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Homes&Property

Wednesday 26 February 2014

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

From a £62,000 box to a £6m mansion: Page 32

How we made it

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2 WEDNESDAY 26 FEBRUARY 2014 EVENING STANDARD

By Faye Greenslade

This week: homesandproperty.co.uk

VISIT homesandproperty.co.uk/rules for details of our usual promotion rules. When you respond to promotions, offers or competitions, the London Evening Standard and its sister companies may contact you with relevant offers and services that may be of interest. Please give your mobile number and/or email address if you would like to receive such offers by text or email.

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news: Luxury flats ‘threat’ to London’s biggest farmers’ market

Read Ruth Bloomfield’s full story at homesandproperty.co.uk. For more on Marylebone, see Pages 6 & 7

Check out the list at homesandproperty.co.uk/top20

Or buy one in our online shop for only £89.99

follow the money: Top 20 London commuter locations

FANS of the Sunday farmers’ market in Marylebone, including Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch and chefs Jamie Oliver, Skye Gyngell and Loyd Grossman, fear it could close or be “reduced to postage stamp size” if a scheme to build luxury flats is approved.

Many believe the farmers’ market, currently one of London’s biggest, has been key to building Marylebone’s image as an attractive city “village.” But Westminster council has done a deal with Ridgeford Properties and Canadian developer Concord Pacific to redevelop the valuable one-acre market site in Moxon Street. The £250 million scheme includes “high-quality residential units”, affordable housing, shops and “space” for a market.

Win a long-reach trimmer

£650,000: Yew Tree House in the hamlet of Whitfield is surrounded by rolling Gloucestershire countryside and would make a pretty boutique guesthouse. Large gardens of almost an acre are enclosed by stone walls and a five-bar gate. The house is split into two wings, one with three bedrooms and a bathroom, while the other, in the old barn, has a double guest bedroom and bathroom. Available through Chappell & Matthews.

£699,999: an über-sleek interior gives allure to this garden flat close to Normand Park and Queen’s Club Gardens in West Kensington. Space flows beautifully in the 717sq ft space. Walnut floors lead from the hallway into a 15ft reception room which sits alongside a glossy, high-spec kitchen/dining room with white walls, spotlit ceilings and doors to the private patio garden. Clean lines continue in two double bedrooms. Through Chesterton Humberts.

Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/buyoftheweeknormand

THE price gap between country and city homes is wider than it has ever been, at 12 per cent, so there has never been a better time to consider moving out of costly London to a bigger property near good schools and green open space.

To live the dream, however, you’ll need a fast commute. New research from Savills combines rail passenger numbers with average house prices to reveal the Top 20 commuter destinations for busy London workers.

TO ENTER For a chance to win an Eckman trimmer, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/offers before the end of March 12. Usual rules apply, see homesandproperty.co.uk/rules for details.

London buy of the week Normand conquest of style

Out of town buy of the week where Victorian charm meets smart energy

Life changer gateway to a gorgeous guesthouse

£695,000: buys this house in the most popular UK commuter spot. But where is it? Visit homesand property.co.uk/topspot to find out

TRIM your high hedges quickly, easily and safely with the UK’s tallest hedge trimmer, from Eckman.

The long-reach telescopic trimmer extends to more than nine feet, yet still only weighs just over 8lb (3.8kg). It comes with a generous 10-metre power lead, and adjusts to trim hedges at almost any angle, without you having to stoop, bend or wobble on ladders.

The strong aluminium telescopic pole extends from six feet (1.85m) to an incredible 9ft 2ins (2.8m) and the trimmer powers through stems up to a centimetre in diameter at 3,200rpm.

You can buy an Eckman trimmer for £89.99 plus £3.99 p&p at homesandproperty.co.uk/shop.

Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/ outoftownsarratt

£647,000: a neat and tidy package awaits behind the clipped hedges of this Hertfordshire cutie in the village of Sarratt. Victorian charm and modern living blend perfectly in the 1860s cottage, featuring open fires and solid oak floors in both the living and dining rooms, plus heated tiled floors in the kitchen and bathroom.

Two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a study/third bedroom can be found upstairs. Smart energy is in place, too, with central heating you can control remotely from your mobile phone. Through Hetheringtons.

Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/lifechangerwhitfield

Property search

Famous fans: celebrity chefs have come out in support of the Sunday farmers’ market in Moxon Street, Marylebone

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Savills is the leading adviser for property in the capital. Great news for your capital.

EVENING STANDARD WEDNESDAY 26 FEBRUARY 2014 3

Got some gossip? Tweet @amiranews

A NEW penthouse just on the market, right, could be perfect for Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin.

The Hollywood actress and her Coldplay frontman husband, left, are said to be selling their Belsize Park home and looking for an apartment in Regent’s Park.

A three-storey penthouse with four bedrooms and a private terrace with incredible views of London’s skyline is the ultimate indulgence.

Aspiring chef Paltrow can cook up a storm in the cutting-edge kitchen and there is plenty of space for the couple’s two children Apple, nine, and seven-year-old son Moses.

The property is on Jones Lang LaSalle’s books for £7.25 million — which we imagine shouldn’t make too much of a dent in the A-list pair’s bank balance.

Visit homesandproperty.co.uk/chris

The perfect Paltrow penthouse

Depp’s £12m bidding war

JOHNNY DEPP, 50, is thought to be keen on buying sprawling Hadspen Estate, above, in Somerset. The actor is rumoured to be willing to spend £12 million-plus on the mansion, which has 12 bedrooms and eight bathrooms.

It could be a superb retreat for Depp and fiancée Amber Heard, right. However, another buyer is said to be intent on turning the pile into a new version of celebrity hotel and

private members club, Babington House.

May the best man win.

By Amira Hashish

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JK ROWLING is set to publish her second crime novel under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, causing some sadness for Harry Potter aficionados still lamenting the end of her world of wizardry.

For those in need of a magical fix, look to Lavenham Priory. The nine-bedroom retreat is in the village of Lavenham, Suffolk, which was used as a location for Godric’s Hollow in Harry Potter. The fully restored medieval house is one of the village’s finest homes, set in three acres of beautiful grounds. On the market for £1.85 million with Jackson-Stops & Staff, it is positively Potter-like with a great hall, two

cellars and a herb garden.Visit homesand

property.co.uk/priory

DAVID BECKHAM will need a US house as he sets up his football club in Miami, and a seven-bedroom new build with gym, squash court, full-size basketball court and a big pool could be perfect for him and his three sporty young sons.

Fashion designer wife Victoria might like its proximity to glamorous Miami Beach and take daughter Harper, two, to the Bal Harbour boutiques. The house is listed with Sotheby’s for £5.8 million.

Move to Godric’s Hollow for a fix of Harry Potter magic

Will Becks pitch for a new build?

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Londoners go to the front of the queue as

In an attempt to prevent pre-selling to foreign investors, a new industry code will urge developers to sell to British buyers first. But will they, asks David Spittles

AS SPRING’S new homes launches get under way, a campaign has been kick-started to prevent foreign buyers moving in first to

grab London’s latest homes as an overseas investment.

The practice of “pre-selling” to foreign buyers has become an increasingly hot issue, with Lib-Dem MP Simon Hughes leading a move to ban it. He argues that the trend pushes up prices, prevents Londoners buying homes, and creates “ghost” developments with empty apartments owned by absentee landlords buying for investment.

Savills estimates that 75 per cent of private new homes in central London were snapped up by foreign buyers in 2012/13. From April next year, foreign owners will have to pay capital gains tax on any profits, but this is unlikely to dent demand from international buyers, as London property remains such a good investment bet.

Fearing tighter controls on foreign investors after the next general election, developers are going on a charm offensive with London buyers and have signed up to an industry code pledging to market all new homes in the UK before, or at least at the same time, as going overseas.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has welcomed the move.

“While overseas investment is a necessary part of any global city’s housing market, it is right that Londoners are not disadvantaged and new homes are made available to them at the outset,” he says. Barratt,

Crest Nicholson, Galliard, Fairview, Redrow, Taylor Wimpey, Telford and Lend Lease are the big-name developers who have signed up to the code.

Smaller builders and niche developers are also focusing on London buyers — and why wouldn’t they, says Carl Schmid of east London estate agent Fyfe Mcdade.

“The market is red-hot with domestic buyers and likely to remain that way for at least the rest of this year.”

In today’s cost-conscious climate, homebuyers want best possible value for money and are searching for areas that are up and coming. For their part, developers are investing in outstanding architecture and pushing interior design, “that captures buyers’ imagination”.

New homes are in short supply, particularly finished properties, which is driving buyers towards off-plan deals up to three years ahead of completion.

LONDON’S LATEST LAUNCHES

SAINT MARTINS LOFTS ARE HOT PROPERTY“Every so often there’s a project that sets the market alight, and this is it,” says Ben Walden-Jones of estate agent Jones Lang LaSalle, referring to Saint Martins Lofts, a redevelopment of the former art school on Charing Cross Road. “It’s a genuine loft scheme, in the

spirit of the original New York lofts and the match of anything in London.”

Thirteen apartments have been created behind a factory-style façade with huge Crittall windows up to 21ft high. Double-height, light-filled laterals and duplexes range from 1,259sq ft to 2,896sq ft and have classy, contemporary interiors. A show flat has been designed by former Saint Martins College student Marc Peridis, owner of Soho design studio 19 Greek Street. Prices from £2,275,000. Call 020 7993 7395.

A new Foyles bookshop and offices will fill the lower floors.

NEW-LOOK KING’S CROSSKing’s Cross has had a magnificent cleanse and rebrand and gone from the haunt of pimps and prostitutes to a prime property market. It has even become a “desirable neighbourhood”, following the transformation of derelict railway land, and a scruffy area just to the north of the station is swinging into fashion.

Lively Caledonian Road is the spine of this area and launching on “The Cally” next month is a scheme of 25 low-energy homes, work studios and shops, called Four Hundred Caledonian Road.

Compulsorily purchased as part of the Eurostar tunnelling project, the factory workshop had been empty and decaying for several years.

Igloo, a regeneration specialist, is restoring the handsome Victorian

frontage and a rear stable block and building a new courtyard apartment complex plus two semi-detached houses. To register, visit 400caledonianroad.co.uk.

HACKNEY GRABS THE HEADLINESHackney Wick butts against the Olympic Park and is a frontline winner of the unfolding legacy benefits from the London 2012 Games. Previously off the buyers’ radar, regeneration is now reversing decades of industrial decline.

The Mission is an imaginative redevelopment of a 19th-century church, with two modern residential “wings” built either side of the listed church tower. Homes are being created in a separate double-height mission hall, while a new vicarage is being built alongside and a café is being created in the cobbled courtyard. Prices from £265,000 to £550,000 (visit homesandproperty.co.uk/mission).

Stratford Riverside looms over the Olympic Park and also faces the River Lea. Apartments with full-height glazing are spread across a tower and a lower-rise building topped by a communal roof garden. Prices from £275,000. Call Weston Homes on 01279 873300.

ANYONE FOR A HOME NEAR A TENNIS COURT? Wimbledon is the prosperoous London suburb with green space in spades for banker’s families with their 4x4s. It offers golf courses, good Low-energy homes: at Four Hundred Caledonian Road, in desirable King’s Cross

From £2,650,000: Marryat Place townhouses near Wimbledon’s All England Club

From £275,000: Stratford Riverside flats. Call Weston Homes (01279 873300)

From £2,275,000: for homes at Saint Martins Lofts, the art school redevelopment, Charing Cross Road

North of the river, south of the river and anywhere in between, talk to Savills.

savills.co.uk


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schools and a vast, wonderful common that stretches to Putney Vale. Homes bordering this protected semi-wooded expanse command the area’s highest prices. Marryat Place comprises a group of large, grand townhouses with up to six bedrooms, set in a private cul de sac and also close to the All England Club and village centre. Prices from

£2,650,000 (visit homesand property.co.uk/marryat.

CLAPHAM NO LONGER COMMONMacaulay Walk close to Clapham Common Tube station is convenient for Northern line commuters to the City or West End. The courtyard complex of 97 homes has been created on the site of a camera lens

factory and combines loft-like apartments in converted warehouses with new-build blocks, penthouses and office studios aimed at local small businesses such as architects and graphic designers. Larger flats in the refurbished buildings retain original high ceilings and windows, brick and ironwork. Launching this spring (visit homesandproperty.co.uk/mac).

WEST KENSINGTON GOES ABOVE THE RADARPriced out of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea but want to live within walking distance of the parks, museums and restaurants? Try Octavo Mews in West Kensington, W14, which has eight modern houses with light-filled basements, at prices from

£1.4 million (visit homesandproperty.co.uk/octavo).

The Coachworks in gentrifying Kensal Rise, NW10, has just six two-bedroom apartments priced from £650,000. Call Green & Co on 020 7604 3200.

See Smart Moves on Page 40 for more new launches

builders bring the sales pitch back home

From £265,000: flats at The Mission, a church redevelopment in Hackney Wick. Call 020 7613 4044


Why everyone wants to live in Marylebone

With a new restaurant and a boutique hotel launched in a converted Gothic fire station, this has become London’s most sought-after village, says Liz Hoggard

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MARYLEBONE is famous for its quiet streets of m a j e s t i c G e o r g i a n squares and terraces, pretty mews houses and

Edwardian and Victorian mansion flats. It’s a stroll from two parks, the Wallace Collection, concerts at Wigmore Hall and the West End theatres, while the Everyman in Baker Street is an arthouse cinema.

But this is the year to put Marylebone on the global map. André Balazs, the man behind US hotels The Mercer and Chateau Marmont, has brought NYC Meatpacking District glam to Chiltern Street with his new boutique hotel, Chiltern Firehouse, which opened last week. Models Kate Moss and Cara Delev-ingne and singer Lily Allen have already been to private parties there.

In April, Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, the team behind The Wolseley, Delaunay and Brasserie Zédel, are open-ing a new restaurant, Fischer’s — “evoc-ative of early 20th-century Vienna” — at 50 Marylebone High Street, and cult Parisian cake shop La Pâtisserie des Rêves has just arrived at No 43.

HAPPENING HOTELChiltern Firehouse is Balazs’s first European hotel. Quite a coup for Marylebone. “It will bring in an inter-national clientele who might normally choose Mayfair or Kensington,” says Martin Bikhit, managing director of property agency, Kay & Co, in Maryle-bone’s Paddington Street.

Taking over Chiltern Street’s disused Grade II-listed Victorian fire station, the 26-suite hotel has a 200-cover restaurant with a large open kitchen, led by Michelin-starred chef Nuno Mendes, of Viajante fame.

The building is regarded as one of the finest surviving examples of pre-war Gothic architecture.Balazs discovered it over five years ago with friend and London property developer Harry Handelsman, who saved the St Pancras station hotel, Sir Gilbert Scott’s mas-terpiece. Many of the fire station’s original architectural features have been retained and lost details revealed, including the façade’s carved Portland stone arches and original brickwork,

“You feel like you’re staying at some-one’s very stylish Victorian villa rather than a five-star hotel,” says London guide to the A-list, Paddy Renouf. “It’s for discerning, refined people who want to be off the main strip and love craft and handmade things rather than the big brands.”

Renouf, who works mostly out of The Savoy and the Corinthia Hotel, says he is looking forward to introducing his clients such as NBC and American Express to the area. “It will be a fresh

experience for many of them, informal but sophisticated.”

The Firehouse is the jewel in the crown for The Portman Estate which owns 110 acres of Marylebone including Chiltern Street. The estate bought the Victorian red-brick street in 2009 and has invested £700,000, transforming it into a cosmopolitan shopping desti-nation, named London’s coolest street by Condé Nast Traveller.

In the 1880s the street was full of arti-san retailers and today you’ll find jeweller Kohatu and Petros, lifestyle brand Mouki, beauty guru Bharti Vyas, Monacle café and menswear labels Archer Adams and Trunk Clothiers, as well as music shops from the Sixties.

Halfway down the street, new luxury housing development, The Chilterns, is being built by Galliard with a swim-ming pool and its own cinema. The prices for 44 private flats start from £3 million and include an original framed photograph of Marylebone by David Bailey, each worth about £20,000.

It may look organic, but Marylebone’s repositioning has been strategic. The area is owned by three landlords, The Portman Estate, Howard De Walden Estates and the Church Commissioners, who own property west of Edgware Road. They have been working together to improve the public realm to attract shoppers and office workers as well as foreign investors. “The reason they have been able to build so much is because they have control over 80 per cent of the high street,” says Bikhit.

THE BALANCE IS RIGHTThe Portman Estate has spent £12 mil-lion regenerating Portman Village, the area tucked behind Oxford Street which runs from New Quebec Street to Seymour Place. It has refurbished Georgian buildings, renewed pave-ments with Yorkstone and introduced traffic-calming raised brick islands. Here you’ll find cool independent retailers such a Israeli fashion designer Ronen Chen, couture brand Suzannah — who dressed Pippa Middleton for the royal christening — and cult perfume shop Les Senteurs.

A benevolent landlord means key community services such as newsa-gents, fresh food retailers and dry cleaners are encouraged alongside fashion retailers paying competitive West End rents. “The Chiltern Fire-house were keen on the fact there is a newsagent directly opposite for guests,” says Philip Norris of The Port-man Estate.

Money is sometimes less important than a tenant’s suitability. “We work very hard to create a unique and excit-ing mix of longstanding and newly

introduced independent boutiques and traders at Portman Village and Chiltern Street,” says Norris.

He’s keen for the area to become a foodie destination, pointing out Basque kitchen Donostia and new Australian health café Daisy Green. Actor Eddie Redmayne was recently spotted in boutique hotel The Grazing Goat.

SHOPPING and eating is what Marylebone is all about. But no one wants to turn the area into a mini Oxford Street. Keeping a balance between

independent boutiques and the bigger chains is like a game of chess, says Simon Baynham, property director at Howard de Walden Estates, which owns much of Marylebone High Street and 92 surrounding acres.

Baynham is expert in negotiating “land-use swaps”, consolidating offices in one building and residential in another, without upsetting the plan-ners. Another clever trick has been in lateral conversions, joining two adjoin-ing residential buildings, eliminating a core and creating larger flats.

“A balanced community-led high street with a good mix of uses creates a better residential and business loca-tion, so our priority is to keep this bal-ance,” he insists. “Commercially we believe it is more than recovered in the uplift in residential and office rents.”

COOL FOR FOODIESMarylebone Lane, which follows the line of the River Tyburn, is being improved with wide pavements, so the street becomes the official cut-through to the new Bond Street Tube station.

Portman Estate: Monocle café in Chiltern Street, where each flat in a new luxury development comes with a David Bailey original photo worth £20,000

Spot for a breather: Paddington Street Gardens, one of two small public gardens in Marylebone

Gothic stunner: the Grade II-listed former Chiltern Street fire station is now Chiltern Firehouse, London’s latest boutique hotel

Photographs: Graham Hussey


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Cool restaurant 28-50, and fashion stores Huntergather and Oliver Bonas have key sites on the lane.

Moxon Street, just off the High Street, is becoming a foodie quarter, with Rococo Chocolates, La Fromagerie and artisan butcher, The Ginger Pig. When Westminster sells the car park as a prop-erty development, Baynham is keen to bring in more gourmet outlets and retain the farmers’ market. Fifteen years ago a third of shops on the High

Street were vacant, but the estate brought in The Conran Shop, Designers Guild, Skandium and smaller inde-pendent shops.

“When I moved to Marylebone in 1988 you could fire a cannon down the High Street on a Saturday, and you wouldn’t hit anyone,” says Helen Ward who has lived and worked locally for 26 years.

“It was just charity shops and ironmon-gers. You could buy a one-bedroom flat for £60,000. But that flat is probably worth £900,000 now.”

Baynham knows the value of Daunt Books, which drives footfall to the area. “My concern is that the street will be too dominated by ladies fashion unless we are careful.” The approach has paid

off. The estate’s rent roll in 1996 was £17 million and at the end of last month it stood at £91.3 million. “Marylebone has certainly become younger in terms of profile, and far more family-friendly. There’s a nice mix between Europeans and Americans, plus some Middle Eastern buyers. It’s very vibrant and cosmopolitan,” says Bikhit.

ABUZZ. . .WITH INTEGRITYJon Ward of building services company Marylebone Interiors says: “It’s excit-ing because there’s such diversity, but you also get this mixture of old and new. Alongside the latest actor or singer, there are people who have lived here for 40-50 years.

“And newcomers have to pay respect to the integrity and character of Maryle-bone. Just because you have money doesn’t mean you can have everything you want. Local residents take a keen interest in local planning issues via the Marylebone Association.”

There’s a good Tube service from Baker Street to Canary Wharf but you can live in the area without having to travel outside it. However, the influx of new residents means pressure on local schools. Wetherby School, whose former pupils include Princes William and Harry, will open a private second-ary school in Marylebone Lane to meet

demand from wealthy parents, while St James’s Church in George Street is being taken over by Regent’s College. The Marylebone School is a multi-faith school for girls aged 11 to 18 that gets excellent results, and Marylebone Boys’ School, a new free school for 120 pupils in Year 7, opens this year. New French school, L’École Internationale Franco-Anglaise, is in Portman Square.

This is not banker land. There are no gated communities for the super-rich. But it is tipping towards unaffordable. “Starting prices are around £1,200 per square foot and prices for certain developments are pushing on the £3,000 mark now,” says Bikhit.

A two-bedroom top-floor flat in a Georgian building overlooking Bryan-ston Square will set you back £3 mil-lion. A one-bedroom flat on Bickenhall Street near Baker Street is on the mar-ket for £1.1 million, and a four-bedroom townhouse in Beaumont Street is £3,495,000. But Kay & Co also has studio flats and one-bedroom rentals for £400-£500 a week.

So Marylebone is giving Mayfair and Soho a run for its money. Helen Ward, who runs her music recruitment busi-ness, The Music Market, from Notting-ham Place, says record company chiefs enjoy doing business and then strolling around an eclectic, vibrant village. And with its imposing Gothic mysterious-ness, Chiltern Firehouse looks set to become London’s hippest hotel.

Eclectic mix: huntergather menswear in Marylebone Lane, scene of big investment

NYC Meatpacking District glam: Chiltern Street has smart lifestyle brands and the new Chiltern Firehouse boutique hotel, where model-of-the-moment Cara Delevingne and singer Lily Allen have been spotted

To find a home in Marylebone, visit homesandproperty.co.uk/marylebone


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Buy in a deliciously global city quarter

West Green Place is a colourful new corner of north London, offering homes for singles and families, says Ruth Bloomfield

EVERYONE knows London is a cosmopolitan city and nowhere is this clearer than in Turnpike Lane where the choice of restaurants is truly

global. Take your pick from Malaysian, Greek, Indian, Kurdish, Turkish, Thai, Chinese or Lebanese.

Just off West Green Road in this fascinating, buzzing corner of north London only 30 minutes from the heart of town, Notting Hill Home Ownership (nottinghillhousing.org.uk) is offering 46 shared-ownership apartments, maisonettes and houses to first-time buyers at West Green Place.

MOVE IN BY APRILThe homes, on sale this month,will be ready to move into in April and expres-sions of interest are already being taken.

Prices start at £96,000 for 40 per cent share of a one-bedroom flat with a full market value of 240,000. The monthly cost, once rent and service charge have been included, is about £970.

Two-bedroom flats, with a full market value of £290,000, will cost £116,000, and the monthly cost of these proper-ties is estimated at some £1,190.

There are also some three-bedroom duplexes available at £177,000 (full value £442,500) which will cost around £1,820 a month, and — ideal for families — three-bedroom houses start at £196,000 for a 40 per cent share of a home with a market value of £490,000. The monthly cost for these houses is estimated at £1,780.

All of the homes come complete with

From £96,000: for 40 per cent of a West Green Place one-bedroom flat. The development also has bigger flats and houses, and all have fitted appliances and modern kitchens

fitted appliances and modern kitchens, and some also have private outdoor space and parking spaces. West Green

Place is handy for the Underground with Turnpike Lane station — on the Piccadilly line in Zone 3 — about half

an hour away. The Thirty acres of Downhill Park is on the doorstep, with tennis courts and sports pitches, should you feel the need to work off some of the great dining opportunities this area offers. For more local green space, Lordship Recreation Ground and Ducketts Common are also nearby.

There are some useful, although slightly run-down, shops around the station. This is an area which has not yet been gentrified, so don’t expect front doors painted in Farrow & Ball hues and organic cafés. If that is your cup of tea, however, Crouch End — with yet more restaurants, plus lots of inter-esting, boutique-style shops — is only two miles away.

A PLACE FOR EVERYBODYLocal schools are a selling point for families interested in the larger proper-ties. Park View School, for juniors, is rated good with some outstanding features by Ofsted, the government schools watchdog.

Wendy Gordon, sales manager (shared ownership) at Notting Hill Home Ownership, said: “This is an area we feel is really up and coming. The south of Tottenham has not had the greatest of reputations in the past but the area is the focus of a number of housing schemes now. It is a very, very diverse area with great transport links — you can be in central London in half an hour — and because we have every-thing from one-bedroom flats to houses, we can offer homes to every-one from young singles to families.”

Sporting facilities: a basketball match on Ducketts Common off Turnpike Lane, Haringey, near West Green Place


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Emerald Isle is full of property gems in need of a little polishAs prices plunge, a dreamy thatch or stately pile can be yours, right by the sea yet close enough to the airport to commute, says Cathy Hawker

TWO hours’ drive from Dublin and within an hour of Cork airport in south-east Ireland is the fishing village of Ardmore — a destination

that, despite its year-round population of only 400, has something of a literary heritage.

The late Nobel laureate, acclaimed poet and writer Seamus Heaney, was a regular visitor, while Booker Prize nominee Molly Keane lived there for 50 years, writing novels including Good Behaviour from her house over-looking Ardmore Bay.

BBC correspondent and author Fergal Keane has holidayed there every sum-mer of his life, fishing with his children off rocky Goat Island or picnicking on one of the six local beaches in a village he describes, with typical Irish flourish, as “the place of my people”.

Sleepy, well-kept Ardmore is Ireland’s oldest Christian settlement. It has one main street, a 12th-century tower, a few fishing boats bobbing in the cove and two wonderful craft shops selling local pottery, warm tweed throws and work by Irish artisans. This seaside resort in County Waterford is a popular weekend break from Cork or Dublin and a big hit with visiting Americans.

A HOTEL BY THE SEAIn 2005, Dublin-based couple Gerri and Barry O’Callaghan bought a run-down hotel in Ardmore and spent three years rebuilding it. Today, the Cliff House Hotel is Ireland’s only five-star seaside hotel, and the Michelin-starred restau-rant is always packed. The 39 rooms face the ocean and are decorated in

colours that ensure this modern lime-stone and glass building suspended over the sea reflects its surroundings. The Donegal tweed used throughout, for example, sourced from Eddie Doherty in Ardara (handwoventweed.com) comes in fuchsia to represent coral, marine blue for the sea, green for Ire-land and a fabulous pale purple to denote the abundant local heather.

There’s history, too, with Ireland’s largest private collection of campaign

furniture, designed for luxury travel and military campaigns and found in every room. Most of it dates from the 18th and 19th centuries and was sourced through Christopher Clarke Antiques in Stow-on-the-Wold (campaignfurniture.com) with additional Irish examples from Nicholas Loughnan in Youghal.

AN IRISH LIFESTYLELocal estate and buying agent Brian Gleeson says ownership in Ardmore is split 60:40 between second homes and full-time residents. “Waterford suf-fered badly in the financial crisis with property prices falling 50 to 70 per cent from the 2007 peaks,” he says.

“However, Ardmore remained unspoilt through the buoyant Celtic Tiger days and it is like stepping back in time. We have people locally who commute to London weekly because it is such an easy journey through Cork

airport.” As well as running his property business, Gleeson is a horse racing commentator, a familiar face on Irish TV and recently signed to Channel 4.

He lives in a tall Georgian house in Ardmore with his young family and

says the lifestyle is a big part of the appeal. “There are three golf courses nearby, where you can play for £56 in total, and we are close to the market town of Dungarvon and to Lismore, which has a castle owned by the Duke of Devonshire.”

PROPERTY VALUESIreland’s deep recession saw the econ-omy contract by six per cent as the country experienced the world’s big-gest property crash. According to the Central Statistics Office, residential prices dropped by 57.4 per cent from February 2007 to August 2012. Prices in Dublin rose 17.5 per cent last year, outperforming even the London mar-ket. Away from the Irish capital, how-ever, they continue to fall.

A detached, thatched, three-bedroom house in need of updating but set a few steps from the sea in Ardmore — and which would rent for 20 weeks a year — is £144,000, while a semi-detached Georgian house with six bedrooms run as a B&B will set you back £286,600.

“There are wonderful opportunities in Ireland now at all price points,” says Gleeson. “Last year a 6,000sq ft house beside the sea that was £3.52 million in 2007 sold for £921,000.”

A three-bedroom farmhouse in three acres at gorgeous Whiting Bay is £205,000. It needs a similar amount spent on it but leads directly on to the beach and the only neighbour is top racehorse trainer Aidan O’Brien. Geor-gian Muckridge House in Youghal, also in need of much cash and TLC but with 102 acres of farmland, is £819,000.

CONTACTS AND FACT FILE

Cliff House Hotel: 00 353 24 87 800 (thecliffhousehotel.com). Rates start from £147 for a deluxe seaview room with breakfast.

Tourism Ireland: ireland.com. Brian Gleeson: 00 353 024 94 777

(gleesonproperty.com).Aer Lingus flies from Heathrow to

Cork.

Five-star views: terrace, above, and pool, below, at the Cliff House Hotel, Ardmore, which has a Michelin-starred restaurant

£819,000: double bow-fronted Muckridge House, a gorgeous Georgian pile in 102 acres in the seaside town of Youghal, needs renovation (gleesonproperty.com)

£144,000: a thatched, three-bedroom house with a small garden beside the sea in Ardmore with great rental potential, through Gleeson Property (as before)

‘Last year a 6,000sq ft house beside the sea that was on the market for £3.52 million in 2007 sold for £921,000’.


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Homes & Property Design homesandproperty.co.uk with

Design trendsperfect pancakes

By Barbara Chandler

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1 The Breville Traditional Crêpe Maker has five temperature

settings, a non-stick surface and comes with a T-stick spreading tool. It also makes omelettes and blinis. Available for £29.95 at Selfridges (0800 123400; selfridges.com).

2 The award-winning Stirr is battery-powered and travels

around your pan in circles, allowing you to stir your sauces while you strain the spuds. It’s £15 in grey/olive, or grey/magenta from uutensil.com.

3 The Oxo Good Grips batter dispenser makes measuring easy

— you’ll get just the right amount each time; £7.99 from lakeland.co.uk.

4 To make fluffier pancakes, first separate your yolks, whisk the

whites until peaks form, then fold the yolks back in. This open-mouthed

YolkFish egg separator makes the job easy — £9.99 from mocha.uk.com.

5 A balloon whisk is the quickest way to a smooth, thick batter. This

one has silicone tips which glide effortless across your mixing bowl, and never scratch. It’s £5.99 from Lakeland (as before).

6 With a Lekue Citrus Spray you can turn your fresh lemons, limes

and other fruits into instant juice dispensers. Screw the attachment into the fruit and spray on salads, seafood or a huge variety of recipes, to provide a light citrus mist. The set includes one large size to be used with larger lemons or grapefruit and one small size for limes and tangerines, and costs £15.95 from Selfridges (as before).

Pancake Day is next Tuesday


LondonMy ddMy design Londd ondoLondonMyMy design LondoMyMy ddd Lonoondndodonon

Angela Hartnett

By Katie Law

Homes & PropertyDesignhomesandproperty.co.uk with

ANGELA HARTNETT is London’s most successful woman chef, having started her career as a protégée of Gordon

Ramsay. Since 2010 she has run Michelin-starred Murano in Mayfair, and has just opened Café Murano in nearby St James’s. She lives in Shoreditch with her partner, fellow chef Neil Borthwick, and Alfie, their Jack Russell terrier. Hartnett reveals why she covets Elizabeth David’s cookbooks — and where to find the best beef and kidney pie in London.

FAVOURITE RESTAURANT I’m a great believer in simplicity and lack of fuss, and St. John in Smithfield embodies that ethos in its entirety from the food, to the dining room, to the menus and the website. Nothing is over-embellished, and there is a real truth to materials, whether you’re talking about a beef and kidney pie or the old Georgian smokehouse interiors.

FAVOURITE GALLERYTwo Columbia Road, in Hackney, is a gallery that specialises in collectible furniture. It has quirky designs from Scandinavia, Europe and North America from a range of top designers. There are also artworks exhibited by Patrick Caulfield, Marc Quinn, Sarah Lucas etc for those building a modern art collection (twocolumbiaroad.co.uk).

MOST COVETED DESIGN OBJECTElizabeth David first-edition cookbooks. Not only did she transform British cooking habits but

the designs of the books are beautiful, too. I have bought them over the years at opportune moments.

BEST DESIGN STOREThe Hackney-based Very Good & Proper is a fantastic brand, co-founded by Patrick Clayton-Malone who is also one of the co-founders of Merchants Tavern, which we opened in Shoreditch last October. The company designed all the interiors —turning what was a former apothecary space into a stylish restaurant and bar — and also created chairs, beakers, knives and boards specially for the restaurant, some of which they now sell online. Their designs have a real integrity and simplicity, so they work well in domestic as well as commercial settings (verygoodandproper.co.uk).

BEST FOOD SHOPI love spending afternoons at the Ham & Cheese shop in Bermondsey Spa, tasting new produce and chatting to Elliot, the founder. Nathan the butcher of The Butchery Ltd is also based there and does traditional “nose to tail” butchery, which shows a greater respect for the animal. All his stuff is free range, pasture fed and sourced from small farms that care about their craft.

ON LAZY SUNDAYSSpending the day with friends and family, cooking and enjoying each other’s company. Then relaxing in front of the fire with Alfie completely zonked out at my feet.

MY HOMEI live in a Georgian period listed building in Shoreditch, which was originally built in the 1700s. We managed to find a house in central London with a garden, which is fab as I love being in the heart of Spitalfields with its sense of history and the market. There’s a real burgeoning food scene around here and also some great shops.

FAVOURITE COLOURS AT HOMEI have chosen neutrals, dark blue and olive green shades from Farrow & Ball, which are appropriate colours for the period that complement the wood panelling and era of the property.

MY FAVOURITE PIECE OF HOME MEMORABILIAI have a portrait of my dog, Alfie, wearing full Victorian regalia, which hangs above the fireplace and was given to me by a very good friend for my 40th birthday. Now it is something that I really treasure.

CHEF

Simple, effective design: Canteen bar stool, below, in wood and steel, £300 from Very Good & Proper (very goodandproper.co.uk)

Most coveted design objects: first-edition Elizabeth David cookbooks

Favourite restaurant: St. John Bar & Restaurant, in an old Smithfield smokehouse

Fan: Angela Hartnett loves Two Columbia Road gallery, where this rare George Nelson Coconut Chair, below, costs £2,500

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Homes & Property Auction homesandproperty.co.uk with

Make your bid to bring home a bit of Downton drama

Design guru to the stars Giles Newby Vincent is selling his country pile and its fabulous contents. Philippa Stockley sneaks a preview

Celebrity clientele: Vincent has designed for Sir Elton John, above and Downton Abbey, centre. Above right, Old Rectory sale Lot 882, Portrait of a Lady, estimated to fetch £15,000-£20,000. Lot 833, right, a Queen Anne bureau bookcase, £30,000-£40,000

Pastures new: Giles Newby Vincent’s next renovation project is near St Tropez

Useful yet decorative: Lot 41 is six tapestry and embroidered cushions, some 17th century, priced at £600-£800

17th century and later: Lot 58 is a platter, a Delft charger and a barber’s bowl, for £500-£700

THE Old Rectory, a blushing beauty sitting in romantic semi-formal gardens, is con-sidered one of the finest smaller country houses in

East Kent. On a village green complete with duck pond at Wickhambreaux near Canterbury, the symmetrical, eight-bedroom Queen Anne house, built in 1713, is as perfect as an enlarged dolls house with interior panelling and a stun-ning array of Georgian furniture.

All will soon be for sale but for now Bonhams is selling most of its contents on March 12. The house, valued at £1.8 million, is owned by Giles Newby Vin-cent, interiors and gardens designer and architect to the rich and famous. He worked on interior design for Lord Heseltine’s listed Thenford House in Northamptonshire, won a competition to design a museum —not yet built — for Elton John’s photography collection at his house in Woodside near Windsor, and designed the interior of a Georgian rectory featured in Downton Abbey.

Vincent’s style blends inherited with lived-in, often mixed with modern British art to inject life. This auction offers a bit of the landed but comfort-able style he offers his grand clients.

AFFORDABLE TREASURESThe backbone of the sale is Georgian furniture. Then there’s Delft and other blue-and-white ware, plus tapestries, paintings, 18th-century mirrors, brass and silver candlesticks, and garden furniture. Modern pieces include a canteen of solid silver cutlery with more than 100 pieces, estimate £2,000 to £3,000, while The Pink Rug, a paint-ing by living artist Michael Clark, has an estimate of £2,000-plus.

Special items include Lot 842, a George II walnut double-chair with shell decoration and tapestry seat, bought in 1904 by Lord Leverhulme for £79, now estimated at £25,000-£35,000. A feather-banded Queen Anne walnut double-domed bookcase, Lot 833, also sits in this price bracket, its insides cunningly fitted with candle slides, pigeon-holes, drawers and mir-rors. But there are plenty of useful — as well as decorative — cheaper items.

Estimated at £600-plus are Lot 19, a George II tripod table; a carved beech William and Mary armchair with some wear, and Lot 41, six tapestry cushions,

some 17th century. Delftware can be a good buy at auction, and Lot 83 includes a large drug jar, a large mug and a flower brick for £500-plus, while Lot 84 is four blue-and-white flagons.

Paintings include Lot 882, a stunning early 17th-century portrait of a lady, by the circle of Frans Pourbus the Younger, for £15,000-£20,000. Four late 17th-century Italian hand-coloured framed prints of Narcissi are offered at just £500-£800 and Lot 128, an adorably quirky American Folk Art embroidered cat, is estimated at £700-plus.

If you buy the entire auction you will have an instantly furnished home that looks as if it has been there forever.

ALA

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Homes & PropertyAuctionhomesandproperty.co.uk with

Perfect inside and out: The Old Rectory near Canterbury, left and above. Top right, Lot 128, American Folk Art embroidery (£700-£1,000). Right, Lot 19, mahogany table, £600-£800

Vincent, 52, always looking for the next project, has bought a dilapidated house and outbuildings to renovate and expand in five acres near St Tropez in the south of France. Old houses are in his blood. Raised in a Georgian house, grandson of a gentleman architect and with antiques dealer Elizabeth Newby Vincent as his aunt, he studied architec-ture in Brighton and Florence. His career began at the National Trust in the Eighties, restoring historic homes.

Late in the decade, he took on a mas-sive project of his own — La Tuilière in Provence, a dilapidated 16th-century priory in 40 acres of olive groves and cypress, once part of an estate owned by the Marquis de Sade. Vincent reno-vated it completely, scouring France for old materials, turning it back into a bucolic paradise — albeit with a mas-sive infinity pool. “After spending 10 or 20 years on a project,” he says, “there is always the temptation to do another, while you can.”

GET THE LOOKVincent’s tips for buying at auction for your home:

A maxim from my aunt: “Antiques should always look inherited rather than bought, as if they had always been there.” So some natural wear is perfectly all right.

Be bold with scale: it adds drama. Small rooms don’t need small furniture.

The market for brown furniture is turning upwards, because people want character and quality. If you want something brown, now is the time, before prices rise further.

Mix old and new: in an old house, antiques look sympathetic, but modern art puts you in your own time.

The Old Rectory contents will be sold by Bonhams as part of its Fine English Furniture Sale on March 12. Visit Bonhams.com for details. Giles Newby Vincent’s design company is at Gilesvincent.com.


Alison Cork

Homes & Property Reader promotion homesandproperty.co.uk with

THE lollipop notebook from Future and Found is scented to match its “flavour” — tangerine, passion fruit or berry. Future and Found is offering a 10 per cent discount across its website homewares and accessories (not including furniture), reducing these notebooks from £12 to £10.80 each. Claim the offer at futureand found.com or call 020 7267 4772 and use code ES10OFF before March 8.

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 homesand [email protected] with “Bargain News” in the subject line. For more bargains, visit alisonathome.com or homesandproperty.co.uk/offers.

Bargain news

GIVE your kitchen a streamlined new look. KDCUK, a specialist in contemporary designs sourced direct from Germany, offers high-spec kitchens for a fraction of prices you will find in the high street.

There are many finishes, including its new handleless range, which comes with a 20 per cent discount for readers. For more information, call 01992 620 777 or email [email protected]. To claim your discount visit kdcuk.co.uk and use code Handle-less1 before March 22.

Super-streamline your kitchen

HOMES & PROPERTY readers can get a whopping 60 per cent off this multicoloured knife set, taking the price down from £49.99 to just £19.95 plus postage.

The set comprises one each of chef’s, carving, bread, utility and paring knives in a rainbow of zingy colours. Made from dishwasher-safe stainless steel, the knives are housed in a contemporary display case and there are 250 sets available for immediate dispatch. Order at alisonathome.com/BN01 or call 0800 4725533. While stocks last.

EMBRACE spring with a new glass room or veranda from Eden Verandas. Crafted and precision engineered, each extension is individually designed.

There are more than 50 frame colours to choose from, and optional extras such as heating and lighting. All installations

are carried out with a 10-year guarantee.

Homes & Property readers benefit from a 25 per cent discount for a limited time only.

For more information or to claim your offer visit edenverandas.co.uk or call 0800 1072 727 and use code AES26/02 before March 16.

WILLOW & HALL sofas and sofa beds are handmade and come in more than 70 fabrics and leathers.

All have a five-year wood frame guarantee and sofa beds have 14cm-deep open sprung, pocket sprung or memory foam mattresses. Delivery is free for most UK areas, within four weeks. A

free return and 100 per cent refund policy is included. Readers get five per cent extra off sale prices and discounts up to 35 per cent.

For free fabric samples or to order call 0845 468 0577 and quote BN14314, or visit willowand hall.co.uk before March 14.

Sitting pretty guaranteed

A piece of Eden in the garden

Zingy knife set will cut the mustard

Make a note to save lolly


LIVING OVER THE SILK TIE SHOPWhen Drake’s silk tie business took over a derelict Hoxton factory it revitalised the area, creating new homes, a workspace and a shop, as well as jobs for local people, discovers Philippa Stockley

Homes & Property Architecture homesandpropertyhomesandproperty

THE jumble of old industrial buildings in Hoxton sits among Victorian tenements, 20th-century council hous-ing, stylish new flats, ancient

churches and quirky rooftop homes. Hoxton’s arty transformation throws up something new all the time.

Two years ago, Drake’s, a renowned silk tie maker, was stuck in a cramped and run-down factory in nearby Clerk-enwell, with no shop of its own. Now it has a new location, with a bright factory workspace, a stylish shop and there are nine flats above, all thanks to a collabora-tion with architects Hawkins\Brown .

The project has been an object lesson in how to re-use an old building, reinvig-orate the street it sits in and provide new homes and jobs.

Drake’s started in 1977 when designer Michael Drake, who invented Aquascu-tum’s signature house check, set up on his own. In the Seventies most men wore ties and they were often flamboyant. Maverick and romantic, Drake’s hand-made scarves, silk ties and pocket squares, always made in the UK, were sold from New York to Tokyo.

Drake retired in 2010, selling the com-pany to businessman Mark Cho — who co-owned The Armoury haberdashery in Hong Kong — and former Drake’s head designer Michael Hill. Earlier that year,

recently, badly declined. Inside and out, the style of Drake’s new HQ is all of a Thirties piece, with clean lines, a simple palette of white, grey and parquet, and buckets of light.

On the ground floor is the stylish fac-tory shop, with big industrial windows and beautiful arrays of ties, sweaters, silk squares and scarves in glowing silks

Pared-down style: rental flats over the handmade tie operation have minimalist fittings, left and far left

Like a ship’s prow: Crittall windows, right, add to the period Thirties feel of the apartments

Cho had been shown a derelict factory at Haberdasher Street on Hoxton’s edge as a possible development project. Here was the perfect place to relocate Drake’s — the only problem was what to do with the rest of the sizeable building.

Cho’s investments director, Jonathan Jui, says Hawkins\Brown was recom-mended to them. Together, they

approached Hackney planners with the idea of creating nine residential units to rent to help fund the project. The plan-ners wanted to preserve the factory out-side, but the interior could be altered.

Now restored, the Thirties five-storey building looks like the brick-and-glass prow of a ship, an effect helped by a line of original large porthole windows down

one side, and new curved Crittall win-dows. The prow juts from one end of Haberdasher Street, once part of the East End rag trade with workshops in its Arts & Crafts mansion blocks, but until

Feel the quality: Drake’s tie shop, left and above, is filled with natural light from Haberdasher Street, Hoxton

Photographs:: Tim Crocker Hawkins\Brown


y.co.uk with Homes & PropertyArchitecturey.co.uk with

and fine wool, some in retro cases and regimentally neat. The production floor is divided from the shop by modern ver-sions of old “counting house” windows, maximizing light. Industrial hanging lamps add to the look, which is bright, clean, and spacious. From the street, you can see people working at sewing machines with rainbow spools of silks,

or sliding ties into cellophane sleeves. On the next floor up, bolts of rippling silk are examined for flaws, then hand-cutters use scissors and cardboard pat-terns. You’d be surprised how much silk goes into one tie. More people hand-stitch ties, some of which are hand-rolled. The design studio is here, too.

Drake’s makes an astonishing 2,000

ties a week, many sold in its Clifford Street showroom off Savile Row, opened in 2011. Others are sold in the new fac-tory shop for £65 each.

The third floor is let to a tech company, while the top two floors are residential, with the same, clean-lined, “English” ethos of parquet floors, Edwardian-style bathroom tiles, and simple design

classics such as Eames chairs. Mark Cho’s sister is an interior designer and worked with Hawkins\Brown on a unified style. All the apartments are now rented out and Drake’s directors live in two of them

— that’s sort of commute to work we would all love.

Drake’s factory shop is at 3 Haberdasher Street N1 (020 7608 0321) and open Monday-Friday. Visit drakes-london.com for details For Hawkins\Brown architects, see hawkinsbrown.com

Simple palette and clean lines: a stylish bedroom, left, in one of the Hoxton flats

Glowing within: Drake’s from the street, right, where richly coloured silks draw the eye

Pride in the prow: the curved snout of the building juts into Haberdasher Street

Shipshape: open-tread staircases, above, and porthole-style windows, right, enhance the nautical effect


1 NEXERSYSMake training fun and interactive with the boxing-inspired Nexersys (from £1,995), small enough to fit in a corner of the room. An on-screen personal trainer spars with you and talks you through warming up, working out and cooling down. Your performance is measured and sessions are progressive, based on your personal workout history. The Pro model (£4,995) is more solidly built and has touchscreen controls. Visit recreation-fitness.co.uk.

2 HAPIFORKNow even your fork can spy on you. Meet the HAPIfork (about £59, plus shipping from the US) which has built-in motion sensors that monitor

techie gym kit

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your eating habits — speed, how many forkfuls etc — and vibrates to alert you to slow down. The theory is that it takes 20 minutes for the body to register that you feel full, so slowing down helps you to eat less. You can track your eating habits on a smartphone app and share the data with your friends, or your dietician. Visit brookstone.com.

3 TECHNOGYMBest known for its Kinesis “fitness walls”, available in Harrods, Technogym also makes the best-looking machines for cardiovascular training, and they needn’t take up

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Design trendsBy Caramel Quin

Homes & Property Shopping homesandproperty.co.uk with

lots of floor space. The Spazio Forma treadmill (pictured, £2,950) folds vertically to take up less than one square metre. Sideways, it measures less than 80cm, narrower than a doorway. And it’s on wheels, so you can easily move it from room to room.

Technogym’s new Cross Personal elliptical trainer (£9,379) looks so good you won’t want to hide it, with a sleek design by Antonio Citterio and an internet-connected touchscreen to entertain you, complete with built-in Dolby surround sound.

The new Technogym Wellness Ball (£230) is an exercise ball that’s also a chair. It’s designed for active sitting, making you use your core muscles to help you maintain the correct posture as you sit at your home office desk. Visit technogym.com/gb.

4 LIFESPANTreadmill desks are a way for anyone with a home office to get more active and banish back pain. You simply walk, slowly, as you work. A speed of

between two and four miles per hour is enough to keep your posture dynamic. And the benefit of all that activity builds up — it doesn’t feel like much, but you’ll find yourself walking a half marathon in a working day. LifeSpan offers a range of treadmill desks (from £1,499) and also upright bikes (from £999) that take up no more space than an office chair and let you pedal as you work. Visit lifespan-fitness.co.uk.

5 WITHINGS“Quantified self” are the new health and fitness buzzwords, relating to clever gadgets and apps that track your performance. The Withings WS-50 Smart Body Analyzer (£129.95) is an elegant set of glass scales that recognises each member of the family and wirelessly beams their weight, body fat percentage and heart rate to a smartphone app, along with room temperature and CO2 levels to measure air quality. The app offers graphs and goals, basically tracking and obsessing over your weight so you don’t have to.

Activity trackers such as the Withings Pulse (£89.95) are like hi-tech pedometers that you wear as you would a watch. They measure your movements and send the data wirelessly to a smartphone app, where it’s saved and turned into graphs. You can see how far you’ve walked, run or climbed in a day, how many extra calories you’ve burned from being active, your average heart rate, and even find out how well you’ve slept — the sleep graphs offer a fascinating insight into your nights. Visit withings.co.uk.


Gardening problems? Email our RHS expert at: [email protected]

buy itSee it: Sissinghurst with Sarah Raven Buy it: the upside-down planter

Pattie Barron

Make a soggy plot flood-proof As sodden gardens struggle to dry out, act now so weeks of rain won’t stop play again

JOIN horticulturalist Sarah Raven at Vita Sackville-West’s iconic garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, on one of a series of evenings next month and in July. Each starts with a talk and tour of the garden with Raven, and follows with a talk on the history of the place and family, with Adam or Juliet Nicolson, who, as grandchildren of Sackville-West, both grew up at Sissinghurst.

Then you can wander around the garden while it is closed to the public and enjoy dinner at the National Trust Granary Restaurant.

The March evenings start on the 20th, from 4.30-9pm, and the July evenings run from 6pm-10.30pm. Tickets cost £95. To book, see sarahraven.com or call 0845 092 0283. Raven has edited and brought up to date Vita Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst: The Creation of a Garden (Virago). Usually £30, Homes & Property readers can buy the book for £25 incl free p&p by calling 01832 737525 and quoting code LB192.

GROW greenery and flowers indoors even if you have no table or counter space. Boskke’s Sky Planters can be strung from the ceiling to give you an upside-down garden. The built-in irrigation system feeds roots gradually, so you can water less frequently, and a locking disc securely holds plant and soil. The small size (£14.99), in green, blue, pink or white, ideal for ivy, herbs and orchids, is 13cm high by 9.5cm wide. Medium size, in white only and perfect for large orchids and ferns, is 19cm high by 14cm wide, and costs £24.99. Large (£34.99), again in white, is 25cm high by 18cm, and is suited to outdoor container plants. Order at gizoo.co.uk.

A fragrant evening: join Sarah Raven at Sissinghurst, right Hanging out: plants that defy gravity

Homes & PropertyOutdoorshomesandproperty.co.uk with

AFTER the wettest winter on record, lawns are squelching underfoot or are maybe still submerged. Borders are sodden, too,

with plants that either vanished in the deluge or look unlikely to recover. Slugs and snails, meanwhile, are thriving, revelling in the unseasonal wet and warm conditions.

What will be the long-term damage to our gardens? We won’t know yet, says Jenny Bowden, horticultural adviser at the Royal Horticultural Society. “It’s prolonged saturated soil that’s the big problem. London gardens do get soggy, and they do recover, but gardens that have been under water for more than a week will probably take until May to recover fully because the water table is so high, and will stay high for weeks.”

There might be plant damage that isn’t immediately obvious. “You might find that a shrub sends out shoots in spring, but then suddenly dies because the root

structure has been damaged. Roots need oxygen and when the ground floods, the oxygen isn’t available. Bigger plants will fare better. Smaller plants, with less of an established root system, are more likely to suffer.”

Saturated soil and strong winds can destabilise trees. If you’re concerned about a tree in your garden, find a local consultant at trees.org.

When you can get out into the garden — and Bowden recommends using a board or instant roll-out path (see primrose.co.uk) to walk on, so you don’t further compact the soil or lawn — fork over the soil in beds and borders, to get more air into it.

Aerating the lawn is essential, says

Bowden, as it encourages water to soak through instead of sitting on the surface, encouraging moss. “Soil under lawns, especially on London clay, compacts easily,” she adds. “For larger lawns, hire a lawn aerator. For small lawns, dig in a fork every three or four inches, going four to six inches deep so you make small, deep holes.” In mid-March, she suggests using a combined weed, feed and moss killer, resowing where necessary with a patch pack.

If the lawn is severely damaged, you might need to re-lay it — but improve the drainage first. Bowden advises lay-ing a two-inch bed of sharp sand, then overlaying with a six- to eight-inch layer of topsoil mixed with soil conditioner.

Dirty flood water, algae and moss can make decks or paving slippery, so jet-wash or clean with a plant-friendly product. Consider slip-proofing wooden steps or paths with a layer of chicken wire.

“Rain washes nitrogen out of the soil, leaving a lot of plants, such as box, looking a sickly gold or bronze,” says Bowden. “In March or April, give plants a foliar feed for a quick pick-up, and to encourage roots to grow.”

There is much you can do to prevent rain stopping play in future. “Consider raised beds in areas that are particu-larly soggy,” says Bowden. “Plant trees and shrubs on a slight mound, so water drains away. Improve the structure of

heavy clay soil so that plant roots can access air as well as moisture, using bulky, organic matter such as stable manure, soil conditioner or council landscape waste. Plant bulbs on a base of grit so that they don’t rot in wet.”

Use landscape materials that allow water to soak through rather than flow away into the nearest drain: permeable paving, shingle, grass.

“Make sure you give a plant the best possible start by planting it in the right place. London lavenders are suffering this year because many have been planted in shade instead of sun, and the combination of shade and wet has made them sulk,” says Bowden.

“Choose plants for your garden that are tried-and-tested ‘doers’, such as buddleia, choisya, viburnums, poten-tillas. When the only certainty about climate change is that it will bring more weather extremes, we need to face the future with robust, adaptable plants.”

Higher ground: consider raised beds that will help water to soak away faster Weatherproof: grow plants that will withstand the elements, such as potentilla and cranesbill geranium

Look after the lawn: grass is less likely to suffer water damage if it has good drainage

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Property journeys:

Three estate agents tell us how they climbed the property ladder. It wasn’t always easy, discovers Ruth Bloomfield

IF ANYONE ought to know how to scale the property ladder, it’s an estate agent, surely. It must be a badge of honour, having honed your skills in the property market-

place over many years, to acquire for yourself one of those desirable resi-dences in a sought-after location.

Most estate agents begin their buying life much like the rest of us, without privilege or private income. However, they learn to property hunt, to stalk up-and-coming areas for a bargain, and — with a bit of good fortune, a willing-ness to take a risk and the knowledge of how to do a good refurb — many eventu-ally reach the top of the property mar-ket. Here’s how three of them did it.

SHAUN MACNAMARA, 34Shaun is an associate director at CBRE, and his wife, Hanni, works in product development for a fashion company.Start: a one-bedroom ex-council flat in Bethnal Green.Finish: a smart two-bedroom period house in Victoria Park Village in east London, plus a buy-to-let flat.

Time taken: seven years.IN 2006 Shaun and Hanni spent £140,000 on an ex-local authority flat in Bethnal Green. Ideally they would have lived in Shoreditch but since they were priced out they opted for a cheaper neighbouring area, hoping the Shoreditch effect would ripple out —which it has.

Renovating the flat cost about £10,000. The couple did much of the work themselves and stuck to a strict budget, careful not to overspend on things such as kitchen units and tiles. They had seen renovations and knew what mattered to a sale.

Thanks to their hard work and a ris-ing market, by 2007 the flat was worth £225,000 which meant they were able to remortgage. This helped them raise a deposit for a one-bedroom period conversion with a garden for their dog, in a nearby road. So they moved and rented out their ex-council home.

Then the property market crashed, leaving the couple with two mortgages. “We were quite nervous about whether

we had done the right thing but fortu-nately we never had any void periods on the flat, which we let at £200 a week so it covered our mortage. We were all right,” says Shaun.

The couple married in 2011 and the following year, with the market picking up again, they moved once more, spending £370,000 on their current home.

They have since spent £60,000 on refurbishing it. “We do think it has gone up in value — some friends of ours recently moved in across the road and they paid £525,000 for a similar house which needs work,” says Shaun.

His advice to others climbing the ladder is to buy somewhere they will enjoy living in, rather than treating house buying as simply an investment exercise.

“We know this area will never be Mayfair, it will always be rough around the edges, but that is why we like it,” he says.

“And there is still property, so we can move and improve.”

JAMES WYATT, 48James is a partner at Virginia Water-based estate agents Barton Wyatt, and his wife Jane, 47, is a full-time mother to their three children aged 13, 11 and nine.Start: a two-bedroom “box” on a housing estate in Bracknell, Berkshire, bought when James started work in 1987. The property cost £62,000.Finish: a £6million house on the Wentworth Estate, plus a four-bedroom buy-to-let house, both in Virginia Water, Surrey.Time taken: 27 years.WHILE James’s ascent might seem spectacular it has been earned by regular house moves and a willingness to self-build and take on debt.

He bought his first home at 21, only needing a five per cent deposit to get a mortgage, a process that was at the time “terribly easy”.

Within a year, however, he was fed up with commuting and decided to buy a flat in Virginia Water with his brother. He sold the Bracknell property for £77,000, and put the money into an £80,000 two-bedroom flat.

The property was run-down and the brothers invested around £6,000 in upgrading it, confident of turning a great profit. Then the market crashed and when they sold the property in 1991 they only raised £88,000 leaving James “bust”. He went to live with his parents to retrench.

In 1994, he got engaged to Jane and

View from the top: Shaun and Hanni Macnamara, above, first bought an ex-council flat in Bethnal Green, below left, but now have a period family house close to Victoria Park, below, on which they spent £60,000 for refurbishment

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FOLLOW THE SIMPLE RULES

bought a penthouse flat in a converted Victorian brewery in Staines, breaking rules by buying the best property in the worst area rather than vice versa. “I really thought I had made it,” he says. The flat cost £125,000.

By 1997 he had itchy feet once more. His grandmother died and left him a small sum of money but enough to encourage him to remortgage again and buy a three-bedroom house on a gated estate in Virginia Water for £250,000.

“The market was really motoring by then,” says James, who sold the flat two years later, in 1999, for £395,000. This allowed the couple to buy a townhouse, also in Virginia Water, for £495,000. “It was double the size of the other place but because interest rates were coming down so much at the time the mortgage didn’t actually cost me any more — it was a fantastic move,” James says.

The favourable mortgage conditions

meant that in 2000 he “kept on borrowing” to purchase a four-bed-room buy-to-let property in Virginia Water.

A year later, James took another chance and bought a plot of land on the upmarket Wentworth Estate for £750,000. He funded this by selling the townhouse for £780,000 while the market was “really flying”, and he and Jane moved into a rented property while they applied for planning permis-sion to build a 5,000sq ft detached house on the site. It involved both dis-ruption and a gamble but even though he’d had his fingers burnt once, James felt he could now cover the risk.

By then they had a young family and were able to move into their new home, built at a cost of around £750,000, in 2002. Most people would have been content to stop there but in 2005 the family was on the move again, this time to a “rotten” Sixties house on the estate. They sold their self-built house

for £2.2 million and moved into the new property while they drew up plans to knock it down and rebuild.

The build was carried out during 2008 and 2009 — they lived in their buy-to-let house for the duration — and the result is a huge, 9,000sq ft family home with seven bedrooms and an annexe, valued at an estimated £6 million.

James is keen to point out that although they enjoyed favourable mar-ket conditions, he and Jane have “been through it” with their risk taking, always being on the move and living in rental homes while work was done. “I run a small estate agents and you are never going to make a fortune doing that,” he says.

“A great way to make money is to buy property, or build your own, but it is never guaranteed. After the Virginia Water flat I bought with my brother I was completely bust but I kept on going.”

SPENCER LAWRENCE, 39Spencer is a director of London-based Paramount Lettings, and his wife Francesca, 40, is a full-time mother to Sadie, nine, Otto, seven, and Freddie, four.Start: a two-bedroom Acton flat bought for £166,000.Finish: a four-bedroom family house in Ealing, worth £1.5 million, plus a one-bedroom rental flat in Kilburn worth £300,000.Time taken: 16 years.WHEN Francesca met Spencer, she had a two-bedroom flat in Acton which she’d bought for £166,000, while he had a £106,000 one-bedroom flat in Kilburn. They moved into Francesca’s larger flat, taking in a friend as a lodger to help pay the mortgage, and rented out the Kilburn property.

The couple saved hard and in 2003 heard about a three-bedroom flat in West Hampstead, where Spencer works. It was a probate property and in a terrible state. But, crucially, it was cheap for the area at £280,000. They snapped it up, although the purchase was a stretch since they sold the Acton property for £220,000.

West Hampstead is a hugely desirable area and the couple had a big advan-tage, in that Spencer’s father is a builder and rebuilt the flat at cost price of £40,000 over the next six months.

However, once Sadie was 13 months old, and with Otto on the way, they were fed up with wrestling baby buggy and a toddler up and down stairs, while lack of family space was a nightmare, and another worry was on the horizon — the quality of the local schools.

They made a fine profit on their flat, which they sold for £510,000 and started looking in Ealing where schools were good. They bought a four-bed-room semi for £680,000 and spent £300,000 extending into the loft and the garden. “We now have the home we want, and when we downsize there should be a bit over for a pension.

“We did the right thing getting on the property ladder as soon as possible. Like so many people our needs changed and we were pushed on from being a young couple to becoming parents wanting space for a family. And we got there.”

IF YOU are willing to renovate you will add value — but don’t chuck out original windows or period fireplaces. Buy quality but do not overspend on crazily priced fixtures and fittings. Take a DIY course and do as much as you can yourself. Neutral décor appeals to most prospective buyers.

CHOOSE your dream location and buy on its fringe — and hope the ripple effect will send up the price.

LOOK in areas with run-down period homes ripe for gentrification, where good transport links are planned or already in place.

A FLAT with its own entrance always appeals to buyers. Communal halls and passages can be dull and depressing and there may not be much you can do about them. Basements, top floors without lifts and high service charges put people off, so avoid these when buying.

Risk-takers: James and Jane Wyatt, above, have “been through it” with property gambles to arrive at their current happy position, with a £6 million home and a rental property in Virginia Water, Surrey

Step one: Spencer and Francesca Lawrence started their property journey in good-value Kilburn, above, in a one-bedroom flat bought for £166,000

For now and for then: the Lawrences and their young family have “arrived” with their four-bedroom home in upmarket Ealing, below, which they have spent £300,000 turning into a high-end home that will boost their pension when they eventually downsize

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£450,000A TWO double-bedroom flat is available to buy at Barton Friars, a private manor house set in peaceful grounds in Barton Close. Available through House Network.

homesandproperty.co.uk/barton

SpotlightChigwell

Homes & Property Property searching homesandproperty.co.uk with

To find a home in Chigwell, visithomesandproperty.co.uk/chigwell

£695,000THE main part of this four-bedroom semi-detached property in Hainault Road was built in the early 1800s. It comes with a 170ft garden and is for sale through Bairstow Eves Countrywide.

homesandproperty.co.uk/hainault

£999,995A FOUR-BEDROOM detached family home in Barnaby Way is close to Chigwell mainline station and sought-after schools and amenities. For sale through Lawlors.

homesandproperty.co.uk/barn

£1,195,000THIS handsome five-bedroom family house in the Courtland Estate, Chigwell, has a media system giving sound to five rooms. Through Lawlors Elite Homes.

homesandproperty.co.uk/court

CHARLES DICKENS described Chigwell in Essex as “the greatest place in the world. Such a delicious old inn facing the church … such

beautiful forest scenery — such an out-of-the way rural place.”

The great Victorian novelist so loved the place he set much of his work Barnaby Rudge at Chigwell’s Maypole Inn, which he based on Ye Olde King’s Head, a magnificent period building. Now owned by Chigwell’s most famous resident, Apprentice star and entrepre-neur Lord Sugar, it is run as Sheesh, a smart Turkish restaurant.

As Dickens portrayed the spirit of his age, so today it is reality television that shines a light on the nation’s foibles. Shows such as Essex Wives and Bafta-winning The Only Way is Essex — “Towie” for short — chronicle the lives of young women with year-round tans, big hair and Botox, and of young men with gelled hair and Ben Sherman shirts, in the golden Essex triangle of Loughton, Buckhurst Hill and Chigwell.

The 11th series of Towie started on Sunday and already the paparazzi are out hunting down the stars in their favourite haunts in this now familiar corner of Essex. It is a world away from the capital’s cutting-edge neighbour-hoods of Hoxton or Hackney, and yet Chigwell is only 12 miles from central London and, with a Tube station on the Central line, it is only 36 minutes from Oxford Circus.

WHAT THERE IS TO BUYChigwell has mainly large, detached family houses, many of them built after what is now the Central line arrived in 1903. Many of these older houses are being knocked down and replaced with larger mansions often hidden behind high fences and electronic gates.

There are a number of recent luxury apartment developments close to the station. The old village is the Chigwell of Dickens. Clustered around St Mary’s Church, as well as Ye Olde King’s Head, there are a number of Georgian houses and weatherboard cottages, and the buildings of Chigwell School.

As with many of the outer London suburbs, houses prices are only now getting back to levels experienced at the height of the last peak in autumn 2007.

David Bloomfield of the Loughton branch of estate agents Savills says that with price per square foot of between £400 and £450 for houses and between £550 and £600 for flats, families can get a lot for their money in Chigwell. “This is an affluent area

Value for money in the land of Towie and Lord SugarThis corner of Essex has gathered fans down the ages with its blend of history, open space and good family homes. Dickens had a point, and so do reality TV stars, says Anthea Maseywhere appearances are important. There are a lot of local wealthy indi-viduals and they enjoy spending money on themselves.”

The most expensive Chigwell house currently for sale is a five-bedroom Thirties villa in Vicarage Lane with two acres of garden and an outdoor pool, on the market for £2.45 million through Bairstow Eves and Churchill Estates (homesandproperty.co.uk/vic).

The most interesting, though, is Turnours Hall in Gravel Lane. This 10-bedroom, 17th-century house was altered in the 19th century and has many Victorian Gothic features.

It was home between 1860 and 1914 to the local painter and sculptor Ada Palmer, and some of her sculpted

friezes are still in the house. It is for sale for £1.85 million (homesandproperty.co.uk/turn).

One of the oldest properties currently on the market is five-bedroom Oak Cottage close to Chigwell station. This weatherboard home was given a Georgian façade to the street and is for sale for £967,500 (homesandproperty.co.uk/oak).

One of the cheapest houses is a little two-bedroom weatherboard cottage in Manor Road near Grange Hill Tube station, on the market for £250,000 through Douglas Allen (homesand property.co.uk/manor).

The smart, modern flats close to Chigwell station include a three-bed-room penthouse in Claremont Place,

Brook Parade, which is on the market through Phillip Leigh (020 8501 2424) for £1 million. Rather less expensive is a two-bedroom flat in the adjoining block, Spanbrook, available for £325,000 (homesandproperty.co.uk/span).

THE AREA ATTRACTSChigwell is a family area. Tottenham Hotspur’s training ground was here until recently but the club’s move away has not dented the area’s popularity with footballers and their families.Staying power: according to Savills’ David Bloomfield, there is a strong local market with most house sales to families already living in the area.Best roads: the roads backing on to

Celebration: Debbie Lewis marks her birthday with partner Chris Knight at SheeshDickens’s Chigwell: listed St Mary’s Church, at the heart of the old village

Wealth of history: Alan Sugar’s Turkish restaurant, Sheesh, in High Road, Chigwell, is in Ye Olde King’s Head. The pub, built in 1547, was immortalised in Dickens’s novel Barnaby Rudge as the Maypole Inn


CHECK THE STATS

The best shops and restaurants serving Chigwell

A list of all the latest housing developments

Details of local schools, both state and private

The lowdown on Chigwell’s rental scene

Smart maps to plot your property search

How Chigwell’s property price growth compares with the rest of the country

GO ONLINE FOR MORE

For all this and more, visit homesand property.co.uk/ spotlightchigwell

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGEWhere did these two heros find themselves on a joint mission in Chigwell? Find the answer at homesand

property.co.uk/spotlightchigwell

■WHAT HOMES COST:BUYING IN CHIGWELL (Average prices)One-bedroom flat £161,000Two-bedroom flat £497,000Three-bedroom house £408,000Four-bedroom house £841,000Five-bedroom house £1.51 million

Source: Zoopla.

RENTING IN CHIGWELL (Average rates)One-bedroom flat £1,387 a monthTwo-bedroom flat £1,951 a monthThree-bedroom flat £1,680 a monthFour-bedroom flat £2,272 a monthFive-bedroom flat £4,140 a month

Source: Zoopla

NEXT WEEK: MAIDA VALE. Do you live there? Tell us what you think @HomesProperty

HAVE YOUR SAY CHIGWELL

Homes & PropertyProperty searchinghomesandproperty.co.uk with

the Chigwell Golf Club course are where people aspire to live. Those people aim for are Manor Road, Forest Lane, High Road, Hainault Road and Stradbroke Drive. Up and coming: houses become

cheaper towards Grange Hill and Hainault, where there are Thirties semis. The Bowls is a Sixties develop-ment of spacious flats on Manor Road built incongruously away from any Tube station, and prices reflect this. Churchills is selling a 1,420sq ft three-bedroom flat there for £529,995 (homesandproperty.co.uk/bowls).

David Bloomfield says there is a wide choice of houses on the market at between £1.1 million to £1.2 million, and oversupply brings value for money. Photographs: Graham Hussey

OPEN SPACEHainault Forest Country Park covers 300 acres and includes adventure play areas, a small zoo, a fishing lake, nature trail and orienteering course. One of the greenest sections of Epping Forest, which is managed by the City of Lon-don, is north of Chingford and stretches as far as the M25 and beyond.

LEISURE AND THE ARTSHorse riding is popular locally. The Chigwell Riding Trust, the oldest riding

school for people with special needs in the world, teaches 160 riders a week and this year celebrates its 50th anniversary.

There are two golf clubs — Chigwell Golf Club and Woolston Manor Golf and Country Club. There are two private gyms, David Lloyd in Roding Lane and Virgin Active at Woolston Hall, and both have indoor and outdoor swimming pools.Travel: there are three Tube stations, all on the Central line and all in Zone

4: Chigwell, Grange Hill and Hainault. The journey from Chigwell takes 26 minutes to Liverpool Street and 36 minutes to Oxford Circus. An annual travel card to take you into Zone 1 costs £1,800. The M11 runs to the west of the village.Council: Epping Forest district council is Conservative controlled, and Band D council tax for the 2013/2014 year is £1,491.11.

Families can get a lot for their money in Chigwell and it is well-connected, with three Central line stations

@jagchima1 great golf course in #chigwell Woolston Manor

@tallboyracer home to the best of the three local public schools by a country mile (Chigwell, Forest, Bancrofts)

@VictorMichaelEA top 3 tips in Chigwell — eat at Sheesh owned by Lord Sugar; drink at King William pub and see the houses along Manor Road

@tallboyracer used to be home to THE BEST club in SE England... Country Club & Atlantis! Now it makes do with Sheesh & Towie


Smart mmSmarta mmmarSSmaart mmBy David Spittles

Loft living in Wapping

Get a square deal in Acton

Homes & Property New homes homesandproperty.co.uk with

CHISWICK and Acton are “chalk and cheese” west London neighbours. The former is a gentrified inner suburb with tree-lined avenues and a riverside mall, while Acton is a sprawling urban mishmash, carved up by train tracks and busy roads and lacking any real sense of community.

Young renters and buyers pack Acton, and well-heeled families in search of good schools and safe streets are drawn to Chiswick. Yet Chiswick is not totally out of bounds for first-time buyers, and parts of Acton are getting a regeneration boost.

Liberty Quarter, above, is part of an ambitious Acton project bringing 2,500 homes around a

series of squares, courtyards, parks and play areas. A new phase of 60 flats and townhouses is launching next month. Prices from £350,000 to £750,000. To register, visit actongardens.co.uk.

Nearby Chiswick High Road successfully mixes chain stores, independent boutiques, bookshops, bars and brasseries to create a genuine urban village ambience. A little-loved building at 500 Chiswick High Road is being redeveloped into an office-and-residential scheme with 61 homes — flats and townhouses set around a courtyard and communal garden.

Call developer Londonewcastle on 020 7534 1888.

WAPPING’S authentic charms, particularly the cobbled high street with its famous inns and wharves,

made it top spot for Docklands living until the money men moved to Canary Wharf in the Nineties and developers switched their attention to Isle of Dogs.

Wapping was left behind, with little improvement to its restaurant and retail scene. But now the upgraded East London line has revitalised the district, bringing more visitors and home buyers. A listed river-facing warehouse has been transformed into Metropolitan Wharf, above and inset right, a “creative village” of loft apartments, designer offices and a

top-rated organic food outlet and restaurant. The stripped-back fabric of exposed brick, cast-iron columns and pine flooring is magnificent, and the bespoke copper reception desk, designed by Tom Dixon, leads through a wall of glass to a private riverside terrace big enough to land a helicopter. Magnificent lofts with up

to 4,000sq ft of space, 30ft ceiling heights, original rafters and a roof terrace have been released for rent at £1,800 to £3,500 a week. The fine contemporary interior design includes Boffi kitchens, while bathrooms have “lava tiles from the slopes of Mount Etna”. Call Cluttons on 020 7647 7280.


SPA BREAK BAG A FLAT IN REINVENTED BERMONDSEY

Homes & PropertyNew homes

PARK ROYAL, an industrial zone on the north-west edge of London, is reinventing itself as a residential neighbourhood.

Midway between Heathrow and the West End, its transport credentials were the main reason for it becoming a major manufacturing and distribution base. During its Sixties heyday, about 70,000 people worked there for big-name companies such as Heinz and United Biscuits, and a third of all food consumed in London is still produced by Park Royal businesses.

As well as having good road and rail links — about 25 minutes to Oxford Street — a branch of the Grand Union Canal passes through. For many years, Guinness used the canal to transport barrels to Paddington for distribution to pubs.

The old brewery site is being redeveloped into a complex of offices and homes, right, called First Central, headquarters of drinks company Diageo. Redrow’s Royal Waterside, the latest residential phase, has 265 apartments alongside a 20-acre nature reserve with lakes, waterfalls, bridges and cycle paths. Prices from £352,500. Call CBRE on 020 7182 2477.

Developer Bellway, meanwhile, is launching a scheme in April. Prices from £299,995. Call 0845 018 0716.

Food for thought at Park Royal

BERMONDSEY SPA — the name sounds as if it could have been invented by an overzealous estate agent. But this historic area, now focus of a regeneration initiative creating 2,000 new homes, proves that old neighbourhoods can be reinvented as attractive places to live and work.

Bordering fashionable Shad Thames, this gritty pocket of Southwark borough was for many years a Bermondsey backwater, sliced in two by a railway viaduct linking to nearby London Bridge.

The railway arches fell into dereliction, leading to property blight, but the 50-acre zone has been transformed with a mix of private, shared-ownership and affordable rent homes, and contemporary architecture that stands out from the crowd.

Porter Building, above, is the last phase of flats, due for completion this summer, with floor-to-ceiling doors and windows, sheltered balconies and patio gardens. From £410,000. Call 020 7237 1200.


Homes & Property Letting on

Find many more homes to rent athomesandproperty.co.uk/lettings

The accidental landlord

Tempting, but this could be a loan too farVictoria Whitlock fancies another buy-to-let flat while interest rates are low. Her mortgage broker urges caution

Victoria Whitlock lets three properties in south London. To contact Victoria with your ideas and views, tweet @vicwhitlock.

£475 A WEEKThis stylish two-bedroom apartment with a balcony in Lurline Gardens, close to Battersea Park in SW11 is available to rent through John D Wood.

homesand property.co.uk/rentlurline

FOR a year now I have been dithering about whether to buy another rental property, encouraged by the Bank of England’s

indication that there are to be no sudden leaps in interest rates, suggesting it’s a good time to invest.

But with nothing more than loose change in my bank account I’m wondering how best to raise a deposit.

I’m assured by mortgage broker Martin Stewart of London Money that I won’t have any difficulty getting a buy-to-let mortgage for a suitable property — banks are still keen to lend to landlords — but first I need to raise a deposit of at least 20 to 30 per cent of the purchase price.

Having seen how much my neighbours have just sold their unremarkable terrace house for, I reckon mine must have gone up by silly sums in the last few years. So I think to myself that I can easily remortgage the old family home to release some equity.

This is, I believe, one of the most common ways for amateur landlords to raise deposits for buy-to-lets, and as house prices in London and the South-East are marching upwards it makes total sense to unlock equity from one property to invest in another. At least, it does to me.

I’ve remortgaged several times since I bought my house 12 years ago and now have what I consider to be an impressive pile of mortgages stacked precariously one on top of the other. I figure I can add another to the heap without making too much difference. However, Martin is less impressed with my mortgage-juggling act than I’d hoped he would be, and he’s not sure I will be able to add another chunk of borrowing to my game of keepy-uppy due to my

lowly income, which is already stretched in every direction.

He points out that it’s not as easy as it used to be to raise a mortgage on an owner-occupied property, even where there’s plenty of equity. Apparently it’s going to become even harder from April when new lending rules come into force.

From then on, mortgage advisers and lenders will have to adopt a more cautious approach to lending, which means they will start vetting applicants more thoroughly. They will also have to carry out an interest rate stress test to make sure that applicants will still be able to afford their mortgage repayments when rates do eventually rise. Spoilsports.

Martin says we should also expect lenders to take more interest in how we spend our cash. They’re going to start poking around our bank statements, looking for signs of extravagant spending and gambling addiction. I tell him they will find nothing untoward in my statements — just too many trips to Sainsbury’s Local and a fortnightly Abel & Cole delivery.

I plead with him to work some black magic and find a lender who’ll give me a new, fatter mortgage on my house before April and he goes off to boil a goat. When he returns, he’s still cautious. As I run a small business he wants to see my accounts. “Ah yes, right,” I say, while opening a browser on my computer and Googling “how to create a profit and loss account”.

NOW I can see that I might have to resort to Plan B, which is to remortgage one of my rental flats. I gather this will be easier

because buy-to-let mortgages are unregulated, so lenders don’t have to be quite so cautious. But I suppose caution is actually a good thing when borrowing shedloads of money. After all, interest rates will rise eventually.


WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?IF YOU have a question for Fiona McNulty, please email [email protected] 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).

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.

More legal Q&As Visit: homesand property.co.uk

Should agent dictate which lawyer to use?

Q MY FRIEND wants to buy a flat in which there is a lot of interest, according to the estate agent. The

agent says she is up against a cash buyer but is also telling her she should use their solicitor and surveyor services because this will speed things up. They are piling on the pressure, saying she needs to have the legal work done quickly and that if she doesn’t use their services she may very well lose out to the cash buyer. What’s going on?

A YOUR friend should use a solicitor of her choice and one she feels comfortable with. If she wishes to use

her own solicitor then she should do so, but she should explain to them that there is a cash buyer in the wings and that the legal work has to be done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

It is interesting that the agents refer to “their service”. This may mean that they own or are part of a conveyancing firm, or employ their

own surveyors. Alternatively, it could mean that there is some sort of referral fee arrangement whereby the agents receive a payment for sending someone to a particular law firm or surveyor.

If there is such a referral fee arrangement in place, it should be disclosed to your friend. It is worth your friend remembering that the selling agents are actually employed by the seller and act on their client’s behalf, not hers. Many selling agents

do not operate referral fee arrangements and are just very good at suggesting suitable lawyers or surveyors to their client sellers — or to buyers who do not have their own lawyers, or who may not know who to use. The agents may have worked with these firms before, or they may feel they will provide a good level of service that will be beneficial not only to the person needing it, but to all the parties concerned with the transaction.

Q I’VE had my offer on a two-bedroom flat in London accepted. When I saw the property the estate agent confirmed it had a 162-year lease but now my solicitor has established

the lease only has 62 years left. The sellers say they are looking to extend the lease but have done nothing yet. The estate agents ignore my calls. I have already had a survey done and paid for solicitor’s costs. Should I just find another property? And can I get compensation for the expenses so far?

AMOST lenders require the unexpired term of a lease to be at least 70 years at completion for them to grant a mortgage. A very short lease often means a property is worth less. The length of a

lease should be provided by a selling agent to a potential buyer, and it may be worth checking what information was provided on the sales particulars.

Consumers are protected from misleading statements under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations. The selling agent is under a duty to provide you with material information to help you make an informed transactional decision. Failure of the agent to do so could risk civil or criminal sanctions by Trading Standards or the Advertising Standards Authority.

If your solicitor can obtain confirmation from the seller’s solicitors that the lease will be extended at no extra cost to you and with no undue delay, you may wish to proceed. If that is not the case, ask your solicitor to pursue the selling agents on your behalf for your losses.

Fiona McNultyOUR LAWYER ANSWERSYOUR QUESTIONS

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