wednesday 9 december 2015 a twist property · wednesday 9 december 2015 london’s best property...

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Homes&Property

Wednesday 9 December 2015

London’s best property search news: homesandproperty.co.uk

New neighbourhoods: Page 4

London goes streets ahead

2 WEDNESDAY 9 DECEMBER 2015 EVENING STANDARD

Find Ruth Bloomfield’s full story at homesandproperty.co.uk

stop press:

HOMES in north- east London will get a boost next year when wo rk f i n a l ly

begins on upgrading one of the capital’s most unloved commuter services.

Passengers on the Gospel Oak to Barking rail route — shortened to the Goblin line by loc als — have long endured slow, unreliable and overcrowded services.

Now, after years of passen-ger protests, work is set to begin on the £113 million electrification of the line, and is due to be completed in 2017.

Property winners will include home owners near

stations at the eastern end of the line, including Leyton Midland Road, Leytonstone High Road, Wanstead Park and Woodgrange Park.

Passengers will be able to make the short journey to Blackhorse Road in Zone 3 to pick up the Victoria line, getting them to the West End in about 25 minutes.

Homes within 550 yards of a station are worth an aver-age £42,000 more than those a mile away, claims a study by the Nationwide Building Society.

Near Leyton Midland Road in E10, the average property price is £351,311, according to la test f igures f rom Rightmove.

£415,000: a two-bedroom garden maisonette near Leyton Midland Road station. Through Spencers (020 8012 2583)

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For easy weekend getaways all year round Cosy Christmas cottages

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£700,000: this endearing cottage in the Kent village of Westwell Leacon, near Ashford, is hot to trot with its generous plot and full equestrian facilities. These include seven stables, paddocks, a manège, tack room, hay barn and heated outdoor pool.

Country views can be enjoyed from three bedrooms — one en suite — while beams and open fires are the theme in the reception and dining rooms, next to a decent-size kitchen fitted with a range oven.

If you love gardening, you are in for a treat — tend to well-stocked borders and lawns that wrap around a pretty pond.

Through Freeman Forman (01892 615757).

Lifechanger of the week trot off to a Kent cottage and run a riding school

London buy of the week love the leafy location near the Chiswick buzz

Trophy home of the week a house by Lutyens with gardens by Jekyll

By Faye Greenslade

£525,000: turn over a new leaf in a smart mansion block near Turnham Green in W4.

Wood floors are under-heated to be cosy underfoot in the one-bedroom flat’s lovely reception room, incorporating an ample dining area, an open fireplace and high ceilings.

The kitchen and breakfast room is fully equipped with high-spec appliances, and

there’s a big bay window lighting the double bedroom.

A communal garden and bicycle shed are

included, while the location is perfect for Chiswick Park Tube.

Through John D Wood (020 8995 9394).

Goblin line electrifies the market

Homes & Property | News

A CHARMING stone cottage or a pretty thatch house in a picture-perfect village close to London would make an ideal weekend retreat.

We take a property tour to discover surprisingly spacious family homes and good-value village bolt holes where you can cosy up for Christmas — and the rest of the year.

Needle-free Christmas trees

£2.5 million: this seven-bedroom Surrey mansion in Tilford village near Farnham was designed in 1898 by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Britain’s most admired country house architect. It has huge rooms, perfect for festive parties, including a magnificent 35ft drawing room with its original mahogany display cabinets. The dining room is oak-panelled and the

entrance hall has a show-stopping vaulted ceiling, but it is the walled gardens that will turn your friends green with envy — they were designed by Gertrude Jekyll and include a secret vegetable plot, a prolific fig tree, a koi carp pond and, a modern addition, a swimming pool.

Through Hamptons International (01252 763451).

£495,000: a three-bedroom thatch, above right, in Dullingham, Newmarket. Right: £975,000, four-bedroom Rose Cottage in Haslemere, Surrey

Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/cottages

FROM compact faux firs for space-poor city apartments to geometric, sculptural Christmas trees made from chunky timber, we find 10 brilliant ways to decorate your home

that won’t leave you sweeping up stray pine needles for the rest of the year. Order now and your favourite alternative Christmas tree could be delivered by the weekend.

Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/trees

Fake it: enjoy festive good looks knowing you won’t get the needle with our artificial tree selection

EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 9 DECEMBER 2015 3

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Homes gossip

It’ll suit you royally

Singer Joe makes some fast money

By Amira Hashish

Jade styles a lakeside gem

THE DUKE and Duchess of Cambridge, right, are among VIPs who have stayed at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire.

The five-star spa and golf resort hosted the Ryder Cup last year. Now there is a chance to live in exclusive Balmoral Court, built within the grounds, with access to all the hotel’s facilities. The Scandinavian-style family home, left, with four bedrooms and two kitchens, is on the market with Savills for £1 million.

SOCIALITE and former model Jade Jagger has designed a four-bedroom home in the Cotswolds, on the market through Knight Frank at £1.25 million.

Sir Mick’s daughter, right, is famed as a jewellery designer but branched into interiors for the project in Gloucestershire. Lakeside and eco-friendly, the two-storey house, left, named The Jade, has a log fire in the living room and a separate snug with built-in

black lacquer bench seats and bookcases.

A 40ft deck extends over the water and has views towards the length of Warren’s Cross Lake.

Part of The Lakes by yoo development, the house shares tennis courts, a football pitch, herb garden and chicken coop. There is also a swimming pool and spa nearby.

Just 90 minutes from London, it makes a great base for a weekend retreat.

JOE JONAS has sold his three-bedroom Los Angeles home after only a year for £1.93 million, making £200,000 on the deal.

The singer, left, who recently split from model Gigi Hadid, is currently renting a house through Airbnb while searching for a new place. The rental residence is listed at £1,663 a night, but it does have floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking West Hollywood.

Jonas’s singer-songwriter brother Nick, far left, has Ellen DeGeneres as a landlord. The chat show host, right, has confirmed he pays his rent on time, but took a “healthy deposit” from him just in case anything is damaged.

THE APPRENTICE house in John Street, Holborn, not far from the City, is going to have some equally glamorous and entrepreneurial neighbours.

A Georgian building overlooking the “home” used by Alan Sugar’s current TV contestants has been revamped into a collection of seven boutique apartments, above, and is set to launch early next year. Two of the flats have private landscaped gardens, while the rest have big balconies.

The apartments’ state-of-the-art technology will no doubt appeal to banker boys and girls. Prices start from £1.1 million, through Hudsons.

Look down on Lord Sugar

For more celebrity gossip, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/gossip G

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Homes & Property | New homes

LONDON GOES STREETS AHEADPlace-making’s the buzz phrase as new neighbourhoods spring up all over town. By David Spittles N

EW streets have been shap-ing London since the Romans built a settlement on the north bank of the Thames. After the Great

Fire of London, Christopher Wren had a fine old time with new town planning, Inigo Jones jumped on the bandwagon with Covent Garden, joining streets to squares, and John Nash built terraces for toffs around Regent’s Park.

The Victorians loved streets, creating legions of them in the inner city and the suburbs. Now huge regeneration in London over two decades has given developers and town planners another opportunity to pave the way to the future, opening up previously closed pockets of the capital and transforming outdated industrial sites into smart neighbourhoods.

TOWER BRIDGEDuchess Walk is the capital’s latest new street, a 170-metre promenade lined with shops, cafés and restaurants. It cuts through a 376-home development, One Tower Bridge — formerly a coach park — where a 900-seat theatre and luxury hotel are also being built.

The car-free avenue provides a direct route to the Thames from Bermondsey and offers a dramatic new sight-line of Tower Bridge. Pedestrianised lanes intersect with the street, an architec-tural reference to the cobblestone Shad Thames warehouse district bordering the development. Rather than a sterile,

lifeless enclave, the site is dynamic and atmospheric, brought to life by pedes-trians and softened by apartment blocks with welcoming entrance foy-ers. Prices from £1,475,000. Call 020 7871 0011.

BATTERSEAThe Electric Boulevard has been unveiled at born-again Battersea Power Station. This wide, sinuous street has a two-storey terrace of retail and restau-rant premises, above which “starchi-tects” Norman Foster and Frank Gehry have designed apartments.

Foster + Partners say that Battersea Roof Gardens will be one of the largest roof gardens in the capital, while Prospect Place is Gehry’s first perma-nent building in London.

The boulevard forms the main gate-way to this 42-acre quarter. Potential buyers can view the plans with pio-neering 3D technology at the marketing suite. Prices in the current phase start at £1.2 million for two-bedroom flats. Call 020 7062 1751.

FITZROVIARathbone Square, a scheme of 142 homes, offices and shops, replaces a postal depot and creates a new cross-site pedestrian route and substantial public space. Its two L-shaped build-ings have commercial premises at ground level and gel with the surround-ing network of streets. Penthouses start at £4,475,000. Call 020 7580 1100.

Fitzrovia used to be the centre of Lon-don’s rag trade and today it is popular with media firms. Its residential popu-lation is relatively small, but fast-grow-ing, and values are being boosted by the forthcoming Tottenham Court Road Crossrail station, due in 2018.

MORE SCHEMES, STREETS AND HOMESMost people know Victoria because of the busy commuter train station, but the transformation of the area from commercial to residential will see thou-sands of people making it home. It is becoming a hub for fashion, and for smaller-scale media and digital busi-nesses integrated into apartment blocks. Cardinal Place, a scheme of offices and shops, with public gardens, replaces the previous windswept high street of cold concrete office blocks .

A cluster of buildings forming a five-and-a-half-acre island site amid the traffic swirl is being transformed into Nova, a smart complex of five buildings including a block of 205 apartments, which will bring a new pedestrian link between the station, Buckingham Pal-ace and the Royal Parks. Prices from £760,000. Call 020 7409 8701.

New streets are part of a residential renaissance amid the tightly packed passageways of Covent Garden. Herit-age buildings are being converted into homes by developer Capco, which owns the listed colonnade market area and dozens of surrounding properties.

Nightlife: above, Ballymore’s London City Island, on the Leamouth Peninsula in E14 beside Canary Wharf, will be a completely new neighbourhood of homes and shopping streets, and will also be English National Ballet’s new base

From £790,000: right, a high street will be at the heart of Royal Wharf, the biggest new Docklands neighbourhood since Canary Wharf was built

From £4,475,000: for penthouses at Rathbone Square in Fitzrovia, where a new pedestrian route will be created

From £1,475,000: flats at the One Tower Bridge scheme, left, which is cut through by Duchess Walk, a pedestrian route linking Bermondsey to the Thames


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One project, between Long Acre and King Street, will open up listed court-yards and create a pedestrian walkway across Floral Street to the Piazza.

King’s Cross Central is perhaps the most ambitious “place-making” project in the UK, with 20 new streets, 10 pub-lic squares, 2,000 homes and oceans of workspace created, while 77-acre Earls Court in west London is getting a new high street and 8,000 homes, with land being reclaimed from the former exhibition centre. Flats at Lillie Square, the first phase, cost from £799,000. Call 020 7381 9800.

A new high street and market square are at the heart of 3,385-home Royal

Wharf in Docklands. Smaller-scale project Battersea Exchange, with 290 homes alongside a railway viaduct, also has a new street connecting the area’s two main train stations — Bat-tersea Park and Queenstown Road. Prices from £790,000. Call Cushman & Wakefield on 020 3667 5589.

In north London, a four-and-a-half-acre mail sorting office has become 263-home Islington Square, with a new pedestrian route from Upper Street via a “floating” internal garden with a glass roof, leading on to a shopping arcade and a tree-lined boulevard with pavement cafés. Prices from £715,000. Call 020 7861 5499.

Green streets: right, a linear park will be part of the upmarket Embassy Gardens development at Nine Elms, between Vauxhall and Battersea


Homes & Property | Round-up 2015

The smart money’s on the suburbsPrime central London may have stalled but the city’s new hotspots are close by, discovers Ruth Bloomfield

AFTER four years of boom, prime central London house prices have begun to wobble as increased stamp duty prices deter

both UK and foreign buyers.Russians have all but vanished thanks

to the devaluation of the rouble — plus sanctions imposed against the country during the Ukrainian crisis — and China is preoccupied with its own troubled market.

Savills forecasts that next year will bring marginally better news, with prices holding steady, followed by two per cent growth in 2017, and a moder-ate five per cent increase in 2018.

Giles Hannah, senior vice-president of Christie’s International Real Estate, believes Chinese buyers will start flock-ing back to the capital because it has become easier for them to obtain UK visas.

Agents say homes under £1.5 million are selling — there is always a reason why Londoners have to move — but above that price sales are sticky. Clever buyers have walked away from prime central London to seek better invest-ment growth in “key emerging zones” such as Nine Elms, Paddington and King’s Cross, with the Gasholders development at King’s Cross expected to break records next year.

SUBURBIA STRIKES BACKThis was the year the suburbs struck back. A mid-year study by Countrywide and the Office for National Statistics found the top-performing postcode in London was N2 deep in Zone 3. Prices in this leafy swathe of north London have increased by more than £205,000 year on year.

London’s Olympic boroughs have finally experienced their post-Games bounce. Annual price rises in Newham stand at an impressive 12.5 per cent, according to the latest Land Registry data, while Barking and Dagenham managed 12.1 per cent.

But, after stellar growth in 2013 and last year, the Hackney bandwagon has slowed, with annual price growth of 6.2 per cent. The London borough with

Lewisham. The overriding opinion is that London’s growth is going to be slow but steady. Knight Frank predicts prices will rise by 20 per cent over the next five years.

TRIUMPH FOR COMMUTERSSome 63,000 Londoners bought homes outside of the capital this year, according to Hamptons International. Young first-time buyers who’d been renting in London gave up any ideas of purchasing in the capital and moved straight to the commuter belt.

It’s little wonder, since the price gap between London and the rest of the UK has now reached its widest point on record. An average home in London costs two-and-a-half times more than the cheapest areas of the country.

The slowdown of prices in prime London has played a part because families are beginning to realise they

have taken the fullest advantage of post-recession price growth and will not lose out if they relocate.

According to research by estate agents Jackson-Stops & Staff, family homes in county towns, in particular, are increasingly popular. Hertford and Chelmsford are enjoying the strongest price rises within London’s core com-muter zone.

HOPE FOR FIRST-TIMERSHouse of Commons research found that young buyers in some parts of London would need to save for 30 years to get on to the first rung of the property ladder.

Between July and September, the number of loans was down one per cent year on year, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. High prices and big deposits were to blame, with average deposits in the capital hitting a record £72,000 this year.

Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement offered a helping hand to first-time buyers in the capital. Under the London Help to Buy scheme, they will be able to borrow up to 40 per cent of the value of a new-build home from the Government, and will only need a five per cent deposit. Plus, the extra three per cent on stamp duty for buy-to-let homes should help to reduce the competition for starter flats.

RENTERS STRETCHED Cash-strapped tenants are converting living rooms into extra bedrooms to get sharers in and ease the cost of rent-ing, according to David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Fed-eration.

Tom Copley, Labour’s London Assembly housing spokesman, calcu-lates that by 2020 the city’s average rent — currently at £1,560 a month — will hit £2,007 per month.

Renters are becoming commuters, taking advantage of lower rents in sub-urbs and “nearby” cities such as Brighton and Oxford.

It is predicted that there will be more build-to-rent developments. These include East Village, the former Olym-pic athletes’ village at Stratford, which is already up and running.

Developers are promising renters longer leases, more professional man-agement than private landlords, greater security and on-site “extras”, such as roof gardens and cinemas.

the biggest year-on-year price increase has been far-flung Hillingdon, 14 miles west of Charing Cross, on the way to Heathrow airport, up 13.1 per cent.

It’s no coincidence that, in a year when the average price of a London home topped £500,000, Hillingdon is currently one of the most affordable places in the capital with an average price of £361,595.

Buyers are seeking out the cheaper zones. It will be worth getting to know Bexley (average price £306,511) next year, while over the next five years, Savills believes the top-performing boroughs will be Waltham Forest and

Buyers have walked away from prime central London to seek better investment growth in emerging zones

HIGHLIGHTS OF 2015Poverty plea of the year: in February, Christian “One Hyde Park” Candy got into a row with the City of London over affordable housing. The City wanted a £15 million payment towards housing for struggling Londoners in return for granting planning permission for his luxury development at Sugar Quay, Billingsgate. Candy said he could only offer half of that.

Neighbours’ row of the year: in March, Robbie Williams found himself at odds with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, who was outraged at the singer’s plans to revamp his £17.5 million home in Holland Park. Page claimed the

work could do structural damage to his own adjacent property.

Wow factor of the year: plans for an extraordinary “sky pool”, suspended 90ft high between two tower blocks at Embassy Gardens in Nine Elms, were unveiled in August — not one for swimmers with vertigo.

Big spenders of the year (joint winners): in September, a shed behind a launderette in East Dulwich was sold to an anonymous buyer for £440,000, while the world’s most expensive mews house, in Reeves Mews, Mayfair, sold to a Qatari buyer for £24 million.

£450,000: a new three-bedroom terrace house in Coval Lane, central Chelmsford, for sale through Location Chelmsford (01245 930102). Chelmsford and Hertford recorded this year’s biggest commuter belt price growth

Big splash: the 90ft-high sky pool

The next big thing: build-to-rent schemes are taking off. The former 2012 Olympic Games athletes’ village, left, now called East Village, is leading the way with developers offering long leases and round-the-clock on-site concierge and management to compete with the growing private rentals sector

£399,950: a one-bedroom flat in Muswell Hill, left (Prickett & Ellis; 020 8012 1060). North London suburbs boomed this year, with Zone 3 house price growth outperforming central London


Dare to share?Londoners desperate to own are sharing mortgages. Lizzie Rivera has the guide to getting it right

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TIDY PROFIT

Best mates Jim and Rohan bought this two-bedroom flat, right, in New Barnet, north London, for £197,000 five years ago. Now they let the flat for £1,150 a month, which more than covers their £800-a-month mortgage and service charge

YOUNG Londoners hand over half their income to a land-lord, while home owners spend a quarter of their wages on a mortgage,

according to the Government’s latest English Housing Survey.

Clearly it makes more financial sense to buy. Taking the plunge with friends or relatives — and sharing the debt — can make it possible to own a home you would not otherwise be able to afford, as long as you do your homework.

The biggest hurdle for London first-time buyers is the size of the deposit required, currently £72,000 — more than double most young Londoners’ annual salaries. And then there is the rigorous examination that has to be undertaken to qualify for a mortgage.

Most lenders, including Barclays, Woolwich, Lloyds and NatWest, allow up to four friends to get a mortgage together. The share each owns depends on how much they can afford.

New websites, such as sharea mortgage.com and propertybuyers-match.co.uk, match buyers looking to purchase a share of a property. But Ray Boulger, of online broker Charcol, warns against sharing with a complete stranger. “It’s a mad idea,” he says. “You should get to know the person you are going to buy with, and rent together for at least six months to make sure you are compatible living together. Mortgages are very expensive to get out of.”

MATES RATESBest friends Jim and Rohan, both 33, wanted to move out of their family homes and bought a two-bedroom flat together in New Barnet for £197,000 nine years ago.

They put down a joint deposit of £30,000 and instructed a solicitor to draw up a Declaration of Trust to ensure that if anything happened to either one of them, their share of the property would be left to their family.

After living together for five years, the pair decided to go their separate ways but keep the flat.

They let their flat for £1,150 a month, which more than covers their £800 monthly mortgage and service charge. The flat is now worth £300,000 and they plan to take out equity next year so they can each invest in their own place.

“We are happy to keep the flat as an investment for the foreseeable future,” says Jim. “It’s been a great experience, very successful, and we are probably closer friends for it. It is really helpful to have somebody to split the bills with.” But not everyone is so lucky.

FAMILY MISFORTUNESWhen digital marketing manager Maria Tapis, 33, bought a two-bedroom mai-sonette in Cockfosters with her sister Elena, 31, the survey they had done

didn’t pick up on the property’s damp issues, which are still ongoing. Two years ago they had a burst pipe and had to move to a hotel for three months, paid for by their insurance company, while the flood damage was sorted out. Then they had a gas leak.

The sisters are paying for the damp to be corrected and fixing the leak has so far cost them £700.

They have now set up a repairs fund and pay £50 into a joint bank account each month as a cushion for future issues. When they eventually move out, they plan to keep the property as a joint retirement asset, though such long-term plans can change. That is why a legally binding Declaration of Trust is important.

The Declaration of Trust should set out how and when you will approach selling the property, and the method for one party buying the other out — including how to get the property valued and how the legal fees and sale proceeds should be divided.

TEN TIPS ON MORTGAGE SHARING

Rent first with the person you have chosen to buy with for at least six months, to be certain you will get on.

All parties should get a credit report, as any black marks on it may jeopardise mortgage approval.

Create a Declaration of Trust (which will cost about £350) in which you agree how everything is shared, including ownership, bills and legal fees.

If you are putting in unequal deposits, work out the proportion of the property each deposit equates to — and agree how proceeds will be split.

Buy as “tenants in common”. This means each buyer can own a different percentage of the property and dispose of their share independently.

Set up a joint bank account for the mortgage (most lenders require this) and other joint expenses.

Compare mortgage rates. One bank might offer you a lower interest rate, but charge high fees, and vice versa.

Keep records of all official documents in a file.

Keep an inventory of ownership and shared contents in the home.

Make a will.

SISTERLY STRENGTH

Elena Tapis, 31, and her sister Maria, 33, bought a two-bedroom maisonette in Cockfosters, north London, using a survey that did not spot serious damp issues. Burst pipes and a broken boiler added to their woes. Now they pay monthly into a repairs fund

‘Get to know the person you intend to buy with. Rent together for at least six months to make sure you are compatible’


Homes & Property | Commuting

Big family homes from £140kFind bargains 45 minutes away in Northants. By Ruth Bloomfield

£350,000: a detached three-bedroom house in rural Weekley village, Kettering (Connells; 01536 688021)

£334,950: a four-bedroom Victorian villa in Wellingborough’s Park Crescent (Harwoods; 01933 719026)

AS LONDON commuters are pushed out ever further in search of a house they can afford to buy, Northamptonshire is

joining more fashionable shire counties on their radar.

With swifter train links to the capital than many parts of Oxfordshire and Wiltshire, this East Midlands county, 60 miles from London, offers property bargains.

Buyers can pick up a handsome five-bedroom Victorian villa for the price of an uninspiring two-bedroom London flat. But the area needs to be affordable, given the train fares commuters must pay.

Exclusive research by Savills on Wellingborough and Kettering — two Northamptonshire towns less than an hour from St Pancras by train — shows that prices are on the up after a long, hard recession.

WELLINGBOROUGH FOR A FRIENDLY COMMUNITYProperty in the ancient market town of Wellingborough has risen 6.6 per cent in the past year to an average of £150,757 — an increase that has finally brought the town back to its peak price levels of 2007.

The commute takes a relatively snappy 45 minutes, with an annual season ticket a stinging £5,916. The Government has committed to funding the electrification of the Midland Main Line, to be completed by about 2023, which will cut a bit off the journey time.

Wellingborough is more of a working town than a cutesy tourist trap and

its Seventies town centre is decent, though dull.

However, Wellingborough is still small enough to be a friendly place to live, and it more than passes the green space test, with Irchester Country Park and Sywell Country Park offering, between them, more

than 200 acres to explore. School standards vary, but there are some excellent choices led by Weston Favell CofE Primary School, Redwell Primary School, and Sir Christopher Hatton School, for seniors, which are all rated “outstanding” by the Ofsted education watchdog. House prices in

Wellingborough are enough to make a Londoner weep. Alan Marshall, director of Marshall & Cross estate agents, says commuters are just starting to cotton on to the fact that a three-bedroom Victorian house near the station would cost about £125,000 to £140,000, while you

could pick up a three-storey, five-bedroom terrace in the same area from about £140,000 to £250,000.

KETTERING FOR GREAT-VALUE HOMESA little further down the line from London is Kettering, another market town on the rise.

According to Savills, an average property is now worth £157,429, up 5.5 per cent in the past year. This increase has pushed prices above their 2007 peak.

The 53-minute commute from Kettering to London is even more expensive than the trip from Wellingborough — an annual season ticket costs £6,580. But Kettering’s largely Victorian housing stock, a legacy of its past as an affluent centre of Northamptonshire’s shoe-making industry, is affordable.

The town centre is more scenic than Wellingborough’s, with a large market square, mostly pedestrianised shopping streets and newly opened Yards Exchange, a complex of small independent shops. Simon Musto, owner of Simon Musto Sales and Lettings, says about half of his buyers now come from London — a mix of commuters, retirees and job changers, as Kettering is handy for both Milton Keynes and Birmingham.

In town, the smartest location is around the Headlands area and Hawthorn Road, where £500,000 will buy a four- to six-bedroom Victorian pile, and £200,000 will secure a four-bedroom Victorian terrace. This area is particularly popular for its urban village feel.

Scenic: Market Place is the charming focal point of Kettering town centre

ALA

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Keep Downton dreams aliveRent a grand Suffolk pile for a party or buy a private bolt hole in the wooded grounds, says Cathy Hawker

IF YOU’RE facing withdrawal symp-toms after the credits roll on the final episode of Downton Abbey this Christmas, you might like to hire a stately home and experience

the dramas of upstairs-downstairs living with some of your friends.

Somerleyton Hall, near Lowestoft, on the Suffolk-Norfolk border, should fit the bill. This Victorian pile in 5,000 acres is cosy and unstuffy inside, yet grand enough to impress even the most jaded Londoner.

The hall is the family home of Hugh Crossley, the fourth Lord Somerleyton, his wife, Lara, and their three children, Johnny, five, Christabel, three, and Margot, one. They live in the former kitchens and servants’ quarters, trans-formed into a spacious family home and office.

The rest of the hall — including 14 bed-rooms, a grand dining room, the elegant library and fabulous ballroom — can be hired from £3,700 a day to sleep 24 guests or host parties for more than 100. This is where Hugh, a modern aristocrat with an entrepreneurial streak, grew up with his four sisters. In 2000 he set up

From £3,700 a night: elegant Somerleyton Hall can be rented for private parties

Heritage heroes: Hugh Crossley, the fourth Lord Somerleyton, with his wife Lara and their children, Johnny, Margot and Christabel

THE building of lodge “retreats” on the Somerleyton estate began in 2003, with 70 now completed and privately owned. Single-storey and wood-clad, they have large terraces overlooking countryside. Interiors are cosy, with wood-burning stoves.

Fully furnished, they start at £90,000 for two-bedroom resale homes and £160,000 for new three-bedroom lodges, with annual service charges of about £3,600. “They rent

at £250 for two nights up to £1,250, and owners who choose to rent can get returns of four to five per cent net,” says park manager Phil Sharlott. “Our typical owners are doctors, lawyers or city workers who come for the weekends. They love the peace and to relax or cycle, or canoe and row on the lake.”

For more about Fritton Lake Lodges, visit frittonlakelodges.co.uk

elled interiors. Lara’s devotion to the house is obvious. She says: “We are try-ing to get it to the standard it deserves.” They are doing so well that Simon Thur-ley, former English Heritage chief executive, called them “heritage heroes”. Lara enlisted interior designer

Laura Ingrams, from Arie & Ingrams Design, to help reinvent the décor. “Laura is more contemporary and I am more traditional, so we complement each other well,” she says.

Lamps and shades were sourced from Newark Antiques Fair, jewel-coloured saris bought in Rajasthan were rein-vented as headboards and modern lighting turns the dining room into an outpost of Annabel’s nightspot.

Hugh has to find up to £300,000 a year to maintain the estate. He runs a farm and two pubs, including the nearby Fritton Arms, plus a boatyard, Suffolk’s largest natural lake and 120 holiday cottages. He also hosts about 20 weddings a year.

He says: “This house sucks up cash, but it allows us to live in a certain way and ensures the continuity of the family at Somerleyton.”

Somerleyton Hall (somerleyton.co.uk) can be hired for two days minimum from £3,700 a night. Dinner, bed and breakfast at The Fritton Arms is from £80 per person (frittonarms.co.uk)

a Middle Eastern restaurant called Dish Dash in Balham, and in 2013 he opened Hot Chip in Norwich, voted Norfolk’s

best chippy last year. He took charge of Somerleyton in 2005, moving back from London to face the archaic plumbing system, which meant choosing between hot water or heating.

Ten years on, Somerleyton has a super-efficient new boiler and remod-

COSY LODGES ON THE ESTATE FROM £90,000


Homes & Property | Design

Modern trolleys

SINCE its Seventies heyday, the humble trolley has been pushed up against the wall — but now it is returning to centre stage. A trolley is just

the job for serving drinks or wheeling dishes to the Christmas dinner table, and can be piled with the kids’ toys for a quick tidy before guests arrive. Here are nine stylish examples you’ll love to show off this festive season.

1 HELLA JONGERIUS’S redesign of Alvar Aalto’s 901 Tea Trolley, created for Finnish brand Artek in

1936 and considered a 20th-century masterpiece, was inspired by British tea culture and Japanese architecture. Jongerius has come up with two new versions of the 901. One is light, with a natural lacquered birch frame, a cream linoleum top tray, a bottom tray in contrasting white laminate, and cream lacquered wheels. The other, pictured, has a black lacquered birch frame, a peat-coloured top tray, a charcoal linoleum bottom tray and dark lacquered wheels. From £1,567.

2 IF YOUR tastes are ultra-minimalist, you might fancy the Helsinki Trolley by Desalto,

available at Viaduct. Designed by Caronni & Bonanomi in 1998, it has a steel frame in an Arctic grey-and-white finish, with a top in metal, clear toughened glass or laminate, and removable wooden chopping board.

3 FOR a real Pop Art feel, the Barboy drinks trolley, by Verner Panton for Verpan, is perfect. A

circular tube trolley with layers that slide open, it’s available at madeindesign.co.uk priced £1,020.

4 STURDY but movable, this hostess trolley is from the Brasserie range at upmarket

kitchen maker Smallbone of Devizes. Built from pickled oak and stainless steel, it even includes a warming draw. The trolley is available as part of a whole kitchen, from £40,000 (smallbone.co.uk).

5 SEBASTIAN COX, pictured, designed this limited-edition handmade oak and chestnut

trolley to mark the launch of The Glenlivet’s Nàdurra Peated Whisky Cask Finish. Inspired by a traditional malt barrow used in the distillery, the large “barrow” wheels and door panels are made of Cox’s signature wooden weave, in oak staves cut from old casks that still have an aroma of whisky. The trolley frame and top are made of oak, and a hand-blown glass vessel is included to hold ice and water — by artist Michael Ruh — incorporating a copper spinner and floating wood shavings. A dram tray in bog oak can be bought separately for £120. A limited number of trolleys can be made to order from The New Craftsmen, priced at £4,200.

6 ARCHITECT Heidi Locher uses stainless steel and Corian in her Beautiful Anywhere table and

bistro trolleys that come in circular or rectangular forms and can be made to measure. From £650.

7 THE Hirche Trolley is a pared-back piece, designed in 1956 by Herbert Hirche for

Richard Lampert. It is available from twentytwentyone in black steel and security glass, priced at £513.

8 ARAM has a good selection of trolleys, including the practical wooden, steel and laminate

AK 700 by Nissen & Gehl MDD for Naver Collection. From £1,229.

9 FOR a Fifties Parisian feel, Cathy Azria’s drinks trolley for BD-Designs is gorgeous... and

costs £4,680.

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STOCKISTS Aram Store: 110 Drury Lane, WC2 (020 7557 7557; aram.co.uk)BD-Designs: Unit 2, Park Mews, 213-215 Kilburn Lane, W10 — by appointment (020 8964 5355; bd-designs.co.uk)John Lewis:johnlewis.com The New Craftsmen: 34 North Row, Mayfair W1 (020 7148 3190; thenewcraftsmen.com) SCP: 135-139 Curtain Road, EC2 (020 7739 1869; scp.co.uk) Studio Locher: studiolocher.com or archiproducts.comTwentytwenty one:18c River Street, EC1 (020 7837 1900; twentytwentyone.com)

Viaduct: 1-10 Summers Street, EC1 (020 7278 8456; viaduct.co.uk)

By Corinne Julius

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Design | Homes & Propertyhomesandproperty.co.uk powered by

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The love of my lifeA derelict Whitechapel cottage was perfect for a master craftsman armed with handmade tiles, panelling and paint, says Philippa Stockley

Homes & Property | My home homesandproperty.co.uk homesandproperty.co.uk

THE Georgian terrace house in Whitechapel lovingly restored by Pedro da Costa Felgueiras has a colour palette like no other. “This is true luxury,

having completely unique colours,” he says, pointing at the pretty yellow-ochre cupboards in the kitchen, while a fire crackles in the grate.

The traditional paint specialist, 46, has hand-painted every wall and panelled surface in the entire house with paint he makes using only natural pigments and linseed oil. The subtle hues, from creamy lead white to chocolate brown, dove grey and the palest of purples, shift and change in daylight or candlelight.

Da Costa Felgueiras grew up in Lisbon, Portugal. After studying interior design, he decided he wanted to see the world. He moved to London in 1990. He didn’t speak English or know anyone but, like most 21-year-olds, he soon made friends, and found a flat-share in the East End.

“It was cheap then — nobody wanted to live round here, except artists,” he says. “So I kept meeting like-minded people.”

He worked as a lacquerer and gilder, and developed his paint-mixing skills. For two years from 2009, he worked for artists Gilbert & George, mixing colours for their home. He has since advised on colour at Strawberry Hill — the 18th-cen-tury home of Horace Walpole — at Kew Palace, and at Hampton Court.

Back in 2006, working among the grand houses of historic Spitalfields, he

realised it was time to find a home of his own. The Spitalfields Trust had just got hold of 10 derelict little houses in Whitechapel dating back to 1812, and was looking for first-time buyers to restore them.

Da Costa Felgueiras was put on the list, then panicked and pulled out. Then, he says: “There was one house left, and the Trust grabbed me by the collar and said ‘you’re buying it’.

“Inside, it was beyond terrible, with rubbish up to your knees. It was really damp. Nurses had once lived in it, but then it was squatted, then derelict. Someone had tried to burn it down, but it was too damp to catch fire. Instead of a garden, there was Tarmac. There were only two original doors and a few floor-boards — the rest was gone.”

WE WERE IN IT TOGETHERHe admits the project was daunting, but he was with a group of neighbours doing the same thing, sharing builders, brick-layers and carpenters. He had always done up the places he had lived in, and from the moment he bought the house, in April 2007, he knew what to do.

“Don’t make an old house grander than it really was. And don’t be afraid of new things, either. I’m not a fuddy-duddy. I have underfloor heating, a steel Smeg cooker and mid-century modern light-ing. In fact, Fifties furniture suits Geor-gian houses really well.”

Gutting and rebuilding the three-bed-room, four-storey house involved dig-ging out the low basement to a normal

height. This meant underpinning the entire building, as these houses had no foundations.

At the top, the tiny, low attic was replaced with a new floor and new stairs, to give a master bedroom and gorgeous en suite bathroom divided by a half-

glazed wall. Throughout the house, Da Costa Felgueiras worked with a carpen-ter to replace missing panelling, lay reclaimed floorboards, and turn alcoves into cupboards.

A full-height extension was built at the back, covered with timber lapping and

painted with Da Costa Felgueiras paint. The Tarmac was dug up and replaced by a walled garden with espaliered apple and pear trees, set off by a riot of scented tobacco plants and crimson dahlias. At the end of the garden, he built a work-room with a little bathroom. With its

Cosy outlook: above, a roaring fire and pretty yellow ochre walls warm the kitchen. The room overlooks the garden with its new workroom

Style fusion: left, traditional and mid-century furniture suits the Georgian house

’Tis the season: right, bowls of fruit and greenery give the house a festive feel

Photographs:: Charles Hosea

Green scene: Pedro da Costa Felgueiras in his walled garden, where once was Tarmac


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Rustic chic: the dining area, below, has precious reclaimed floorboards

Winter warmer: the ingredients for a hearty winter stew stand ready in the kitchen, above

In the frame: the Portuguese craftsman designed his own bed, right

WHAT IT COST Derelict house in 2007: £300,000Cost of works: £150,000 – £180,000 Value now: £1.5 million

GET THE LOOKDa Costa Felgueiras bespoke paints through lacquerstudios.comFour-poster bed designed by Da Costa Felgueiras, from The New Craftsmen (thenewcraftsmen.com)Handmade Portuguese ceramics from Saudade (saudade-shop.com)Reclaimed floorboards from Vinda Saax (07986 292867)Joinery by North Kent Joinery (nkj.co.uk)Lead for splash-backs by Smerald Roofing Supplies (020 8986 5818)Timber by James Latham (lathamtimber.co.uk)Antique oak furniture from Robert Hirschhorn (hirschhornantiques.com)Grates and rim-locks from eBay (ebay.co.uk)Light switches by Nu-Line (nu-line.net)Espaliered fruit trees from Chris Pike (07760 308077)Crab apple sprays from New Covent Garden Market (newcoventgardenmarket.com)

Ahead of the curve: art in the house is a mix of modern and traditional

Festive: branches and bowls of fruit

PEDRO DA COSTA FELGUEIRAS’S TIPS FOR CHRISTMAS DECORATING IN LONDON

Don’t bother about convention, just make it beautiful

Fresh sprays of crab apples from New Covent Garden Market, or other slender branches and twigs — even from your garden — look gorgeous in a big vase or jug

Candles in candlesticks add elegance and the most beautiful light

Tie bunches of mistletoe or holly with thin ribbon, or put them loosely in a vase with water

Heap dishes or plates with quinces, oranges, Cox’s apples, even lemons. They are more colourful, and smell better, than nuts

Entertain with a hearty seasonal vegetable soup or stew, and make mulled wine or punch. The fruits and vegetables look gorgeous and make the house smell wonderful

handmade roof tiles and tall windows glazed with horticultural glass, it looks original. “I just used all the leftovers, which is a very 18th-century thing to do,” he explains.

Eventually the house was finished, and its proud owner set about the labo-

rious task of painting every inch of wood. When at last he moved in, in time for Christmas 2009, he celebrated in a way the first owners would have understood — decorating with greenery, branches and ribbon-tied mistletoe; heaping dishes with quinces and other seasonal

fruits; perfuming the fires with pine needles; lighting candles, and cooking a big, glistening copper pot of winter soup for family and friends to share.

This magical home didn’t come with-out tears, however. “Restoring a house is one of the most stressful things you

will ever do,” Da Costa Felgueiras explains. “Don’t expect to do building work and not shed some tears. It’s emo-tional, but you need that emotion and passion to do it properly.

“But now I’ve got the bug, I would do it again.”


Homes & Property | Shopping

Secret shopsSececreretreeet e shhopshohopooopo ss

WHICHEVER direction you travel, there are plenty of passionate specialist independent shop owners and

designer-makers in London to inspire you with brilliant ideas for Christmas presents.

THE CENTRE OF TOWNSlip around the corner from the West End frenzy into Bloomsbury and to another age, where gracious shops sport elegant Georgian façades. Here, amid niche fashion boutiques, jewel-lers, a florist, a bookshop, cafés and pubs galore — and even a barber — is Pentreath & Hall (17 Rugby Street; pen-treath-hall.com), which has architect/artist owners and sells marginally eccentric homewares.

The all-white purity of plaster casts by craftsman Peter Hone — corbels, a lion, roundels, a foot — contrasts with coloured handmade glass from Paris, German household brushes/buckets, perfect linen napkins, and the edgy geometrics of the shop’s own-brand stationery.

Adjacent, just into Lamb’s Conduit Street, is Darkroom’s inky-black shrine for the cognoscenti, with accessories for men, women and the home, while hand-printers Thornback & Peel’s shop, offering slightly surreal household tex-tiles, is at No 7 Rugby Street.

NORTH: UNDER CANVAS Islington Green has a new Christmas market marquee with good-quality UK gifts, including fine woollens and exclu-sive honey. Smug, off Upper Street, is a little haven for hand-picked and handmade products.

Down the road, Twentytwentyone (274/275 Upper Street) leads the field in good design, while Gill Wing at No 190 is a specialist cook shop. At Aria in Barnsbury Street, a Victorian school hall is stashed with good design ideas (ariashop.co.uk).

SOUTH: IT’S A BREEZEBy the breezy river, Southbank Centre Shop Festival Terrace is a reliable place of good UK design. Set back a little, Oxo Tower Wharf, with its clanging exterior metal staircase, has three floors of shops/studios. It includes the head-quarters for a plethora of top design outfits — try Black + Blum for neat kitchen notions, Innermost for lighting, Suck UK for London’s best brainwaves,

and Snowden Flood for original glass and china. We love the china baubles with London scenes (Tues-d a y t o S u n d a y ; oxotower.co.uk). Browse the wooden chalets of a continental Christ-mas market by the Thames. Then a short stroll leads to Gabriel’s Wharf (gabrielswharf.co.uk), with shops around a courtyard/playground, where Ganesha is celebrating 20 years of fair trade (gane-sha.co.uk).

EAST: FILL YOUR BOOTSDon your walking shoes tomorrow evening and explore the 27 tightly clustered traders of the Shoreditch Design Triangle (shoreditchdesign-triangle.com) — each merchant will be happy to give you a map. They are open late and will be serving drinks — same again next Thursday. Pulling out the stops is old-estab-lished SCP (135-139 Curtain Road; scp.co.uk), a top shop for design and quirky gifts.

In Rivington Street, designer Lee Broom combines solid marble with glass to produce an exquisite single vase, but it is pricey, at pushing £400. Chill out at the Ace Hotel in Shoreditch High Street, with its Christmas gift store and fun festive shops. Amid the trendy shops of Redchurch Street, Labour And Wait sells fine kitchenware (85 Redchurch Street; 020 7729 6253).

The girls at Luna & Curious offer gorgeous jewellery, ceramics and fashion (24-26 Calvert Avenue), and there’s a designer market at Rochelle School from Friday to Sunday (ro-chelleschool.org).

Local designers have also made gifts for under £15 at One Good Deed Today, (73 Kingsland Road; onegooddeedtoday.com) with a pottery/cocktail beano tomorrow

evening. In Kingsland Road, Geffrye Museum has good gifts galore —

and lovely festive period room displays. Albion café in Boundary Street is selling puddings and craft beer (albion-uk.london).

Brick Lane’s buzzing weekend markets offer

fashion, design, vintage and food (trumanbrewery.

com). At Columbia Road Sunday mar-

ket, the barrow boys will be selling trees, exotic flowers and unusual greenery, but get in quick, as they van-ish by about 3pm.

And the 50 independent shops are irresistible — find top-make blankets (Harry Brand), fine art, design, vintage, and white china “seconds” at Pot Luck (check opening times at columbiaroad.info). Late-night Wednesday is tonight, and again on December 16 and 23, from 5pm to 8pm.

SOUTH WEST: FOR ROBOTS Start at The Conran Shop (81 Fulham Road; conranshop.co.uk), where Christmas is in overdrive. The walk-through windows have huge rockets and giant robots for their “space-age Christmas”.

Inside, browse the smartest gifts in town, neatly wrapped for free. Oppo-site, Jonathan Adler (60 Sloane Avenue) is a brash American with exuberant homeware — not for the faint-hearted.

In a quiet side road is Mint, always a trendsetter (mintshop.co.uk) plus a pop-up with Tiipoi metalware, Kit Miles silk cushions, flowers and ceram-ics (1 North Terrace, until December 18). B&B Italia, at 250 Brompton Road, has lined its long entrance with Italian design (all for sale, from £15).

Do a detour to the V&A for superb embroidered decorations commis-sioned for the museum’s Fabric of India show (vandashop.com).

Finish at Harrods, that festive mecca, where the world-famous windows have moving marionettes and mice to delight the crowds. Inside are decora-tions handmade in Britain — with inspiring “gift carts” placed strategi-cally around the store (harrods.com).

Discover those special streets and shops where gifts will be designer-made and different. Barbara Chandler opens her address book

Nice ’n’ breezy: Christmas stalls on the South Bank with designer shopping nearby

Clockwise from top left: blankets at Harry Brand in Columbia Road, E2; Pisces cushion, £98, at Jonathan Adler in SW3; alphabet plates, £42.50, at Pentreath & Hall, WC1; pair of jaguar bookends, £175, House of Hackney, E1

Snowtime: Christmas ice skating bauble, £7.95, from Harrods

REX


Alison Cork

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. To offer feedback on any of these companies, email [email protected] with “Bargain News” in the subject line. For more bargains, visit alisonathome.com or homesandproperty.co.uk/offers.

Reader promotion | Homes & Propertyhomesandproperty.co.uk powered by

THE Jean Patrique knife set is a collection of high-quality, state-of-the-art knives and is currently reduced from £129.99 to just £39.99.

This sleek set, crafted for all needs, comprises a three-and-a-

half-inch paring knife, a five-inch utility knife, an eight-inch chef’s knife, a nine-inch bread knife and a 10-inch carving knife — perfect for the chef in your family.

To order, visit oneregentplace.co.uk/jeanbn9 or call 020 3504 1532 before December 14.

FESTIVE LIGHTS is the expert in everything from commercial display to domestic lights.

Whether you are looking for Christmas, garden or all-year-round lights, Festive Lights’ revolutionary connectable systems have proven to be extremely popular, allowing customers to run entire outdoor displays from a single plug.

Starting from only £3.99, a large range of connectable lights is available in an array of styles and colours.

Readers can claim 10 per cent off when they order online and quote code GIFT10 at checkout.

To claim, visit festive-lights.com or call 01257 792111. Alternatively, email [email protected].

LE CORBUSIER’S LC4 chaise longue is as contemporary today as it was when launched 80 years ago.

Wallace Sacks has created its own version of this iconic emblem of 20th-century design. Usually £1,594.50, readers can buy it with a 70 per cent discount at only £478.

To claim, visit wallacesacks.com or call 0800 011 4642 and quote code ABN9DEC15 before December 30.

Order before December 16 for guaranteed delivery before Christmas.

Free delivery for orders over £1,000.

Vintage lighting

HAND-CARVED from solid mango wood, the Lyon coffee table is sophisticated in style, with curved legs and a distressed paint effect, and generous in size at H40cm x W113cm x D73cm.

Readers can currently claim a 30 per cent

discount, reducing the price from £275 to just £192.50 — a bargain given the quality on offer.

To claim your 30 per cent off, with pre-Christmas delivery, visit withinhome.com/lyon30 or call 020 7087 2900 and quote LYON30 by December 17.

Get £90 off knife set

THE bold Didier vintage-style pendant light is only £59.99 including delivery from my-furniture.co.uk.

It is made from iron piping and has the distressed, painted look that works so well in retro interiors. Coming with five vintage Edison filament bulbs, the Didier is ideal for kitchens, dining rooms and studies. A wide range of other industrial-style light bulbs is also available.

To order, visit my-furniture.co.uk or call 0800 092 1636 while stocks last.

Own a classic chaise

How to sparkle all year round

Carved coffee table’s so elegant


Homes & Property | Outdoors

Natural gift wrap’s so much nicer

DIY DECORATIONS FOR CHRISTMAS

Pattie Barron

Let nature inspire you

BRANCHES of contorted hazel, birch or cone-studded alder make a stylish no-needle-drop Christmas tree that’s ideal for a small space. Garden crafter Louise Curley secures them in a wide-bottomed jar filled with pine cones, then decks the boughs with Chinese lanterns, nuts, berries and crab apples, secured with twine or raffia.

◄ CREATE A MINI FORESTIN WINTER, silver birch trees make magical silhouettes outdoors and their effect is just as striking indoors. Rather than dragging in a tree or three, settle on a small-scale birch forest, less than 1m high, which sits comfortably in the average fireplace.

The five-strong birch cluster is dotted with soft white LEDs and the weatherproof coating means that this birch forest can light up the patio for Christmas and beyond. It is priced at £85 (coxandcox.co.uk).

▲ LET IT GLOWBRING small garden lanterns indoors to decorate the tree or line the hearth. Copper tea light lanterns, only 18cm high, can also be hooked on to shepherds’ crooks pushed into the compost of evergreen containers on either side of the front door to add a warm, glowing welcome, even when unlit. Lanterns are priced at £9.95 each, while metal stakes are £4.95 each (worm.co.uk).

LET your creativity run riot by decorating a wreath with your choice of foliage, flowers or fruit, wired on to a plain fir base, and tie on a big red raffia bow. Forage before daybreak at newcoventgardenmarket.com for the best selection of jumbo cranberries, purple Brussels sprouts, crab apple stems and other seasonal gems.

METAL star-shaped cookie cutters form the base for a simple, effective table display, left, when each holds a plain white candle secured with garden-centre sphagnum moss and decorated with rose hips. Use cookie cutters, too, for tree trims, right, that will feed the birds after the festivities. Mix seeds into melted lard and pour into cutters, adding string at the top. When hardened, attach to a hanging loop of scarlet ribbon. Get star cutters from craftcompany.co.uk.

PUSH aside the shiny paper and ribbon for more natural gift wrappings. Gardener and forager Louise Curley, in her book The Crafted Garden (Frances Lincoln), suggests a base of plain paper and string, then getting creative with seed pods, grasses, berry sprigs, larch cones or bay and rosemary leaves. Her delicate flower decorations comprise honesty seed pods centred with a poppy seed head, secured with a dab of glue.

Star shapes make the cut

MAKE a long, leafy garland by gathering together evergreen boughs and clusters of berries, then painstakingly wiring them all together... by which time Christmas will be long gone. An easier option is to buy an everlasting swag of

holly, generously laden with glossy scarlet berries, that you can drape across a table, mantelpiece or deep windowsill, then nestle glass baubles among the lush greenery. Priced at £69.95 and 120cm long (sarahraven.com).

Bring the outdoors inside

ICE candle holders, containing nothing more than a tea light, make a festive, though fleeting, appearance on the dining table. Partly fill one large bowl with cold water and place a smaller bowl inside, filling with water until the tops of the bowls are level, and tape to secure. Push flowerheads of violas or Christmas roses into the gap and freeze bowls overnight. Allow to stand for 15 minutes, twist the inner bowl to release, then turn the larger bowl upside down and shake gently, holding fingers beneath to catch.

UPCYCLE an inexpensive glass fishbowl vase by filling it with light-reflecting silver baubles and surrounding with a circle of votive candles. Add a frill of foraged larch cones, bunched twigs, berries and nuts — instant glamour.

Weave foraged finds into a wreath

The alternative tree

A cool look for the table

Bowl your guests over

Garden queries? Email our RHS expert at [email protected]

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Spotlight ChislehurstHomes in a historic village with great shops, half an hour from central London. No wonder families put down roots, says Anthea Masey

Homes & Property | Property searching

FAMILY-FRIENDLY Chislehurst is one of the most expensive parts of south-east London. Much of the pretty village’s charm and rural feel are

derived from its surrounding pair of commons, which were saved from development by residents at the end of the 19th century and are protected by an Act of Parliament.

Along with the village atmosphere that families crave, the big attraction for house hunters is Chislehurst’s close proximity to central London, says estate agent Laura Knight-Smith, from the local branch of Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward.

“It’s a lovely, leafy area and there are two high streets with some high-end shops,” she adds.

Chislehurst’s fine wooden village sign stands on the little green at the junction of Bromley Road and Bromley Lane, opposite a line of shops known as Royal Parade. The sign depicts Queen Eliza-beth I in the act of knighting Thomas Walsingham (1561-1630), who lived nearby at Scadbury Park, which is now a popular nature reserve.

A royal courtier, Walsingham was a friend of the playwright Christopher Marlowe and related to Elizabeth’s spymaster, Francis Walsingham, who was born at Scadbury.

Fast-forward three centuries to the Chislehurst of 1870, and Camden Place — a grand house resembling a French château, which became the home of the exiled French emperor Napoleon III and his wife, Eugénie.

Napoleon died in 1873 and Chislehurst held a grand funeral procession through the village to St Mary’s Church, which neighbours Camden Place.

Today, Camden Place serves as the clubhouse of Chislehurst Golf Club and as a wedding and conference venue, but several local street names are a reminder of its royal connection. Eugénie has Empress Drive, where there are Thirties and Fifties semi-detached houses, while Prince Impe-rial Road, overlooking Chislehurst Common, is named for the couple’s son, Louis.

Chislehurst Caves, an ancient chalk and flint mine with a 22-mile labyrinth of underground tunnels, is the big local tourist draw. In the Sixties and Seven-ties the caves became a famous music venue, with performances by the likes of David Bowie, Status Quo, Jimi Hen-drix, the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd

— but they had other uses previously. The caves served as a store for muni-tions during the First World War, then as a mushroom farm in the Thirties, and were used as a vast air raid shelter during the Second World War.

WHAT THERE IS TO BUYThe choice of local homes is wide — from modern flats to period conver-sions; from two-bedroom cottages to

Victorian and Edwardian terrace houses, plus large detached mansions behind electronic gates. The most expensive house now for sale is a six-bedroom detached Twenties property of more than 4,600sq ft, set in a land-scaped garden in exclusive Wilderness Road and priced at £3.5 million.

The most unusual property on the market is a former government nuclear bunker, The Glass House in Kemnal

Road, which was converted into a five-bedroom house 15 years ago. Built around a glazed courtyard and with an indoor swimming pool, it’s priced at £3 million.

Period cottages close to High Street start at about £450,000. There is a pretty two-bedroom cottage in Park Road for sale for £490,000.The area attracts: as well as local buy-ers, young couples move in from other village-type areas, such as Dulwich and Blackheath, in search of more for their money.Staying power: this is an area where families enjoy living and tend to put down roots, although some do move further into Kent in the direction of Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells. Renting: Anita Barry, lettings manager at Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward, says renters are professional couples and

£3 million: with five bedrooms and an indoor pool, The Glass House, left, is a former Cold War bunker that has been transformed into a luxurious modern mansion. Through JDM (020 8012 2398)

Tea party: right, Johanna King, Carmel Jossa and Kate Ernoult of Annabel’s luxury English gift shop in High Street, Chislehurst

camerich.co.uk 020 7372 9887

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£490,000A TWO-BEDROOM house with pretty gardens in Park Road, Chislehurst, with views of the local church. Through Alan de Maid (020 8012 1731).

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Use our School Checker to find catchment areas and inspection reports for Chislehurst schoolsThe best streets in ChislehurstThe lowdown on the local rental sceneAll the latest new homes developments

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RENTING IN CHISLEHURST (Average rates)

One-bedroom flat £976 a month

Two-bedroom flat £1,394 a month

Two-bedroom house £1,332 a month

Three-bedroom house £1,625 a month

Four-bedroom house £2,321 a month

@jdmchislehurst follow the cricket club @CWKCC; @chislehurstgolf; @FrielJoanna for local history; Chislehurst Christmas lights

@pureflukeplays Top kebabs from Üsküdar Turkish takeaway at Chislehurst train station. Imperial Arms wine bar is top

@GasBennett Crown and Anchor pub in Park Road, Bromley

@MachineGun1967 Dennys seafood restaurant in the old waiting room at the actual station...

To find a home in Chislehurst, visit rightmove.co.uk/chislehurstFor more about Chislehurst, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/spotlightchislehurst

Photographs: Daniel Lynch

How did this local girl immortalise a Hong Kong garden? Find the answer at

homesandproperty.co.uk/spotlightchislehurst

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Grand design: Chislehurst Golf Club’s head PGA pro Paul Eastwood outside Camden Place, which was home for three years in the 1870s to exiled French emperor Napoleon III, and is now the clubhouse

Grape taste: Gemma Hill of Champion Wines in High Street, top, samples the latest batch of rosé. Chislehurst Common, above, is popular with local families seeking quality time in open space that’s close to home

families, or singletons, not sharers. Two-bedroom flats rent for £1,250 to £1,550 a month, with two-bedroom cot-tages from about £1,650 a month.

Large family houses can rent for as much as £4,000 a month, and Barry says she recently rented a five-bedroom house with an indoor swimming pool for £5,800 a month. Many tenants of large houses often want one- or two-year tenancies.

RETAIL THERAPY AND EATING OUTThe two shopping areas are along High Street and Royal Parade. High Street is dominated by a lovely duck pond at one end and a large branch of Sains-bury’s at the other.

Most of the shops are independent, but there are a lot of chain restaurants, including Café Rouge, Côte, Zizzi and Prezzo. Wrattens, a local institu-tion, is like a mini department store that also has a café, as does gift shop Annabel’s in High Street.

There are fashion boutiques, too, and KFH’s Laura Knight-Smith says many of her buyers visit Louis Baron for interior

design. Villagio is an Italian restaurant in the former police station. There is a PizzaExpress and Italian restaurant, Due Amici, in Royal Parade, which was built in 1876, three years after the death of exiled Napoleon III. French linen firm Yves Delorme has its only London sub-urban shop here, while Michael Sim sells English antique furniture.

Plenty of the local pubs serve food, including the Crown Inn in School Road, which is a Shepherd Neame pub, while the Bull’s Head in Royal Parade belongs to Young’s. Also owned by chains are the Bickley in Chislehurst Road, the Queen’s Head in High Street, and the Tiger’s Head in Watts Lane. The Ramblers Rest is a lovely old pub in Mill Place, while the Imperial Arms in Old Hill bills itself as a gastropub with a wine bar.Open space: Chislehurst and St Paul’s Cray Commons are largely wooded, although attempts are being made to re-establish heathland. The London Loop long walking trail runs through Scadbury Park nature reserve and St Paul’s Cray Common.Travel: lying 12 miles south-east of

central London, with Sidcup to the north, Orpington to the south and Bromley to the west, Chislehurst is close to the junction of the M25 and M20. There are trains from Chislehurst station to Cannon Street that take 29 minutes, while services to London Bridge take 21 minutes. It takes 29 minutes to Charing Cross, 24 minutes to Waterloo and 41 minutes to Black-friars. Rail services take a few minutes less from nearby Elmstead Woods station.

Chislehurst station is in Zone 5 and an annual travelcard to Zone 1 costs £2,188. Elmstead Woods is in Zone 4 and the travelcard costs £1,844.Council: Bromley is Conservative controlled and Band D council tax for this year is £1,325.14.

Source: Rightmove

BUYING IN CHISLEHURST (Average prices)

One-bedroom flat £279,000

Two-bedroom flat £417,000

Two-bedroom house £414,000

Three-bedroom house £533,000

Four-bedroom house £839,000

Source: Rightmove

£985,000THIS four-bedroom house is near Rush Pond in Roehampton Drive, a stroll from Chislehurst Village. Through JDM (020 8012 2398).

£400,000IN LUBBOCK ROAD, Chislehurst, this two-bedroom first-floor flat is in a stable conversion. Through KFH (020 8012 2744).


Homes & Property | New homes

By David Spittles

City Road wakes up Get a Rotherhithe flat in your Christmas stocking

WALK along Ironmonger Row, just north of Barbican, to the canal basin at City

Road and you will discover the ancient parish of St Luke’s. It features an 18th-century Hawksmoor church, now a recording studio for the London Symphony Orchestra, and magnificent Art Deco public baths.

Until about 1990, this was a lively commercial district, but with startling suddenness it fell almost silent, leaving empty industrial

buildings. The trades and crafts that had flourished over the previous two centuries died or departed as technology took over.

The area still feels like a secret, though perhaps not for much longer. A revival is under way, fuelled by the rise of bordering Shoreditch, with mainly small-scale developments of loft-style offices and flats.

Now comes 250 City Road, which offers 933 homes. The scheme, above and right, replaces an unimpressive low-rise business estate and data centre, built barely 25 years ago

when Islington borough planners were arguably at their least imaginative. The development brings in the big guns. Architect Foster + Partners has created the corporate-

ONLY six flats are left for sale at 566-home Marine Wharf in Rotherhithe, above, offering buyers the chance to pick up a Christmas bargain. Prices start at £570,000 for two-bedroom apartments. The development is handy for the Tube station and is close to the waterfront.

Apartment blocks are set around central courtyards and clad in warm brick and rusted steel panels, picking up on the area’s docks heritage.

Flats come with 999-year leases and good-size terraces, and there is a gym, car club and concierge services. Call 020 8694 3100.

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EUROSTAR BOOST FOR EBBSFLEET

GRAND COUNTRY HOMES IN JEKYLL GARDENSHISTORIC country house conversions continue to cast a spell over home buyers, and King Edward VII Estate, near Midhurst in West Sussex, has huge appeal. Within the South Downs National Park, it was built in 1901 as a tuberculosis sanatorium and has since been hailed an Arts & Crafts masterpiece. It includes a Grade II-listed chapel that will become a café and shop when the 162-home project is complete next year. The listed gardens, originally planted by renowned horticulturist Gertrude Jekyll, link buildings and landscape.

Crown Wood, left, consists of eight detached houses being built on the estate at the end of a mile-long private road. These are big homes, up to 4,800sq ft, with triple garages. Prices from £1.75 million. Homes in the refurbished mansion are coming later. Call Strutt & Parker on 01428 661077.

style scheme with two towers, a rooftop gym and sky terrace, two acres of landscaped space, offices and studios for start-up companies, shops, spa, cafés and restaurants

plus a four-star hotel. Walk-to-work Square Mile employees are among the early buyers.

Apartments start at £865,000. Call Berkeley Homes on 020 3040 6250.

THE Eurostar station at Ebbsfleet has put a part of North Kent once riddled with quarry pits back on the map and opened up villages and towns in the wider area to commuters.

Chancellor George Osborne announced £310 million extra funding for Ebbsfleet last month, citing its “fantastic infrastructure” as the reason for approving a 15,000-home garden city there. Newcomers will find the country’s fastest trains offering an 18-minute commute to central London, excellent motorway connections and “next- generation” high-speed fibre-optic cabling.

Sleepy Kentish villages within a few miles of this stark modern transport

hub are reawakening as commuters search for semi-rural homes that are a convenient drive to the station.

The Vale, in Southfleet, falls into this category. A former salad farm backing on to open fields is being turned into a hamlet of 32 houses grouped around a duck pond. The

Kentish-style homes have been built with reclaimed materials that give them a mature, weathered look. A classic oast house has been converted, too. Prices from £399,950 to £930,000 for a 2,565sq ft home with a double garage. Call Millwood Designer Homes on 01474 230160.

From £399,950: buyers will love the look of Kentish-style properties at The Vale


MONDAYI am at the Haslemere office for the weekly 8am catch-up meeting. There is good news from our on-site negotia-tor, who is working at a superb devel-opment of eight new properties by award-winning Millgate Homes. He reveals that the penultimate was reserved over the weekend.

At £1.9 million, the price has been heavily affected by the change in stamp duty rates a year ago. This house now attracts a bill of £141,750, an increase of nearly £50,000.

The Chancellor’s recent Autumn Statement has also seen an additional three per cent added on to current stamp duty levels for anyone purchas-ing a buy-to-let property or second home. As this comes into effect next April, we are hoping to see an increase in demand for good rental properties and pretty weekend homes over the next four months.

TUESDAYAnother early morning meeting, this time at our Guildford office, to review business. The team has enjoyed a busy year, with the town market particularly good. There is also amusement when one of our staff recounts a viewing from yesterday at a beautiful property in the Surrey Hills. It has extensive equestrian facilities where, on opening the door to show an outdoor toilet, they found it occupied by a burly gentleman. All parties got quite a shock.

WEDNESDAYWe are agreeing terms to market a house in Wodeland Avenue, Guildford, which is near the mainline station with

its fast train service to Waterloo. We have sold six houses in this road this year and three of them have generated competitive interest.

The client is thinking of holding off marketing until the new year, although he agrees for us to have a number of “one-off” viewings over the next 24 hours.

The team all have buyers to speak to and, by close of play, we have a total of six viewings lined up.

THURSDAYIt’s down to Farnham this morning for a regional catch-up. Generally the mood is good and there are plenty of decent buyers out there looking, although there is a lack of good-quality stock. A valuation later today in the pretty village of Ripley has come in as a result of agreeing a sale on a stunning

Georgian house earlier in the week. Forge Cottage turns out to be a well-proportioned, four-bedroom property with a walled garden, but unusually it also comes with a 16th-century barn that is ripe for conversion.

We are keen to win the business here as there is a strong trend in the market for good-quality ancillary accommoda-tion. With an ageing population, we are seeing more buyers looking for a property with a full annexe or the abil-ity to create one for grandparents. Multi-generational living — a trend we have nicknamed “The Waltons” — is on the rise.

FRIDAYAfter yesterday’s viewings on the house in Wodeland Avenue, we have two offers on the table well over the price our client was expecting. One party is in a stronger cash position with a flex-ible timescale that suits our client and we agree the sale before a photograph has been taken.

Lunchtime approaches and we have three properties completing today, with one a simultaneous exchange and completion. As the calls come in from solicitors confirming comple-tion has taken place, various team members dash off to meet excited purchasers with keys, champagne and other goodies.

At 5.30pm, after a long week, I think it is time to take the Guildford team down to the Three Pigeons for a well-deserved drink.

Diary of an estate agent

A shock in store behind the door

Daniel Burstow is head of the Surrey region at Strutt & Parker (01483 306565)

Homes & Property | Inside story

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