Wednesday 13 November 2013 Property

Transcription

Homes&
Property
Wednesday 13 November 2013
Bright ideas
for bedsits
Interiors
Page 10
NEW HOMES: WORK BEGINS IN BATTERSEA P4 A
AFFORDABLE HOMES IN CAMDEN P7 SPOTLIGHT ON WALTHAMSTOW P30
London’s
burning
Cut fuel bills:
wood burning stoves
JAKE FITZJONES
Page 22
London’s best property search website: homesandproperty.co.uk
2
WEDNESDAY 13 NOVEMBER 2013 EVENING STANDARD
Homes & Property Online
homesandproperty.co.uk with
This week: homesandproperty.co.uk
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search
in partnership with
£600,000: in Acton, W3, this plush, three-bedroom flat is
in a popular gated and portered development. It has high
ceilings, oak floors throughout, a divine kitchen, dining and
living area — where you can wine and dine friends in the
open-plan space — plus a private decked terrace
overlooking a landscaped courtyard. The en suite master
bedroom has fitted Italian wardrobes and its own decked
terrace. Through Faron Sutaria.
£600,000: for a pretty, whitewashed
17th-century home, head to this listed
beauty in Eversley, Hampshire. From
the front it’s a petite package of leaded
windows behind a neat brick wall — but
a gravel driveway sweeps round the
side to a double garage and a third of
an acre of gardens with a large sun
terrace. The house has four bedrooms,
open fires and a family kitchen/
breakfast room, plus a cellar you can
stock with your favourite festive tipple.
Through Carson & Co.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/buyoftheweekacton
O homesandproperty.co.uk/swapever
London buy of the week
for entertaining in style
£38 million: will the buyer of this eight-bedroom house with a
“subterranean sports centre” want something even bigger?
news:
new rules to halt the ‘invasion
of the mega-mansions’
A NORTH London council
has declared war on
builders who bulldoze
unlisted period houses to
make way for multimillionpound super-homes.
Haringey borough says
fine Arts & Crafts houses
have been replaced by
mega-mansions in
The Bishops Avenue,
Hampstead, known as a
“billionaires’ row”, while
other period homes have
Out of town buy
of the week lots of
space to play with
been lost in Courtenay
Avenue nearby, named this
summer as London’s most
expensive suburban street.
The council wants strict
new controls to protect the
best period properties.
But in any case, buyers
planning a “tear down”
project won’t find it cheap.
An eight-bedroom house in
The Bishops Avenue is on
sale through Knight Frank
and Savills for £38 million.
£600,000: it’s off to a busy bed-andbreakfast in the lovely coastal spot of
Teignmouth, South Devon. Thomas
Luny House — a rather grand, early
19th-century listed villa — has four
en suite guest bedrooms and is in a
prime location a short stroll from the
town’s pretty harbour. The house has
a large paved terrace and walled
gardens for guests to enjoy, while the
owners can have three bedrooms of
their own on the second floor. For
sale through Strutt & Parker.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/
lifechangerteignmouth
Faye Greenslade
O Read Ruth Bloomfield’s full story at homesandproperty.co.uk
Win a full-height airbed
Editor:
Janice
Morley
VISIT homesandproperty.
co.uk/rules for details of
our usual promotion rules.
When you respond to
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Life changer this
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Two to give away or buy one for only £89.99
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Advertisement
manager: Mark Wood
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Homes & Property,
Northcliffe House, 2 Derry
Street, Kensington, W8 5TT.
WE HAVE two full-height double
airbeds to give away, plus, if you buy
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Thinking of moving?
We’ve done the research
Discovery:
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Sydenham,
right, to
buzzing
Shoreditch,
our guides
tell the
property
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TAKE a look at our A-Z index of more
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covering London and the commuter
hotspots. The guides are packed with
information on new homes, schools,
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O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/
areaguidesindex
HAVE YOUR SAY: is there an area you
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3
EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 13 NOVEMBER 2013
News Homes & Property
GETTY IMAGES
ÉIS ADELE giving her west London
home a makeover? The Skyfall singer,
who bought a house in Kensington in
the summer, has been looking for
funky furniture and was recently
spotted checking out new interiors
collections in showrooms at the
Chelsea Harbour Design Centre.
The new mum splashed out
£5 million on the house she shares
with partner Simon Konecki, 39, and
their son Angelo. With the Beckhams
as near neighbours, they are in
glamorous company.
GETTY IMAGES
Chelsea girl Adele
Lawrence star
Pattinson should
desert to Dorset
REX FEATURES
By Amira Hashish
Speed up to bag a Barbican treasure
ÉIF THE idea of having one of
London’s cultural hubs on your
doorstep appeals, a flat in Speed
House is the dream. Completed in
1969, this was the first Barbican
terrace block built and it backs
on to leading performing arts venue
the Barbican Centre.
A highly sought-after Type 20 flat is
for sale at £850,000. Designed by
modernist mavericks Chamberlin,
Powell & Bon, many of the original
features remain. The new owners will
never be short of entertainment.
Some of the Barbican Centre’s current
attractions are the Pop Art Design
exhibition and screenings of the
Oscar-tipped film Philomena starring
Judi Dench, plus nightly concerts in
the upcoming London Jazz Festival.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/barb
11853*5/10*
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King
Jared
wants
an heir
Got some
gossip?
Tweet
@amiranews
ÉKINGS OF LEON bassist
Jared Followill is selling his
luxurious home.
The Grammy Awardwinning rocker, with wife
Martha Patterson, above,
has put the property in
Nashville, Tennessee, on
the market for £2.1 million.
If the asking price is
reached, the musician
stands to make a healthy
É ROBERT PATTINSON is researching his new role as Lawrence of Arabia
for 2015 film Queen of the Desert.
The Barnes-born actor, 27, will star
with Nicole Kidman and James Franco
in the drama based on the extraordinary life of Lawrence’s colleague, the
traveller Gertrude Bell.
Ahead of filming, Pattinson, star of
the Twilight vampire movie
franchise, should visit the Dorset
village of Moreton, near Lawrence’s
weekend cottage, Clouds Hill. There
he will find Moreford Hall, a sixbedroom Victorian mansion,
pictured below, for sale for
£1,275,000 through Jackson-Stops
& Staff.
The house stands in woodland at
the top of a sweeping gravel drive
and comes with a self-contained
guest flat.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/more
profit as he bought the
place for £1.1 million in
2005. It has five bedrooms,
five bathrooms, a cinema,
snooker room and outdoor
gym. Now that Followill is
married to supermodel
Martha his priorities are
changing. The couple are
said to be keen to have a
baby and want a more
family-friendly base.
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4
Homes & Property New homes
Where the eagle lands, the
Battersea’s rebirth begins today as
work starts on a new US embassy
and plans for the power station
and 25 other major projects are
unveiled, says David Spittles
C
From the top:
computer image,
left, of a
proposed lift and
viewing deck in
one of the
refurbished
chimneys at
Battersea Power
Station
Aiming high:
architectural
plans for the
power station
complex include
a “garden square
in the sky”
Vital green
space: a turbine
hall roof garden,
in the shadow
of an iconic
Battersea Power
Station chimney
Retail heaven:
shopping is an
intrinsic part of
the mix at
Battersea, where
a turbine hall
becomes a
smart new mall
ONSTRUCTION of the new
American embassy at Nine
Elms, Battersea, starts today,
putting the spotlight firmly
on an exciting new era in
London’s largest regeneration zone.
“Nine Elms will change faster and
more dramatically than any other part
of London over the next decade,” says
Ravi Govindia, leader of Wandsworth
council. After several false dawns, the
transformation of 195 precious hectares into a sparkling new waterfront
district is at last not just under way, but
in its stride.
The imminent arrival of the Americans is spurring the relocation of other
diplomatic missions south of the river.
The Dutch embassy is also moving to
Nine Elms and the Chinese government
has shortlisted the area for its new
embassy. Blue chip corporations are
likely to follow, which will boost
Battersea’s investment appeal.
Coinciding with ground works for the
glass-cube US embassy designed by
Kieran Timberlake Architects is the
unveiling of architectural designs for
the long-awaited refurbishment of
Battersea Power Station, while opening
next week is a public inquiry into the
government-backed Northern line
extension that will bring two new Tube
stations to the area by 2019.
The first residents of this emerging
neighbourhood have arrived too, with
completion of The Tower, One St
George Wharf, a 52-storey, cylindrical
skyscraper alongside Vauxhall Bridge.
All 211 apartments, including a megapenthouse described as “a super-yacht
in the sky” which occupies an entire
floor of the building, were snapped up
off-plan at prices in excess of £2,000 a
square foot — three times the value of
property in the area five years ago.
All in all, 25 major building projects
have been given the green light. More
than 1,000 homes are under construction, a further 10,000 have planning
permission and another 5,000 are in
the pipeline.
Heart of the new
neighbourhood:
the arrival of the
glass-cube US
embassy is
spurring a
stampede south
of the river
Manhattan
style: homes at
Embassy
Gardens, left.
How the new US
embassy will
look inside, right
A DISTRICT BUILT TO LAST
As well as the Tube, the area’s gyratory
system is being redesigned and a new
Thames footbridge is planned, with
landing points near the US embassy
and Dolphin Square in Pimlico.
Other public realm works include a
linear park, inspired by New York’s
much-praised Highline project, a milelong aerial greenway on an elevated
section of disused railway. The park
will be the pedestrian spine of this new
district, passing through Embassy
Gardens, a complex of 1,982 homes that
will form a horseshoe around the new
American embassy.
Rather than a solitary skyscraper,
Embassy Gardens has buildings of
varying height and character, influenced by the architecture of Manhatt an’s Meatpacking Di stric t and
London’s Edwardian mansion blocks
— constructed of brick rather than glass
and steel to suggest permanence and
solidity, with communal courtyards and
planted roofs. The scheme will have a
resort-style spa, a private club and business centre plus bars, a restaurant and
a Waitrose store. Prices have yet to be
released. Call 0800 404 9009.
Nearby Riverlight has 806 apartments in five slender buildings up to
20 storeys, each topped by doubleheight duplexes shaped like the prow
of a ship. Prices from £680,000 for a
one-bedroom apartment. Call St James
on 020 7870 9620. Other key sites
include Royal Mail’s 13-acre central
London depot, where 2,000 homes
are earmarked, and the £2 billion
makeover of New Covent Garden Market, which will have homes alongside
a Borough Market-style food quarter,
while a joint venture between Barratt
and Sainsbury will bring 750 homes
next to and above the new Northern
line station at Wandsworth Road.
Mayor Boris Johnson’s designation of
Nine Elms as an “opportunity area” has
enabled quicker-than- expec ted
progress through a fast-track planning
framework. Land swallowed up by
5
New homes Homes & Property
p y
rest come flocking
From £680,000:
for a onebedroom
apartment at
the Riverlight
development
by St James in
Nine Elms (020
7870 9620)
Pizza the action:
Duncan Stirling
and Charlie
Gilkes, right,
opened Bunga
Bunga pizzeria in
the “mini
Shoreditch” near
Battersea Bridge
as with the Stratford property market
in the run-up to the 2012 Games,” says
one.
Buoyant developers are aggressively
marketing flats abroad and pushing up
prices with each new phase in the
UK.
Traditionally the area’s Achilles’ heel
has been the absence of a Tube line —
the river gets horribly in the way — but
the Northern line spur from Kennington will plug Battersea into the network
for the first time and help to unlock the
grimier hinterland.
FRINGE BENEFITS
factory sheds and light industrial
premises has been reclassified to commercial and residential use, creating
so-called “development value”.
It will likely be 20 years before the
transformation is complete, meaning
home buyers will have to commit to the
area for the longer term in order to reap
the benefits of better amenities and
infrastructure.
Some sceptical property insiders
predict an oversupply of homes which
may deflate prices in the future.
“Given the scale and time frame of
the regeneration, mini cycles are likely,
Nine Elms is framed by the Thames and
a snaking railway viaduct where adjoining land has been colonised by car
mechanics and scrap metal dealers.
A longer-term council objective is to
refurbish and open up derelict railway
arches and upgrade the sprawling area
the other side of the tracks, east
towards Wandsworth Road, a patch
already being targeted by bargainhungry home buyers.
Redevelopment of a Sixties-built
college into a scheme of 231 flats called
This Space proved a hit with young
buyers. And nearing completion on the
same lively strip of Wandsworth Road
is Stewarts Lodge — 33 apartments
priced from £315,000. Call Henley
REBECCA REID
Snapped up: 211
apartments at
The Tower,
One St George
Wharf, alongside
Vauxhall Bridge,
include a
mega-penthouse
Homes on 020 7401 8777. An earlier
wave of regeneration between Albert
Bridge and Battersea Bridge has
resulted in a smart residential quarter
around which is a growing community
of creative-sector companies and the
Royal College of Art’s new campus. “It’s
a mini Shoreditch,” says Charlie Gilkes,
29, co-founder of Bunga Bunga, a kitsch
pizzeria and late-night karaoke
venue.
Old Etonian Gilkes, a friend of
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie,
opened the business with Duncan
Stirling following their success with
Maggie’s Eighties-themed nightclub in
Fulham Road, and Barts, an Americanstyle speakeasy in Sloane Avenue.
The old village is just discernible
around pretty Battersea Square, a
cobbled hub at the top of the high street
that butts up against council estates
and conservation areas. Among the
latter is the sought-after “Little India”
enclave, with road names straight out
of the Raj — Cabul, Afghan, Khyber and
Candahar.
So reborn Nine Elms will not sit in
splendid isolation. But it could well be
the last time the capital will see the
creation of a completely new district
built where none existed before — and
within a mile of the Palace of Westminster and Sloane Square.
6
Homes & Property London life
‘It’s time we lowered our sights’
The campaign is
growing for a return
to traditional streets
and squares but City
Hall is still in love with
tower blocks, says
Harry Phibbs
Lambeth walk: Oval Quarter, in the
Myatts Field North redevelopment
The Aylesbury Estate
redevelopment, Southwark
The marketing name is Albany
Place, and the project incorporates
127 private homes, 15 for
intermediate rent, 18 shared
ownership, and 101 affordable.
The second phase is called Burgess
Terrace and private sale prices there
start at £320,000 for a onebedroom home. Visit lqgroup.org.
uk/burgessterrace.
B
ORIS JOHNSON’S plans to
give L ondoners betterdesigned homes will make it
more difficult to tear down
ugly tower blocks, according
to a new think tank.
Create Streets claims to have found
“multiple biases” against restoring
terrace streets in the Mayor’s London
Housing Design Guide, which is
intended to encourage good-quality
and “more beautiful” house building.
Fifties and Sixties town planners are
blamed for the often wholesale destruction of London’s Victorian terraces as
part of “slum clearance”. Today such
homes, once considered unfit for
human habitation, are sought after.
The high-rise estates that replaced
terraces were received initially with
excitement. However, disillusionment
soon set in. “The vast majority of
people want to live in houses in streets,”
says Nicholas Boys Smith of Create
Streets, which published its first report
with the Policy Exchange Tory think
tank earlier this year. “Only a small
minority favour multistorey estates, and
those who impose them on society
rarely choose to live in them.”
FRIENDLY STREETS WORK BEST
Create Streets insists tower blocks are
not essential for high density. “Low-rise
Kensington and Chelsea is one of the
highest-density boroughs in the
country,” says Boys Smith.
The group cites the Olympic Park as a
prime example of how lessons have not
been learned. More than 8,000 new
homes are being built on the site of the
Games legacy: Chobham Manor, in the foreground, on the Olympic Park site, promises family-size terrrace and mews houses
2012 Games but the project has received
mixed reactions. London Assembly
member Andrew Boff calls for more
conventional housing in his report,
Radically Normal, and suggests the
London Legacy Development Corporation “has a good vision of the future for
the Olympic Park as one of predominantly family-orientated neighbourhoods”. He says: “Chobham Manor, the
first neighbourhood to be built at the
park, embodies this vision: 70 per cent
of the homes will be family sized.” It is
to be a “traditional family neighbourhood of terrace and mews houses, set
within tree-lined avenues”.
However, two other neighbourhoods
in the village, Sweetwater and Pudding
Mill Lane, have tower blocks, while the
overall plan for the development is a
#
LONDON’S NEWEST
STREETS
“mush of compromise and inconsistency”, say critics, who claim City Hall
accepts tower blocks are generally
unloved and that there is no financial
imperative for them, yet insists on
including new ones in the mix.
WHO WANTS TO LIVE IN A BOX?
The Aylesbury Estate in Southwark is
being redeveloped and in the first
phase, architects Levitt Bernstein Associates, working for L&Q housing association, have reintroduced historic
street patterns and fairly low-rise housing, ranging from two to 10 storeys. The
mix of one-bedroom and family homes
includes private and social housing and
the Harvard Gardens phase has “continuous street frontages with front and
back areas”. Traditionalists probably
won’t like the boxy-looking, flat-roofed
new buildings: function apparently
trumps beauty. Lambeth shows the
same trend with the redevelopment of
the Myatts Field North estate. The first
phase, Oval Quarter, “pays homage to
the past, with traditional street patterns,
the reinstatement of a lost London
square, and the reinvigoration of a local
park”. There will be “striking contemporary architecture” though “classical”
design is promised in later phases.
A project that has got the mix about
right, says Create Streets, is Highbury
Gardens in Islington, a mixed-tenure
scheme from developer First Base using
neoclassical architects Porphyrios Associates. It is widely considered a beautiful
courtyard development featuring
balconies and brick.
Oval Quarter, Lambeth
This scheme provides for 808
new-build homes and the
modernisation and refurbishment
of 172 existing properties.
The first private-sale homes, by
Higgins Homes, were launched in
September.
Prices for these one- and twobedroom apartments start from
£272,500.
Visit ovalquarter.com or call 020
8498 6001 for further information.
Kidbrooke Village, Greenwich
Berkeley’s £1 billion development
will offer 4,800 new homes, private
and social, including 1,525
affordable, in four neighbourhoods.
Units are available now in
Blackheath Quarter, off-plan in
Meridian Gate, and some in future
phases. Current prices include from
£212,500 for a Manhattan Suite in
Meridian Gate, and from £295,000
for a one-bedroom apartment in
Blackheath Quarter.
Visit kidbrookevillage.co.uk or call
020 8150 5151.
" #
"#
!
7
Affordable homes Homes & Property
LOWER ENERGY BILLS
Combining form and function, the
white-walled interiors have full-height
doors, sensor lights and timber flooring
throughout, while a ventilation heat
recovery and air-filtration system
Camden
is roaring
back with
showpiece
bargains
Top architects are creating new,
energy-efficient homes in the
borough that won’t break
the bank, says David Spittles
From £300,000:
Chester Balmore,
inside and out,
below. The 53
energy-efficient
homes are a mix
of council and
private tenure
avoids the need for wall-hugging radiators. Passivhaus design reduces
energy costs by up to 75 per cent. Prices
start at £300,000. Twenty six of the
flats are for private sale while four are
shared-ownership for those earning
£35,000 to £39,000 and living or working in the borough. It is a car-free
scheme, meaning no on-site parking
and residents do not qualify for street
permits. Call 020 3320 8220.
This is the first time the council has
built new housing for private sale, with
the proceeds invested back into the
neighbourhoods in the form of new
low-cost housing, public realm
improvements, open spaces and new
shops and community facilities.
ARCHITECT IN RESIDENCE
Over the years, many of Camden’s best
council houses have been snapped up
under the Right to Buy. But affordable
resales appear on the market. A onebedroom flat at the architecturally
prized Whittington Estate sold for
£295,500 this year. Gavin Miller,
project architect of neighbouring Chester Balmore, lives at the Whittington.
Other mixed-tenure Camden projects
coming up include Maiden Lane at
King’s Cross, Bourne Estate in Clerkenwell, Tybalds Estate in Holborn,
Abbey Road, just north of St John’s
Wood, Bacton Estate at Gospel Oak
and Agar Grove, Camden Town.
New affordable homes are also being
created as part of the redevelopment
of Centre Point, the iconic Sixties West
End office tower.
With an average house price of
£806,414, Camden is the third most
expensive London borough, but housing associations are offering far
cheaper homes. Forty per cent of properties at King’s Cross Central, a new
district being built on redeveloped
railway land behind the station, are
classified affordable, for rent and
shared ownership. These are available
through One Housing Group, which is
releasing apartment blocks in phases.
Call 0300 123 9966.
Origin Housing is also worth contacting. It owns and manages properties at
developments such as Regent’s Place,
a 13-acre office, retail and residential
quarter alongside Euston station. Call
0800 068 8990.
Location, location: Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury has featured in Prime Suspect and The Sweeney
ESHomesAndProperty
C
AMDEN’S architec ture
department, in an all-toobrief period of glory
between 1965 and 1973,
built social housing so
pioneering it drew admirers from
around the world.
Inspired by the modernist master Le
Corbusier, the borough triumphed with
high-quality council housing on a series
of low-rise concrete estates, including
Bloomsbury’s Brunswick Centre and
Rowley Way. Loved as film locations,
you can spot these estates in The
Sweeney and Prime Suspect, and in the
movie Breaking and Entering. Now,
these same homes appear in Brutal and
Beautiful, an exhibition celebrating the
best of postwar architecture showing at
Wellington Arch near Hyde Park.
Today, Camden is back building
showpiece housing schemes that mix
public and private tenure, with about
1,200 new homes in the pipeline.
Chester Balmore is the first of these
new developments, built to energyefficient “Passivhaus” standards in
Highgate, bordering the cemetery and
a Victorian library. Designed by Rick
Mather Architects, more often associated with high-profile international
projects, there are 53 super-insulated,
triple-glazed one- to three-bedroom
flats in elegant brick-clad blocks amid
the surroundings of the Dartmouth
Park conservation area.
All the homes have identical specifications. They are dual aspect, have outside space, and some are spread over
two floors with a front door on to communal gardens or tree-lined street.
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8
Homes & Property Christmas renting
H
CELEBRATE IN THE CITY
Hurlingham Road, a townhouse in
Fulham, sleeps 10. Priced £546 a night
over Christmas week.
DODGE the hordes leaving the city by
renting a home in central London and
enjoy the novelty of empty streets, no
queues for restaurants and front-row
passes to the Christmas sales.
Hurlingham Road is a glamorous
five-bedroom townhouse in Fulham
with French grey paint, pale oak floors
and impressive art on the walls. It is
home to a French-Portuguese couple
and their three trilingual children who
rent it out when they are away visiting
their own relatives in Europe.
OThrough Onefinestay (onefinestay.
com; 020 3468 5909)
Home from home: shun the great getaway and enjoy Hurlingham Road in Fulham
APPINESS, said
American actor George
Burns, is having a large,
loving, caring, close-knit
family... in another city.
Once a year though, the clarion call
of Christmas means that we have to
confront the reality of our own
family, probably for more than 24
hours and preferably all in the same
house.
But whose house do you choose?
For some families it is an easy
decision based on who has the most
space, but how about Plan B, where
you all chip in and choose a
Christmas holiday home? Neutral
territory with, hopefully, enough
pampering interior design to give
everyone the feelgood (with your
relatives) factor.
FOR ACTIVE FAMILIES
Leave home at Christmas
. . . but take the family, too
Spread the festive feelgood factor and rent a
luxury home for Christmas. That’s sure to keep
the whole family happy, says Cathy Hawker
The Inn at John O’Groats sleeps up to
54 in one- to four-bedroom apartments,
priced from £80 a night in Christmas
week.
FOR some individual privacy within a
community setting, how about
Natural Retreats’ The Inn at John
O’Groats? After a complete facelift,
the iconic hotel in the north of
Scotland has 23 super-comfy one- to
four-bedroom flats, the latest part of
a £6 million regeneration project.
Outside there is plenty to do — from
a boat ride along the coast spotting
orca and minke whales and grey
seals, to fishing in nearby lochs,
diving on wrecks, hiking along Shell
Beach or taking a day trip to Orkney.
ONatural Retreats (naturalretreats.
com; 0843 636 4308)
FOR HISTORY BUFFS
Wainman House, Cambridgeshire,
sleeps 10 from £896 for three
nights, and £1,234 for three nights
in Christmas week.
STAY in carefully restored
Wainman House in Wisbech and
you get a four-floor, six-bedroom
Georgian townhouse in a row of
merchant houses with thoroughly
modern plumbing. There’s free
entry to the National Trust’s
nearby Peckover House and
Garden and it’s an easy stroll to
several pubs and restaurants.
The North Norfolk coast is a day
trip away, as are National Trust
properties in East Anglia
including Blickling Hall, Ickworth
House, Anglesey Abbey and the
Anglo Saxon royal burial site at
Sutton Hoo.
ONational Trust Cottages
(nationaltrustcottages.co.uk
0844 800 2070)
Georgian dream: Wainman House
JUST THE TWO OF US
Stardust, a Scottish loch-side retreat
for two with hot tub, costs £1,600 for
seven nights over Christmas;
Turtledove Hideaway, a cosy cottage
for two in Shropshire, is £850 for a
week at Christmas.
NOT sold on the family reunion?
9
Christmas renting Homes & Property
Cornish cream: four-poster and glorious views at Little Polgarron, Booby’s Bay
BEAUTY AND THE BEACH
Little Polgarron, a modern Cornish
beach house, sleeps 10 from £4,050
for four nights, and £8,500 for seven
nights over Christmas week.
£9,995: sleep 18 for five days over
Christmas at Flore Manor, set in 19
acres of landscaped gardens in
There are some great options for an
escape à deux. Stardust in the
Western Highlands, a 90-minute drive
from Inverness, is a former
boathouse-turned-splendid bolthole.
Sip champagne in the hot tub as you
watch otters and seals play in Loch
Ewe. From £850 for four nights. Or try
Northamptonshire. Includes a
cinema, billiard room and easy
access to Towcester races on Boxing
Turtledove Hideaway, a cosy
Shropshire cottage for two decorated
in Farrow & Ball colours, with fine
linen sheets and the squishiest bed.
From £385 for four nights.
OBoth through Unique Home Stays
(uniquehomestays.com; 01637 881183)
CORNWALL is not just for summer
— its beaches can be life-affirming
on a blustery December day, too.
Little Polgarron sleeps 10 and has
interiors sourced by Jill Stein who,
with her ex-husband — the TV chef
Day. Through The Wow House
Company (thewowhousecompany.
co.uk; 01242 220006)
SLEEK SOPHISTICATION
The Find sleeps 12 in the Cotswolds near
Cheltenham, from £2,600 for four
nights. A week over Christmas is £7,950.
TAKE a traditional listed Cotswolds
cottage, add a stone extension that
features floor-to-ceiling glass, plus a
minimalist, all-white theme and you
get the most sophisticated pad for a
family reunion. The Find, designed
by Found Associates, was a Royal
Institute of British Architects
National Award winner last year.
Children will love exploring the 16acre wooded valley outside, while
teenagers will hunker down in the
Rick — rules most of nearby
Padstow. The newly built house
faces Booby’s Bay on one side and
Trevose Golf Course on the other,
has five en suite bedrooms, a
fabulous cinema room and a dining
table facing the Atlantic for a
memorable Christmas feast.
OThrough SimonEscapes
(simonescapes.com; 07595 466955)
games and cinema rooms. There’s a
rooftop terrace, six bedrooms and
gleaming Corian-lined bathrooms, all
of which, despite the pale colour
scheme, makes for a wonderfully
welcoming, family-friendly house.
OUnique Home Stays (as before)
LUXURIOUS WINTER SUN
Dar Ourika, near Marrakesh, sleeps 14.
Priced £14,000 for seven nights in
Christmas week.
Buying a home with a friend in East Village London gets you on the
property ladder and makes excellent financial sense. Within walking
distance of the Olympic Park, shops, restaurants and cafes in Stratford
City and superb transport links, this is the best of London Living.
Monthly outgoings from £710
(based on two sharing).*
FOR warm sunshine and turkey with
an exotic twist, head south to
Marrakesh where December daytime
temperatures average 19C.
Dar Ourika is 25 minutes from both
the airport and the Atlas Mountains
in a quiet valley, but with easy access
to Marrakesh. There are seven
bedrooms split between two houses
with a pool and tennis court, a roof
terrace with fireplace for the chilly
evenings and three acres of gardens
planted by a double gold winner at
Chelsea Flower Show.
Best of all, you can hire the skills of
three full-time housekeepers under
the vigilant eyes of magnificent Aziz,
who will arrange anything from a trip
to a Berber market to a shopping
expert to guide you through the
Medina — or simply serve you sweet
mint tea in the garden.
OThrough Scott Williams
(scottwilliams.co.uk; 01963 33046)
020 3714 2160
[email protected]
Showhomes and marketing
office now open.
Triathlonhomes.com
* Based on buying a 30% share of a 2 bed apartment via shared ownership, with £5000 deposit each and a 25 year mortgage.
Tan-tastic: spend Christmas by the
pool at Dar Ourika in Marrakesh
10
Fight the winter
gloom with furniture
in fashion colours
at affordable prices
and turn a bedsit
into a big style
statement, says
Amira Hashish
Purple, pretty, practical: Barker and Stonehouse’s two-seater Freya sofa (£499)
W
ITH winter drawing
in, this is the perfect
time to bring warm
colours and cosiness
to your living space.
This season’s catwalks offer a good
starting point for finding patterns
and hues, with tartan right on trend.
From Vivienne Westwood to Marc
Jacobs, every designer worth their
salt is incorporating plaid into
clothing and accessories. And
colours are hot: from ripe purples
and spicy oranges to luscious limes.
Here’s how we took up a restyling
challenge at a one-room West End
apartment. You, too, can get this look
from the high street...
4
3
1 SNUG AS A BUG
Plantation Rug Company mixes
traditional weaves with looks
inspired by fashion favourites and
releases new collections each season.
Its 100 per cent wool tartan range
features electrifying bold stripes
crossed with strong colour blocks,
and proved ideal for our room (£150£375; plantationrug.co.uk).
2
9
2 AND SO TO BED
Make sure the bed is comfortable but
not too cumbersome. The Metz
wooden bedstead (£159.99) and
Poppy Pocket spring mattress
(£369.99) from Dreams that we chose
are good value (dreams.co.uk). The
NICK HOLT
Homes & Property Interiors on a budget
1
Big style for
unfussy design is not too imposing
and there is decent space for underbed storage. Make it extra soft and
sumptuous with a Cotton Embrace
duvet (from £45), easily washable
Spundown pillows (£18 each) and
bouncy Vitality pillows (£10 each)
from The Fine Bedding Company
(finebedding.co.uk). Bed linen offers
a cheap and cheerful way to alter the
room frequently. We went for the
Primark purple option — a bargain at
£12 (primark.co.uk). For something
more detailed try John Lewis’s Yoko
range (from £50; johnlewis.com).
3 CRAZY FOR CUSHIONS
Scatter cushions on the bed and sofa.
B&Q’s Carpel chenille range (£9.98
each; diy.com) comes in blueberry,
green and ecru. Cotton Bobby
cushions from Ragged Rose in lime
and purple are trimmed with
matching bobble pompoms (£20
each; raggedrose.com). Work in
some animal prints. Sian Zeng’s
hedgehog cushions in pink and
yellow (£60 each; sianzeng.com) are
a good find. Central Saint Martins
graduate Zeng is a celebrity favourite
whose interiors are stocked in the
Southbank Centre Shop and
Anthropologie. It is worth browsing
Graduate Collection, a website that
works with exciting new designers
from UK universities. The Fox Head
cushions in mauve and grey (£45
each; graduatecollection.co.uk) are
ideal. Also look for the Squirrel and
Button options (£40 each). House of
Fraser’s Linea Mrs Squirrel and Mr
Fox knitted cushions (£25; houseof
fraser.co.uk) or squirrel pillows from
Are Aware (£28; areaware.com) are
fun alternatives. For the tartan effect,
Take a pew: purple stool, £7, from
Tiger Stores (tigerstores.co.uk)
buy ScotlandShop’s Estate Tweed
covers (£80; scotlandshop.com).
4 CURTAIN RAISER
Renters who aren’t allowed to change
the colour of their walls or hang
pictures can change the shade and
texture of curtains to create a
completely different vibe. John
Lewis’s faux silk lined Eyelet curtains
(£60-£90; johnlewis.com) feel
sensual and are easy to fit. The cassis
colour adds warmth. These wellpriced drapes are also available in
duck egg and mocha. For something
more daring try Digetex’s OMG or
Talk Talk roller blinds (£119; digetex.
com).
5 BRIGHT LIGHTS
Go for low-budget lighting. The Vidja
lamp (£16) in green and Klabb lilac
lamp (£25) tie in well with this look
(both from ikea.com). For bigger
spaces try Not On the High Street’s
Tripod floor lamp with a neon shade
(£190; notonthehighstreet.com).
Graham and Green’s purple Jewel
base (£85; grahamandgreene.co.uk)
or Ferruccio Laviani’s Kartell Take
11
Interiors on a budget Homes & Property
5
6
8
7
small rooms
table lamp (£64, heals.co.uk) also fit
the bill. Shop around for more
bargains such as Homebase’s Colour
Match touch lamps (£11.24) or Graham
and Green’s olive Mushroom lamp
(£19.80; grahamandgreen.co.uk).
Go for bold colours and avoid too
much detail for a stronger look.
Prints should serve a purpose. For
example, the tartan style of the
Gosford grape lamp shade we have
used (£39.99; notonthe
highstreet.com) matches the
rug, sofa and throws.
6 SOFA SO GOOD
Flexibility is key for
short-term living so keep
the sofa plain, using
cushions and accessories for
different effects. Barker
and Stonehouse, the
largest independent
furniture retailer in the UK,
has a great selection of
sofas. Browse its Battersea
store for a range of looks
from vintage to industrial.
The Harborough twoseater subtly matches our
tartan touches and is
down from £1,429 to £999
in a special autumn offer.
It has a handmade frame,
solid oak feet and comes in a
choice of finishes. If colour
appeals, go for the Freya
two-seater (£499;
barkerandstonehouse.co.uk).
7 PRACTICALLY
PERFECT
It’s not all about the decor, you
need practical items, too,
preferably with multiple
uses. The Ingatorp table
and two chairs (£170) can
double up as desk and
dining table. The Oltedal bedside
table (£25) will age gracefully because
of its real wood veneer. And the Malm
chest of drawers in black-brown (£45)
is a must. All at ikea.com.
8 FINISHING TOUCHES
Complete the makeover with the right
accessories. Tiger Stores’ great range
of well-priced items includes the
Stumtjener coat tree (£20),
purple and orange floral bins
(£7 each) and decorative letters
(from £3; tigerstores.co.
uk). The tartan desk
tidy (£48), photo
frame (£25) and
magazine holder
(£29.50) in our
makeover are from
chiamaria.com.
Organise jewellery and
make-up with Ikea’s Pallra
boxes (£12 for four). Keep it
seasonal with a natural cone
garland (£22; notonthehighstreet.
com) and Linea hedgehog
doorstop (£18; houseoffraser.co.
uk). A Shade Wilder has cool
decor on its site and the Orbit
circular mirror in mandarin (£150,
ashadewilder.com) suits our look.
9 FINAL COLOUR DABS
Ragged Rose’s green pouffe
(£180, as before) adds a splash of
colour. And for extra flower
power choose the purple and
champagne-coloured Dahlia
(from £79) from lornasyson.com.
The designer’s handmade
flowers are easily hung up on the
wall using small eyelets in the
back of the petals, and can be
vacuum cleaned.
Tidy: Tiger Stores’ coat tree
in orange, £20 (as before)
Print it: Button print cushion, above, £40 from Graduate Collection (graduatecollection.co.uk); above centre, Estate Tweed
cushion cover from ScotlandShop (£80; scotlandshop.com); above right, Digetex’s OMG roller blind (£119; digetex.com)
16
Homes & Property Reader promotion
O The companies
listed here
are wholly
independent of the
Evening Standard.
Care is taken to
establish that they
are bona fide but
we recommend that
you carry out your
own checks prior to
purchases and use
a credit card
where possible.
If you wish to offer
feedback on any of
these companies,
email homesand
property@
standard.co.uk
with “Bargain
News” in the
subject line.
For details of more
bargains, visit
alisonathome.com
or homesand
property.co.uk/
offers.
Barga
B
Barg
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You’ve bean there, done that,
so it’s time to do it again
Fine dining
DRESS your Christmas dining table
with a sophisticated, muted
aubergine velvet runner, newly
launched at Alison at Home. The
diamond-quilted runner has a
scalloped edge and suits most table
sizes at 30cm x 200cm. A matching
set of four placemats is available.
Readers get 10 per cent off, making
the price of the runner £23.85 and
the placemats set £26.55. To claim,
visit alisonathome.com and use code
VEL1311 before November 27.
BEAN bags are back in
fashion and Ambient
Lounge has some inspiring
designs. Perfect for
relaxing in your living
room, home cinema or
study, the Studio Lounger
Interiors bean bags are
made from premiumquality fabric to give form
and stability.
Or if you’re looking for
quirky and comfortable
garden seating for next
summer, choose the
Elements Studio Lounger
bean bag made from
waterproof fabric.
Readers get 40 per cent
off when purchasing either
the Studio Lounger
Interiors (£89.40 including
the discount) or the
Elements Studio Lounger
(£83.40 including the
discount).To claim your
offer, visit ambientlounge.
co.uk or call 0844 870 0186
and use code Studio40
before November 21.
It’s a cherry
smart chair
Feel at Liberty to
cuddle a cushion
ENJOY classic design with a
modern twist in the Bouji
Chair from Made.com,
seen here upholstered in
cherry-coloured velvet.
The contemporary colour
perfectly complements the
traditional shape and
button detailing, creating a
fun statement piece.
By sourcing high-end
designs direct from the
makers, Made.com is able
to cut out the middleman
and offer much lower
GET cosy this winter by embracing
the 15 per cent discount on Amy
Eliza’s cushions, accessories and
throws. The designer uses end-ofline Liberty Print and antique
fabrics to create truly unique pieces
for your home. The Speckled
Sunlight cushion, above, is priced at
£63.75 including reader discount.
You can also make the most of the
company’s bespoke service to
create a customised bed throw.
To claim your offer, visit amyeliza.
com or call 07852 233 367and use
code ES2729 before November 27.
Hold
an open
house
BISQUE
Our gorgeous new Tetro radiator is
the first cast aluminium radiator of
its kind. Made from entirely recycled
aluminium, it has a quick response
time making it energy efficient.
Available in six elegant finishes.
Ask in store for more details.
244 Belsize Road, London NW6 4BT
T: 020 7328 2225
Open: Mon to Fri 9 – 5
prices to its customers.
This chair is available for
only £199.
Readers can enjoy a
further £15 off all orders
over £100. To claim your
offer, visit made.com and
use code MADEFORBG
before December 1. Not to
be used in conjunction
with other offers.
Sat 11 – 4
www.bisque.co.uk
PLANNING to open up the back of
your house? Ayrton Bespoke is
offering readers 15 per cent off all
of its stunning multi-fold doors. Made
to measure, they can feature a
combination of glazing bars and solid
panels and include contemporary
updates such as energy-saving
double glazing, allowing you to cut
those heating bills.
All products are designed around
your space and come fully finished in
any paint colour, with insurancebacked locks and 10-year guarantee.
Alison
Cork
To claim your discount call 020 8877
8920, visit ayrtonbespoke.com,
email enquiries@ayrtonbespoke.
com, or visit the London showroom
at 406 Merton Road, Wandsworth
and use code AYRES1311 before
November 30.
22
Homes & Property Interiors
homesandproperty
Make a stand:
Jøtul’s F167
Defra-approved
compact wood
burning stove,
left, from £2,197.
At Croydon
Fireplaces (020
8684 1495;
jotuluk.com)
Focal point:
Hwan insert
stove right, from
Euroheat. About
£2,276 at Croydon
Fireplaces (as
before) and
Marble Hill
Fireplaces in
Twickenham
(020 8892 1488)
London’s
BURNING
As their fuel bills soar,
Londoners are turning
to new green, cosy
and cost-effective
wood burning
stoves, discovers
Barbara Chandler
Cream of the crop: the Beaumont stove from Chesney’s, from £835, plus VAT
A
S GAS and electricity prices
rise by an average eight per
cent this month there has
never been a better time to
invest in a wood burning
stove. Sales of wood burners have
jumped by a third since this time last
year, says London fireplace specialist
Chesney’s. Installing one could save you
about £300 a year — though the initial
cost, including fitting, is generally
upwards of £2,000.
Strict clean-air regulations deterred
London home owners from buying wood
burning stoves in the past. However,
today’s models have become so green
and “clean” that most are exempt from
the rules. To find out more visit the
Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs website at defra.gov.uk.
“Wood is sustainable and carbon
neutral, and efficiency in a stove can be
as much as 85 per cent,” says Chesney’s
director, Paul Chesney. “Compare this to,
at best, 25 per cent for an open fire.”
Design, too, is a powerful attraction.
The Scandinavians consistently lead the
way, taking stoves as a matter of course.
Morsø, has been making stoves in
Denmark for more than 160 years,
coming to the UK in 1971. About four
fifths of the enquiries it receives are from
women aged 25 to 44. “They see stoves
as room furniture, too,” says Morsø UK’s
Declan Walsh.
Cast iron is a traditional stove material,
and steel offers curvy, streamlined
shapes. New technology keeps large
glass panels clean — “so you really can
enjoy the beauty of a log fire”, adds
Walsh. Find Morsø at Natural Fires of
Catford, SE6 (020 8461 5006, naturalfires.net); Croydon Fireplaces (020 8684
1495); Kindle Energy, Teddington (020
8973 3995, kindlestoves.com); and
Galleon Fireplaces, Surbiton (020 8241
5700, galleonfireplaces.co.uk).
Jøtul from Norway is another popular
Scandinavian brand, established for 150
years, and also in the UK since the early
Seventies. It is stocked by Croydon
Fireplaces (as before) and loved for
traditional features including Gothic
windows and filigree cast iron, now
updated with enamel coatings in elegant
white or dashing colours. Find more
stockists by visiting jotuluk.com or
calling 01527 506010.
British Charnwood Stoves (call 01983
537780 or visit charnwood.com) on the
Isle of Wight is a family company which
has been designing and making stoves
since 1972. A smaller model from Charnwood costs from about £750. Stockists
include Ash & Embers of Abridge, Essex
(01992 815972; ashandembers.com) and
Embers, in Kensal Rise, NW10 (020 8964
3365, embers.co.uk).
“Always go to a specialist and see stoves
for yourself,” advises Max Davies, director of Westcombes, a fireplace and stove
shop in Lee High Road, SE13 (call 020
8852 6204; westcombes.co.uk). “Open
and shut the doors and vents, and feel
the warmth from live displays.”
B
E SURE to use an installer
registered by Hetas — the
Heating Equipment Testing
and Approval Scheme — adds
Barney Dorman of the Cast
Iron Fireplace Company in New Malden
(call 020 8942 8881; castironfireplacecompany.com).
“Otherwise you will need approvals
and certification from your local council’s building control department, adding
time and costs.”
Dr David Morgan, technical manager
of Orion Heating in Takeley, Essex,
remarks: “Typical London fireplaces
were built well, but can be small.”
Orion’s purpose-built showroom offers
both wood burning stoves and cookers
(call 01279 813591, orionheating.co.uk).
Morgan recommends a Morsø model,
controllable from 2-5kW.
Other brands available from Orion
are Barbas, Stovax, Heta, Franco-Balge
and Westfire.
Radiating comfort: the Hwam 3410
wood burner from Euroheat. Find
Euroheat at Croydon Fireplaces and
Marble Hill Fireplaces, as before
23
Interiors Homes & Property
Cosy bathroom’s looking cool: a wood burner from the Cove range at Charnwood Stoves (charnwood.com)
Hot tips for buying
a wood burning
stove — and
keeping it stoked
O Explore design options online — but
also visit showrooms.
O Measure up your room (including
height); measure and photograph your
fireplace.
O Visit a specialist. Defra-exempt
stoves will cost from about £500. Ask
about efficiency and controls.
O Visit the Defra website and its
pages devoted to wood burning
stoves (smokecontrol.defra.gov.uk).
These list all the stoves currently
available in the United Kingdom,
what you can burn in them and
whether they are exempt from
smoke controls.
O Consider (with expert help) heat
output, measured in kilowatts — 1kW
will heat about 14 cubic metres.
London stoves are typically around
4kW (adjustable). More information at
stovefittersmanual.co.uk.
O Get a survey from a Hetasregistered installer (go to hetas.co.uk/
find-retailer).
O Installation will cost from about
£500. Top up home insulation and
draughtproofing if necessary.
O Get your chimney swept — it should
cost about £50. The National
Association of Chimney Sweeps is at
chimneyworks.co.uk (call 01785
811732). Chimney lining — for about
£400 — is recommended.
O You will probably need wood
supplied to your door. Costs are about
£75 a cubic metre (consult nef.org.uk/
logpile/fuelsuppliers/woodstoves).
Typically, you can expect to burn about
four or five cubic metres of wood a
year. Log-Delivery.co.uk can deliver in
a timed slot at weekends.
O Do not burn wood collected from
woodland or picked out of skips as it is
likely to have a high moisture content.
It is illegal and dangerous to use it, as
doing so can cause chimney fires.
‘Our burner slashed the
heating bill by a quarter’
JULIUS and Anna Reeves
live in Muswell Hill in a
lovely, five-bedroom
Edwardian house with
their son Seth, 17, and
daughter Isabella, who
is four.
Their black Chesney’s
Salisbury 4kW wood
burning stove cost them
£804, but with installation
that included a chimney
flue liner, the total cost was
about £2,500.
The family pays £7.30 for
a large bag of kiln-dried
logs, which lasts about a
week. So how much are
they saving on their
household bills?
Says Julius: “The stove
radiates warmth
throughout the house, and
we’ve turned the groundfloor heating off. It has cut
our heating bills by about
25 per cent.”
O Chesney’s can be found
at 194-202 Battersea Park
Road, SW11 (020 7627 1410)
and at 734-736 Holloway
Road, N19 (020 7561 8280).
Alternatively, visit.
JAKE FITZJONES
y.co.uk with
Hearth and home: Julius and Anna Reeves, son Seth and
daughter Isabella, cosy by their stove in Muswell Hill
24
Homes & Property Exhibition
Georgians were the
first shopaholics. Visit
a new show at the
British Library, says
Philippa Stockley
B
UYING whatever you want
for your home, from shops,
catalogues or online, seems
a modern delight. But it isn’t.
The roots of our consumer
heaven, particularly in interior design
and homewares, were laid down 300
years ago, during Britain’s biggest economic boom, a time of heady industrial
growth and international trade under
four consecutive kings called George.
Those decades might be called the
Gorgeous Georgians, as an absorbing
new exhibition at the British Library,
with more than 200 exhibits, shows.
From 1714 to 1830, a George was on the
throne. During this period of relative
stability and huge economic prosperity,
London changed from a murky,
cut-throat place into the embryonic city
we know today. Slowly, its muddy
Just browsing:
china and
porcelain from
the East Indies
for tea parties
and dinners,
from Josiah
Wedgwood’s
big new store
in Pall Mall
How we learned to go shopping
pavements were raised and paved, the
streets were lit, and shops sprang up
along most major roads — Oxford Street,
Piccadilly, and Kensington High Street
all developed at this time. Shop after
shop glittered with big, plate-glass
windows to show off price-ticketed
wares inside, tempting the newly
monied middle class. These dazzling
emporiums did a roaring trade in fabric
for clothing and furnishings, or china
and porcelain from the East Indies for
tea parties and dinners, from Josiah
Wedgwood’s big new Pall Mall store.
Production of homewares rose to
meet insatiable demand. The manufacture of wallpaper — new, affordable and
changeable, replacing costly silk hangings and tapestries — increased tenfold
during the 18th century, while furniture
began to be made to order from pattern
books issued by the likes of Thomas
illustrated books and newspapers,
Londoners fed their appetite to improve
and decorate home, garden and appearance. Catalogue shopping caught on
fast. Chippendale’s The Gentleman and
Cabinet-Maker’s Director of 1754 was
one of the first. Wedgwood published
one as well. The motto of this newly
modern world was that if you wanted
it, you could have it.
To capture the spirit, the British
Library shop is selling well-chosen,
good-quality, Georgian-inspired items
including a cushion with an 18th-century print of Kew Gardens for £20, a
printed porcelain mug for £10, and a
glass scent bottle at a bargain £8.
Chippendale. For the first time the aspiring middle classes, accounting for a
third of the population, could afford to
improve their homes and clothing, and
emulate the upper classes with whom
Mail order is born: illustration from
Thomas Chippendale’s catalogue of
1754, above. Cushion with an
18th-century print, above right, £20,
from the British Library shop
they were at last able to mix at assemblies and dances. Britain, and particularly London, became socially mobile.
Commoners could — and did — marry
into the aristocracy. Through lavishly
O Georgians Revealed: Life, Style, and
the Making of Modern Britain, runs
until March 11, 2014 at the British
Library. Full details at bl.uk.
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25
Outdoors Homes & Property
Enjoy the
show and
take home
a bagful
of ideas
Stealing tips from National Trust
gardens is a popular pastime. Now
a new book makes it even easier
©NTL/ANDREW LAWSON
T
HOSE of us who have visited
the romantic White Garden
at Sissinghurst in Kent are
likely to have planted a silvery
weeping pear or Iceberg rose
in homage, while the fiery Red Borders
at Hidcote Manor in the north Cotswolds
have caused many a gardener to catch
a serious dose of scarlet fever.
Such is the influence of our National
Trust gardens, which are celebrated in
Design Ideas for Your Garden, a new
book by design historian Jacq Barber.
She provides us with inspiration not just
from the magnificent borders, potagers
and orchards but from the head gardeners, too. “What captivates and inspires
us is not always the grand vistas,” she
says, “but the unexpected delight found
in small details that can be brought into
any garden, whatever its size.”
The Cherry Garden at Greys Court,
Pattie
Barron
Below: capture
the beauty of the
Cherry Garden
at Greys Court
with a winter
flowering cherry
Henley-on-Thames, for instance, might
dazzle you in spring with its walkway
canopied by arching branches scattering blossom like confetti beneath, but
you can capture the vision, suggests
Barber, by planting the suitably small
winter-flowering cherry on your own
patch. Moreover, you can have a head
start on Greys Court, because Prunus
subhirtella Autumnalis Rosea starts
flowering in late autumn.
If you visit just one garden this season,
make it the sensational Winter Garden
at Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire,
where you will be assailed by scents
from seasonal gems such as Christmas
box, witch hazel Pallida and Viburnum
bodnantense Dawn, and might be
tempted to set up a fragrant winter
Scarlet fever:
draw inspiration
for your own plot
from Hidcote
Manor’s Red
Borders which
reach their peak
in late summer
Winter whites:
create the effect
of Himalayan
birches planted
at Anglesey
Abbey, left, by
planting just one
multi-stemmed
specimen
©NTL/MMGI/MARIANNE MAJERUS
©NTL/STEPHEN ROBSON
©NTL/STEPHEN ROBSON
Centre: steps at
Sizergh Castle,
Cumbria, show
how plants such
as the Mexican
daisy should be
left to self-seed
READER
OFFER
buy it
See it:
Chelsea garden event
Buy it: RHS
Christmas gifts
GARDEN tool company Burgon & Ball
brings antique botanical paintings
from the RHS’s Lindley Library to
three new ranges comprising trowel
and fork set, secateurs, memory
foam kneeling pad and cushioned
gardening gloves. Choose from the
Chrysanthemum collection, pictured,
with tool handles painted soft blue
and a pattern of white blooms;
Passiflora, with burgundy tool
handles and passion flowers trailing
on a dark grey background, or Rosa
chinensis, with rosy pink handles and
pale pink China rose on apple green. The
tools are stainless steel and prettily
boxed, with the Gertrude Jekyll quote:
“The love of gardening is a seed once
sown that never dies,’’ engraved on the
trowel. Gloves, £14.95, trowel and fork
set, £19.95, secateurs £17.95, kneeler,
£17.95, from burgonandball.com.
FIND inspiring ways to
decorate your home this
Christmas, from garland
making to tree dressing, at
The Chelsea Gardener on
November 27, at 6.30pm.
Guests will enjoy a glass
of Prosecco on arrival and
the talk and demo will last
about 30 minutes, with the
chance to make a wreath as
well as ask questions. You
can shop for decorations at
discount and place your
tree order with free
delivery.
The ticket price, £19.95
per person, includes a
two-course dinner in the
Botany Club at Bumpkin
restaurant next door to
The Chelsea Gardener in
Sydney Street, SW3.
Book your place directly
with Bumpkin on 020 3730
9344 or email
bcreservations@
bumpkinuk.com.
Design Ideas for
Your Garden
(National Trust
Books) costs
£16.99, but
readers of Homes
& Property can
buy a copy for £12
including p&p by
calling 0844 576
8122 and quoting
code CH1787.
Gardening
problems?
Email our RHS
expert at:
gardenproblems
@standard.co.uk
corner of your own. You will also discover the Tibetan cherry, with gleaming
bark like polished mahogany — Barber
suggests the paperbark maple Acer
griseum, with chocolate-brown bark
and autumn foliage, for smaller gardens
— and marvel at the veritable forest of
white-barked Himalayan birch, as
magical as Narnia. You can give that
impression, smaller scale, by planting
a multi-stemmed Betula jacquemontii
in container or ground, and by taking
the advice of Anglesey Abbey head gardener Richard Todd: “To maintain the
whiteness of the bark, wash silver birch
with water and a soft brush in early
December, ideally using a pressure hose
— but be careful not to get too close as
this risks damaging the bark.”
With our city’s microclimate, and
in warm, sunny spots, we can grow
exotics such as canna, ginger lilies and
Mexican sunflower; for inspiration,
visit the Banana Garden at Overbecks,
in Devon, where head gardener Cat
Saunders suggests, in cooler, shadier
spots, planting hostas and ferns then
scattering Impatiens naturalistically
throughout, to give the flavour of a
tropical rainforest. Or if you fancy
bringing in the wildlife, take a tip from
Osterley Park, where beds of red and
white valerian, sweet rocket and purple
toadflax attract bees and butterflies.
Roses are a main attraction at NT gardens, notably Nymans, Mottisfont
Abbey and of course Sissinghurst,
where the stems of sumptuous antique
roses are bent on to chestnut poles and
pliable hazel hoops to make shapely
shrubs. It’s worth visiting off-peak to
take note and pictures of the all-important corsetry. Alexis Datta, Sissinghurst’s
head gardener, says: “Training roses on
to hoops or arches by bending the
boughs to put them under pressure not
only looks good, it forces them to flower
more prolifically.”
Underpinnings rule in the NT borders
too, but the gardeners get these in place
before the perennials need propping,
in early spring, with a home-made cage
of woven pea sticks through which the
plant grows and is held firm. In the gardens of the National Trust, aside from
self-seeders like the pretty, promiscuous
Mexican daisy Erigeron karvinskianus,
nothing is left to chance.
30
Homes & Property Property searching
A
N ANCIENT church, an
overgrown graveyard, a
15th-century timber-frame
house, a row of Tudor
almshouses and an
18th-century vestry that once doubled
as workhouse and police station. This
could be a sleepy rural Essex village
but instead we are just a short walk
from Walthamstow town centre.
Seven miles north-west of central
London, Walthamstow sits between
the Lea Valley and Epping Forest at the
end of the Victoria line. Its name
derives from the Old English
Wilcumestow meaning welcome place.
Nowadays locals like to call it “Stow”
or “Stowie” and it goes by the Twitter
hashtag “awesomestow”.
The 19th-century designer, writer and
social campaigner William Morris,
Walthamstow’s most famous son, grew
up in a fine Georgian house in Forest
Road with his widowed mother and
eight brothers and sisters. Morris’s
friend, the artist Edward Burne-Jones,
painted the trees in the garden.
The house has been a museum dedicated to Morris’s memory since 1950.
Called the William Morris Gallery, it
recently it had a £3 million facelift and
this year won the Art Fund Museum of
the Year award. One of the first exhibitions featured locally based Turner
Prize winner Grayson Perry’s work, The
Walthamstow Tapestry, a stinging criticism of consumerism that would have
chimed with Morris’s dislike of mass
production.
Walthamstow has played a key role in
the development of transport. In 1894,
local plumber Frederick Bremer built
the first four-wheeled car powered by
an internal combustion engine. It never
went into production but is preserved
in Walthamstow’s Vestry House
Museum. In 1909 the Avro triplane took
off from its Walthamstow Marshes base.
Designed by Edwin Roe of AV Roe it was
the first all-British plane to take flight.
The company went on to design the
Vulcan bomber. And from 1912 to 1927,
the Associated Equipment Company
built the “B” type London bus that was
used as a troop carrier in the First World
War. The company went on to produce
London’s Routemaster buses.
Spotlight
Walthamstow
Discover why
arty-crafty
awesomestow
has got them
all a-Twitter
Better value than the edgy East End and a
cultural hotspot, too. No wonder this London
village is trending, says Anthea Masey
BARRY PHILLIPS
WHAT THERE IS TO BUY
There are plenty of Victorian and
Edwardian terrace houses and some
later Thirties terraces and semidetached houses. The most notable
builder, Thomas Courtenay Theydon
Warner, built estates of Arts & Crafts
6,000 acres: enjoying a walk in Epping Forest, London’s largest open space
houses off Blackhorse Road between
Edward Road and Pretoria Avenue,
west of Lloyd Park, off Lea Bridge
Road, and in Higham Park. Warner
houses, many designed as two purpose-built flats, often bear the “W”
motif and have recessed porches and
gables.
Estate agent Arona Sawar of the local
Winkworth office, says three-bedroom
Victorian terrace houses in the village
area sell for about £650,000 with similar homes elsewhere going for £300,000
upwards. Winkworth (020 8509 9170)
is selling a three-bedroom house in Ivy
Road, half a mile south of Walthamstow
Central station and a short walk to the
village, for £565,000.
At the cheaper end of the market,
agent Douglas Allen (020 8509 0092)
has a three-bedroom Victorian house
near the North Circular Road between
Wood Street and Higham Park stations
for £300,000. One-bedroom Warner
flats in the enclave west of Turner Park
sell for about £265,000 and two-bedroom flats for about £350,000. A
Warner flat off Blackhorse Road would
be slightly less.
The area attracts: Walthamstow has
a strong community of artists who
migrate from fashionable areas of the
East End to trade flats for houses and
get better value.
Staying power: a strong community
spirit keeps families rooted locally.
Many upgrade from a one- or two-bedroom flat to a three-bedroom house. A
shortage of larger houses with goodsize gardens forces some families to
move further out into the Essex and
Hertfordshire countryside.
Up and coming: there is a lot of regeneration around Blackhorse Road station.
New flats have been built at Papermill
Place on the old Andrex factory site,
To find a home in Walthamstow, visit:
homesandproperty.co.uk/walthamstow
£699,995
£650,000
£550,000
£330,000
A FAMILY house in Oakhurst Gardens with six
bedrooms, off-street parking, conservatory and
pleasant gardens. Through Elizabeth Pryce.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/oak
A DOUBLE-FRONTED, four-bedroom house in
Milton Road with a conservatory and a southfacing garden with a hot tub. Through Estates 17.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/milton
THIS three-bedroom house in Cedars Avenue has
open fireplaces and high ceilings with ornate
coving. Through haart Walthamstow.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/cedars
A THREE-BEDROOM house in Chaucer Road with
a large, oak-floored living room and a 60ft rear
garden. Through Bairstow Eves Countrywide.
O Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/chaucer
31
Property searching Homes & Property
Famous son: the
William Morris
Gallery, left, was
the family home
of the hugely
influential
Victorian
designer, poet
and craftsman
CHECK THE STATS
■WHAT HOMES COST:
BUYING IN WALTHAMSTOW
(Average prices)
One-bedroom flat £191,000
Two-bedroom flat £244,000
Two-bedroom house £346,000
Three-bedroom house £389,000
Four-bedroom house £447,000
Right: detail
from The
Walthamstow
Tapestry, a
stitched critique
of consumerism
by Turner Prizewinning artist
Grayson Perry
Source: Zoopla.co.uk
RENTING IN WALTHAMSTOW
(Average rates)
One-bedroom flat £995 a month
Two-bedroom flat £1,189 a month
Two-bedroom house £1,323 a month
Three-bedroom house £1,477 a month
Four-bedroom house £1,636 a month
Source: Zoopla.co.uk
permission has been granted for 500
new student flats, and Willowfield
School is being rebuilt. Blackhorse
Workshop, opening in January, offers
new affordable community work spaces
to rent on Sutherland Road Path. Plans
for the Old Standard pub site are likely
to include a new live music venue, and
the council is working with the Heritage
Lottery Fund to create a new wetlands
nature park on the River Lea reservoirs.
Otherwise, Winkworth’s Arona Sawar
is telling people who can’t afford
Walthamstow to look in Leyton. It’s less
expensive, yet nearer central London.
Shops and restaurants: Walthamstow
is famous for its market which, at more
than half a mile long, is said to be the
longest in Europe. On the High Street,
it sells everything from fruit and veg to
clothing, to luggage. On the same street
is the Grade II-listed L Manze Eel, Pie
and Mash shop.
There are independent shops, cafés
and restaurants along Orford Road in
Walthamstow Village. Penny Fielding
Gallery and Interiors sells contemporary art, 20th-century collectibles and
interesting gifts. Eat 17, a bar and restaurant, owns the Spar store next door,
which has its own bakery, and buys its
meat from East London Sausage Company across the street. The Nags Head
is a popular Orford Road gastropub.
Wood Street is Walthamstow’s second
“high street”. It has its own website and
is being brightened up with the help of
the Mayor of London’s Outer London
Fund. There is a treasure trove of
vintage finds at the indoor market in a
former cinema, while Second Nature
sells organic fruit and vegetables and
runs a box scheme. God’s Own Junk
Yard in Vallentin Road, a gallery displaying an amazing collection of neon
signs, was recently filmed for an episode of the BBC crime drama Luther.
Open space: Lloyd Park behind the
William Morris Gallery recently had a
£5 million facelift and boasts a new
children’s playground and café. Walks
along the River Lea and in Epping
Forest are on the doorstep.
LEISURE AND THE ARTS
The E17 Art Trail is an annual event
when Walthamstow’s many artists
open their homes and studios. Last
year there were more than 350 listings
and the trail, which runs next year from
May 30 to June 15, generates other
events throughout the year such as the
Walthamstow Poetry Trail. Ye Old Rose
and Crown on Hoe Street hosts theatre,
comedy, poetry and the local folk
music club, and there are community
events, workshops and talks at the
William Morris cinema. The Vestry
House local history museum is in the
village, while Walthamstow Pumphouse
Museum on South Access Road is an
emerging new transport museum.
The McGuffin Film Society is a local
community group campaigning to save
the old Granada cinema — also known
as the EMD — on Hoe Street and return
it to use as a cinema. The nearest council-owned swimming pool is the
Waltham Forest Pool and Track on
Chingford Road. There is also a swimming pool at Waltham Forest College
that opens to the public.
Travel: Walthamstow is well-connected
to the West End and the City. Walthamstow Central and Blackhorse Road stations are on the Victoria line with a
20-minute trip to Oxford Street. Higham
Park, Wood Street, Walthamstow Central and St James Street all have trains
to Liverpool Street with journey times
of between 15 and 22 minutes. Queens
Road and Blackhorse Road are on the
Overground line to Barking. All but two
stations are in Zone 3 (an annual travelcard to Zone 1 is £1,424). Highams Park
and Wood Street are in Zone 4 (annual
travelcard to Zone 1, £1,744).
Council: Waltham Forest is Labourcontrolled and Band D council tax for
the current year is £1,455.21.
ALAMY
Grade II-listed:
the Art Deco
Waltham Forest
Town Hall
complex, right,
designed by
PD Hepworth
and built from
1937-42 using
Portland Stone
O Analysis of the local education
system and the best schools
O Breakdown of the local renting
scene
O All the latest housing
developments in Walthamstow
O How this area compares with the
rest of the UK on house prices
O The lowdown on the most popular
Walthamstow streets — and the
most expensive
O Smart maps to plot your property
search
For all this and more, visit
homesand
property.co.uk/
spotlightwalthamstow
Record-breaker:
the market in
Walthamstow
High Street is
reputed to be
Europe’s
longest at over
half a mile
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
How is a Walthamstow lion linked
with a Gherkin? There’s a clue in the
ALAMY
ALAMY
GO ONLINE FOR MORE
Sense of history:
15th-century
timber-framed
house at
Church End,
Walthamstow
Village
picture. Find the answer at homesand
property.co.uk/spotlightwalthamstow
HAVE YOUR SAY
WALTHAMSTOW
@Mousey_E17 It’s nappy central and
overflowing with mums and buggies.
Lloyd Park is great. So green and leafy.
@dollyrockaUK It’s just got a
branch of the Women’s Institute up
and running. @stowroses has over
100 members already!
@Lucyvfreeman 20 mins from
Oxford Circus & Epping Forest, real
ale pubs, stand-up comedy, a WI,
great butchers and fab restaurants.
@meOMalley Stow is like a poor
man’s Putney. Great for getting
outdoors — running, rowing, walking
the dog and eating in good pubs!!
NEXT WEEK: Vauxhall. Do you
live there? Tell us what you
think @HomesProperty
34
Homes & Property Ask the expert
Dangers of dealing with ‘double agents’
A
Q
A
Fiona
McNulty
WHAT’S
YOUR
PROBLEM?
OUR LAWYER ANSWERS
YOUR QUESTIONS
I PUT my house on the
market in the early spring
but was very disappointed
with the estate agent’s
efforts so switched to a new one in
the summer who advised me to
trim the asking price. This did the
trick and I have had several offers
since. However, the highest has
come from a couple who first
viewed the house when it was on
with my original agent. If I accept
their offer, the original agent wants
full commission and so does the
new agent. Is this right?
A
IT COULD be. It depends on
the terms of the contracts
you have with both agents. If
you had a contract which
gave the first agent “sole selling
rights” then they may be entitled to
the commission due under the terms
of that contract, irrespective of who
buys the house and who introduces
the buyer, even after you have
terminated the contract. The
contract may have had a warning
about the possibility of double
commission. Consider how the word
“ introduces” is defined in the
contract and if the couple now
offering fall into that category.
Alternatively the contract may have
provided for a continuing liability
period after its termination, for six to
12 months, for example.
With regard to your current agent,
again it depends on the terms of your
contract. In some instances the
outgoing agent will give the new
agent a list of prospective buyers who
they themselves introduced to the
property, and if any of those people
ultimately acquire it then the
commission will be due to the first
agent and not to the second.
Look carefully at the contracts you
have with both agents and if you
cannot interpret them seek legal
advice, as I expect the commission
which you may have to pay is a
not-insignificant amount.
IF YOU have a
question for
Fiona McNulty,
please email
legalsolutions@
standard.co.uk
or write to Legal
Solutions, Homes
& Property,
London Evening
Standard, 2 Derry
Street, W8 5EE.
We regret that
questions cannot
be answered
individually but
we will try to
feature them
here. Fiona
McNulty is a
partner in the
residential
property, farms
and estates team
at Withy King LLP
(withyking.co.uk).
More legal
Q&As
Visit: homesand
property.co.uk
I HAVE been trying to buy a flat but the sellers
messed me about, causing delays. They said
they would go into temporary accommodation
but then changed their minds. I managed to get
them to reduce the price by £10,000 because of these
problems, which then let me cut the price of the flat I
am selling by £10,000, clinching the deal with my
buyer. So now we are all set to exchange — except my
solicitor says we can’t do that until he has told my
lender about the new price. Can I tell him not to
inform them so we can just get on with it?
YOUR solicitor is acting for both you and your
lender and will have been instructed to represent
them in accordance with the terms of the Council
of Mortgage Lenders handbook. When a solicitor
acts for a buyer and a lender there is a potential for
conflict, as that solicitor owes a duty to both as clients.
Information a solicitor receives from a client is
confidential and cannot be disclosed without their
consent. Your solicitor will know the price you have agreed
to pay is different to that stated in the mortgage offer and is
duty-bound to inform your lender. If you tell him not to, he
must cease to act for your lender — but may consider it is
prudent not to act for you either. He cannot tell the lender
why the retainer has been terminated but can say there has
been a conflict, which is likely to alert them to the fact that
there is an issue. You should be honest and let him inform
your lender. Unless the price cut is of concern to the
lender, eg because of loan to value, a new offer is likely to
be issued on the same terms apart from the new price.
O These answers can only be a very brief commentary on
the issues raised and should not be relied on as legal advice.
No liability is accepted for such reliance. If you have similar
issues, you should obtain advice from a solicitor.
36
Homes & Property Inside story
I slipped up with
the boots, but my
bum doesn’t look
as big in my LBD
MONDAY
One of our viewing assistants calls to
say she has seen a house in Dorset that
she desperately wants to buy, and how
long would it take us to find a buyer for
her cottage in the lovely village of
Kingham in Oxfordshire?
We already have some great photographs of her property, as she bought
it from us a few years ago after falling
in love with the place while showing it
to prospective purchasers — an occupational hazard. I know it will sell
quickly. Any chocolate-box Oxfordshire
cottage, the kind of heart-warming
home that Cameron Diaz swapped her
Hollywood pad with Kate Winslet for,
to hide out from heartbreak in The
Holiday, gets snapped up within a
matter of weeks.
We are noticing a similar appetite for
Oxford’s terrace houses, which have
seen values increase by 10-15 per cent
in two years. Proximity to London, and
Oxford’s global status, has sheltered
the cottage market from downward
to present and describe a property (I
have been known to clean kitchens,
move furniture and arrange flowers
— anything to help). This is one of the
things I enjoy most about the job and
good pictures are crucial.
We visit an ideal property, with perfectly proportioned rooms, beautiful
gardens, paddocks and outbuildings.
It is a bit cloudy and as we get to the
end of the job the sun comes out, so
we start again. It’s worth it, as this
place will sell in a heartbeat. At the
end of a hectic morning the housekeeper makes us coffee and gives us a
couple of jars of home-made quince
jelly. Lovely.
Diary of
an estate
agent
pressure on values seen elsewhere in
the UK, although stock remains relatively low.
TUESDAY
It’s 8.30am and I hit the ground running. We are selling a flat for the executors of an elderly lady’s will and a
colleague has asked me to have a quick
look, so that we can advise them on
de-cluttering and presentation.
There is nobody living at the flat, so I
pop in on my way to work. But as I turn
the key I hear a panicked male voice
cry out: “Hang on while I put some
clothes on!” One of our clients has
decided to stay over and start sorting,
and I have disturbed him in the shower.
FRIDAY
I’m not sure who is more surprised.
Eventually, I get into the office and we
have already had several enquiries for
the cottage in Kingham. It’s game on.
WEDNESDAY
Being based in Oxford means we are
involved in the sale of property from
college houses and city-centre flats to
townhouses, cottages and country
estates. Carter Jonas’s Oxford office is
in a smart building in Summertown, so
posh frocks and pearls are pretty much
de rigueur, but my car boot holds
wellies, walking boots, waterproofs and
sensible shoes, so I am prepared for any
viewing. This afternoon I am showing a
farmhouse that hasn’t been touched for
over 40 years and is a bit of a rickety
projec t , so I’m in my walking
boots... and a little black dress. I warn
the applicants that the stairs are a bit
dodgy, miss the top step and slide down
on my backside. I come up smiling, but
astonished at how sore I feel. I am
clearly not as well-padded as I used to
be, so the 5:2 diet must be working.
We are fundraising for a local hospice
and have been challenged to take over
one of its charity shops, with the aim
of taking as much money in one day as
we can. I am team leader and I love
playing shop for a whole day, from
window dressing to persuading customers they really do want to buy a
particular item. I guess it’s not that dissimilar to selling houses.
By the end of the day we are all
exhausted but have broken the record
for a single day’s takings in any of the
hospice’s shops. Back at the office, I
learn that a cash buyer has offered the
guide price for the cottage in Kingham.
From initial discussion to sale agreed
within the week. Job done.
THURSDAY
Today is set aside for preparing houses
for the market, visiting with the photographer, and thinking about how best
O Juliana Markeson is a senior
negotiator at Carter Jonas in Oxford
(01865 511 444).
TRS APARTMENTS, WEST LONDON
COLLECTION OF STUNNING APARTMENTS AVAILABLE TO LET IN SOUTHALL, UB2
PRICES FROM £280 PER WEEK, SHOW APARTMENT NOW OPEN
CALL: 020 8569 8500
EMAIL: [email protected]
CALL: 020 8799 4550
EMAIL: [email protected]
40
Homes & Property New homes
Smart moves
The word from the street David Spittles
Live in a gorgeous
‘Georgian’ square
From £341,000: flats in The Tower skyscraper, Brentford
WELL-CONNECTED WITH
M4 ON YOUR DOORSTEP
APARTMENTS in a new
west London skyscraper
go on sale this week,
priced from £341,000.
The Tower is part of Great
West Quarter, a 13-acre
precinct built around the
splendid art deco former
headquarters of the
BOAC airline and
GlaxoSmithKline in
Brentford.
Butting right up against
the M4, it is an
unmistakeably urban
address. As well as the
motorway, homes
overlook a one-acre
central piazza with shops,
an art gallery, a GP
surgery and a crèche.
There is an on-site
concierge and car club, a
taxi rank for licensed
black cabs, and a new bus
route runs through the
development.
A giant underground
parking area with space
for 1,050 cars lies beneath
the site. Call 0844 811
4334.
Traffic-free
square: Farm
Lane houses
overlook
communal
gardens
A
NEW private garden square
with 40 Georgian-style
t ow n h o u s e s i s b e i n g
unveiled this week in
densely packed Fulham.
The architecture of the two-acre site,
once stables for horses and Hackney
Carriages, is inspired by elegant
Wellington Square, off King’s Road in
Chelsea. At its centre are formally
designed communal gardens
overlooked by imposing houses with
large front doors and railings.
It will be a traffic-free retreat when
completed next year. Cars will be
parked in underground garages with
direct access to the houses, while
pedestrians will arrive via a listed
Edwardian double-arched entrance,
flanked by smaller two-storey new
houses and apartments.
London Square, the developer, is
aiming to capture family movers
from higher-priced Kensington and
Chelsea at its Farm Lane scheme.
“It’s a family-friendly environment,
with pluses normally associated with
apartment living — gated security,
underground parking and on-site
concierge,” says Rebecca Littler,
sales director.
The houses range from 1,400 to
4,000sq ft and rise to five storeys,
with light-filled basements opening
on to patio gardens. Thoughtfully
designed layouts allow for two levels
of terracing. At the heart of each
house is a feature oak-and-glass
staircase, with surrounding openplan living space. Crisp and
MOVE IN BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND
RECEIVE FREE CARPETS THROUGHOUT**
41
New homes Homes & Property
Bonanza for reborn Rotherhithe
UP-AND-COMING Rotherhithe has
been given another big boost with
planning consent for a 1,030-home
scheme by Shard developer Sellar
Property Group.
Award-winning international
architect David Chipperfield is the
creative force behind the project —
five buildings, one a 40-storey tower
— which will bring restaurants, shops
and recreational space around a new
public square and dock basin.
The old docks district is enjoying a
second wave of regeneration, with its
fortunes being transformed by the
creation of a bustling new waterfront
zone next to Canada Water Jubilee
line station — a key midway point
between Canary Wharf and the West
End, and an interchange on the East
London line, providing quick access
to Shoreditch and Dalston.
A new library in the shape of an
inverted pyramid recently opened
and coming soon is a makeover of the
Surrey Quays shopping mall.
Rotherhithe Street is lined with
warehouse developments that are 25
per cent cheaper than Shad Thames,
according to local estate agent
Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward.
Barratt has a big presence in the
area and has launched Redwood
Park, left, alongside Russia Dock
Woodland. Prices from £312,000.
Call 0844 811 4334.
An uncommon new development in sought-after Wimbledon
contemporary interior design
complements the more classic
exteriors, while the pedestrianised
square has sculpted landscaping
with pergolas and raised beds. All
the houses are on 999-year leases.
Prices from £2.6 million. Call 0333
666 2737 for more information.
NEW developments in
the leafy, quintessential
London suburb of
Wimbledon are
somewhat rare, and tend
to be small infill schemes
or one-off houses.
This makes Wimbledon
Hill Park, right, a walled
estate with 94 homes in
25 acres of landscaped
grounds, notable.
The development is on
the site of the former
Atkinson Morley
Hospital, and will offer a
mix of traditional and
modern styles. The first
phase — eight family
houses with generous
entertaining space,
games room, cinema,
library/study, sunroom
and roof terrace — has
been launched. Huge
interiors range from
3,350 to 6,500sq ft, at
prices from £3.5 million.
The original hospital
building is being
converted into 26 flats
to be released later. Call
Berkeley Homes on 020
8226 2126.

Wednesday 13 November 2013 Property

Transcription

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