion.

Hugh's former girlfriend, 38, recalled being admitted to hospital after suffering a panic attack just four months ago.

“I was at the end of my life and went into psychosis,” she said People“I felt like I wasn't strong enough to live anymore.”

“I was panicking,” she said. 'I didn't know what was going on in my head or my body or why I was crying. I had hit rock bottom.”

The reality TV personality revealed that she is now working with a therapist to deal with her trauma, some of which she believes was caused by living in the Playboy mansion many years earlier.

Since her discharge, she says she is feeling better after being prescribed antipsychotic medication and attending outpatient therapy three times a week.

Thinking back to that time is difficult for her, she said, explaining that she often questions her decisions at the time and wonders why she was with Hefner — who was 60 years her senior.

“I was doing drugs when I was 15 and I had a lot of problems,” she said of her childhood before moving into the Playboy mansion.

“It's not easy to look back at my 20s,” she told the outlet. “I had to face my demons.”

Of that lifestyle, she admitted, “Playboy really ruined my whole life.”

Iceland is on high alert once again after a volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula erupted, just weeks after residents from a nearby town were allowed to return to their homes.

Video footage shows an eruption took place at 7.57am local time today, with magma, smoke and ash spurting high into the sky above the town of Grindavik, 43 miles away from Iceland’s capital Reykjavik. 

The fissure grew many times its initial size within just thirty minutes, meteorologists reported. Geologist Magnús Tumi Guðmundsson told local media that the crack is currently a kilometre (3,280 ft) long, adding that he wasn’t certain when it would stop growing. 

Seismic activity intensified overnight and residents of Grindavik were evacuated around 3am local time, Icelandic public broadcaster RUV reported. The broadcaster also reported that around 200 of the town’s 4,000 residents have elected to stay, despite the warnings. 

The Public Safety Department of the National Police reported that last night, 200 earthquakes were recorded, and the town of Grindavik is understood to have lost power at around 5am. 

‘A crack has opened up on both sides of the dikes that have begun to be built north of Grindavik,’ the Icelandic Meteorological Office said, with an official adding that this morning’s eruption is about a quarter of the size of the one in December. 

A coast guard helicopter has been dispatched to assess the situation, Iceland’s Civil Protection agency said, adding that the evacuation order will likely be in place for the ‘upcoming three weeks.’

The eruption began north of the fishing town of Grindavik, and photos appear to show lava slowly flowing towards the town itself, having bypassed the eruption defences that were set up in the weeks after the December eruption. 

The Icelandic Meteorological Office said that lava is currently just 1,500 ft away from the northernmost houses in the town of Grindavik. 

Police have asked Icelanders not to go anywhere near the eruption, with local police saying: ‘We ask people not to go to the eruption on foot. It is extremely cold outside and the walk is long and the ground is unstable in terms of cracks and other things.

‘In addition, all responders are busy and do not have the manpower to pick up people who leave on foot.

‘The area is dangerous in terms of fissures, gas and more.’

Analysis of departure and arrival schedules for nearby Keflavik Airport shows that flights do not appear to be affected by the news of this morning’s eruption, with no arrivals or departures showing signs of being delayed or cancelled at time of publication. 

Iceland Air, the country’s national carrier, said today: ‘Our schedule and the operation of Keflavík airport are not affected.’

Iceland’s prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir has admitted that today’s eruption was ‘frightening.’

She told local media: ‘It is, of course, frightening to see how close this is to the town. 

‘The Civil Defense has of course been very keen to observe from day to day. Once again, I want to say that it was the right decision to evacuate tonight, even though we expected it wouldn’t happen until tomorrow. 

‘Of course, we have all eyes on this area to ensure the safety of the residents. However, it is quite clear that this is a huge burden for the townspeople. Naturally, the pressure is starting to take its toll on people.

‘As the situation is now, we are seeing that the lava is flowing towards Grindavík. The ramparts, however, may be useful even if the southern part of the fissure extends into them. We are monitoring the situation from minute to minute.’ 

Iceland’s president, Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, meanwhile said in a statement posted to social media: ‘We are still reminded of the power of the forces of nature.

‘And still we hope for the best, as we do everything in our power to ensure people’s lives. 

‘[We are trying] to protect structures to the best of our ability. 

‘Together we Icelanders think warmly of [residents of Grindavik], and everyone who takes care of public protection and operations on the scene. Now we are all tested.’

The last eruption on the peninsula started in the Svartsengi volcanic system on December 18, following the complete evacuation of the town of Grindavik’s 4,000 inhabitants and the closing of the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, a popular tourist spot.

Grindavik was ultimately spared as the lava flowed in a different direction from the town. 

Iceland is home to 33 active volcano systems, the highest number in Europe. While volcanic eruptions aren’t uncommon in Iceland, volcanoes on the Reykjanes peninsula were dormant for 800 years until 2021. 

Lying between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, two of the largest on the planet, Iceland is a seismic and volcanic hot spot as the two plates move in opposite directions. 

In December, thrill-seekers were criticised for venturing towards, not away, from the eruption that forced thousands to flee their homes. 

‘It’s just something from a movie!’ Robert Donald Forrester III, a tourist from the United States, said at the time. 

Four boys named Jói, Halli, Stefán and Stefán, told local media in December that they always head towards eruptions in Reykjanes.

‘We are trying to see the eruption. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any closer. It’s a hobby that we’ve had for four years, attending every single eruption, and we’ll continue to do so.’

For local residents, the emotions are mixed. ‘The town involved might end up under the lava,’ said Ael Kermarec, a French tour guide living in Iceland. ‘It’s amazing to see but, there’s kind of a bittersweet feeling at the moment.’

Despite the obvious dangers, the Ministry of the Environment was forced to issue repeated warnings to those thinking about getting close to the volcano.

‘Think about someone other than yourself and follow the guidelines of the public safety. Please,’ one spokesman begged.

Icelandic Police added: ‘An eruption has begun. We ask people not to be in front of the responders and not to go in the direction of the eruption. It is important that roads and other things are as accessible as possible.’

Police said they had raised their alert level and the country’s civil defence warned the public not to approach the area while emergency personnel assessed the situation.

The December eruption began around 2.4 miles from the town of Grindavik at the Sundhjuka crater, on the Reykjanes peninsula.

Tucked away in an industrial nook of San Francisco is a Norman-style castle, complete with a turret built more than 150 years ago and a toilet in the shape of a throne. 

A documentary by filmmaker Kirsten Dirksen takes viewers inside the walls of Albion Castle, and even she says after living in the city for a decade, she never knew about the stately abode. 

The place is currently owned by Bill Gilbert, a retired San Francisco police officer and real-estate investor, and in the fascinating video tour, his daughter Jennifer leads the way. 

Bill purchased the two bedroom-property for $900,000 in 2012 after it had laid dormant for sometime, and the renovation process involved sprucing up the living spaces along with attending to one of the home’s more unusual features: a network of underground caves which still produce between 8,000 and 10,000 gallons of natural spring water a day.

The castle was built in 1870 by John Hamlin Burnell, a young English immigrant, who saw potential in the natural water supply and had visions of turning the plot into a state-of-the-art brewery. 

A black and white vintage photo of the castle around the time it was built, show how it was surrounded by farmland with no other properties in the vicinity.

Today, however, the castle sits back from a busy road and it is sandwiched amid a patchwork of residential buildings with an industrial dockyard beyond. 

But stepping through the castle’s iron gate into the leafy grounds, Jennifer says it is like venturing into ‘a different universe.’

The main part of the castle was constructed from rock that was excavated while digging the cave network, while wood from the local shipyard was used for support beams and other interior features. 

Burnell’s visions came to life and Albion Ale & Porter Brewery functioned for some time until Prohibition forced the operation to close down in 1919.

The castle was then turned into a new business venture as the Albion Water Company and it served as a bottling plant for drinking water from 1928 until 1947. 

While it was in operation as a water bottling factory, the castle was occupied by an American sculptor named Adrien Voisin and many of his wood carvings, which run from the bannisters to ceiling covings, remain today. 

One of Voisin’s kookier additions was a toilet that looks like a throne.  

In the video tour, Jennifer demonstrates how the unusual lavatory features a wood surround, with a back panel and arm rests with a ceramic ashtray inserted on one side. 

The toilet also ‘plays music’ when you flush it so ‘the whole house can hear.’

Moving along on their tour, other rooms to feature in the short film include the formal dining room, the kitchen with dark wood cabinetry, the large living room with a gothic-style chandelier, and one of the cozy bedrooms with a canopy-style bed. 

The camera crew also climb to the top floor of the castle tower, with this home to a small sitting area with the original apex wood ceiling exposed above.  

Jennifer explains that the top floor of the tower would have originally been used as a storage area for the barely used in the beer making process. 

Moving to the lower levels of the castle, the team tour the cave network with the hand carved stone interiors on show. It is believed that hand picks were used to create the caverns with all of the rock removed in wheelbarrows; an arduous project that would have taken several years. 

Footage shows how the water held in the cisterns is crystal clear and Jennifer says some people have swam in the stone vats with prior permission. 

In 1961 the castle was under threat of demolition because of being adjacent to a road construction plan, but its underground spring waters saved it from peril. 

It was decided that if San Francisco was ever threatened by a nuclear attack, the castle could provide emergency water to residents. 

It is one of the only natural water sources in the city that cannot be contaminated and was established as a historical landmark in 1974.

Before the Gilbert family purchased the castle, it was owned by another artist following Voisin’s occupation and there were plans by local brewers to then relaunch the brewery but these never came to fruition. 

When it hit the market, Bill Gilbert snapped it up, as he had been fascinated by the property his whole life and as a child, his parents would take him to a restaurant over the way where he would spend more time daydreaming about the fortress than on finishing his dinner.  

Today the castle is available to rent for small events but the long-term plan is to bring back the water bottling business to ‘utilize the natural, fresh spring water from the cisterns initiated by the founder.’

Concluding her tour, Jennifer notes that the castle is the ‘sole remaining piece of history’ dating to the time when San Francisco was a swathe of rural land peppered with ranches. 

She adds: ‘There’s no time I think in the modern world to build something like this again.

‘Everything 1704705552 has to be quick and I think they took their time here. [It] was thoughtfully built… I always feel safe here.’