HERNE HILL IS THE bastard child of Brixton and Dulwich. SE24 runs down Railton Road (the front line in the 1981 Brixton riots) along Half Moon Lane (where Boland’s Wine Bar can get a little bit rowdy) and out to Brockwell Park.

Now more Dulwich than Brixton, Herne Hill remains cheerful but it is no longer cheap. All the signs of decreasing affordability are there. Chrome-clad bistros are taking over the takeaways on Norwood Road. Two shops sell pretty things for silly money to young professionals — Hello Kitty trinkets strike the right note between graduate and grown-up. The “Grow your own Crystal Garden” kits can apparently be used to cook up crack. Useful and fun.

Although sans Tube, Herne Hill is stupidly convenient. Mainline trains zip to Victoria in seven minutes and King’s Cross in fifteen. Buses, like cars, aren’t worth the agony — five A roads and two B roads converge at a single, constipated junction. Whole herds of cyclists brave the roads and risk ending up with a radically different set of wheels. Herne Hill stadium boasts London’s last full-scale concrete cycling track. Vélo Club de Londres, the home team, welcome anyone daft enough to don cycling shorts.

Residents of the grandly named North Dulwich Triangle make a point of using North Dulwich mainline station rather than Herne Hill or, God forbid, Brixton. Home to the entire audience of the sitcom My Family, this dainty mini-neighbourhood is wedged between Herne Hill, Half Moon Lane and Red Post Hill. Roomy Victorian villas, many with gardens, accommodate expansionist families and there is no shortage of excellent schooling locally.

Whole pay packets have disappeared in the Triangle: you could blow £2,000 a month renting a five-bedroom Victorian house with a garden on leafy Elfindale Road. A two-bedroom flat in an Edwardian conversion on Red Post Hill recently sold for £215,000.

Less expensive, and more lively, is Poet’s Corner. Go northeast of Brockwell Park between Railton Road and Dulwich Road as far as Chaucer Road (and no further, unless you want to meet the Merry Muggers of Brixton). Properties here range from big semi-detached red brick houses to small terraces lined up like rows of milk teeth. A five-bedroom family home on Shakespeare Road costs around £650,000. A one-bedroom balcony flat with access to communal gardens on Milton Road is £175,000.

You can have your very own one-bedroom penthouse overlooking Brockwell Park for the positively retro bargain basement price of £99,950. Park View House is one of the “twin towers”, the only two high-rises in Herne Hill. Far from being crack houses in the sky, the towers have an art gallery (198gallery.co.uk) and a vigilant residents’ committee. There are no no-go areas in Herne Hill.

Built after the First World War to house veterans, Sunray Gardens counts as new here- abouts. Each of the cottage-style houses wishes it were in the countryside and every roof wishes it were thatched. No one moves behind the net curtains shrouding the small windows. The quiet streets are wide enough for a hearse to do a three-point turn and it’s a good job, young families are swooping on these biddy bargains. Small but perfectly formed, the gardens have their own lake-ette, home to Canada geese, a family of moorhens and a big white goose that plays hard to pet but can be bribed with bread. A sign entreating you not to feed the birds is lost beneath a patina of bird poo.

If trees could choose where to take root Brockwell Park would be the arboricultural address. Towering horse chestnuts hang out around wide avenues, whispering to each other in the breeze. At its summit the hall, built in 1813 and restored after a fire in 1990, is now a café serving hangover cure cuisine with veggie options. The 18th-century walled garden is over-planted and old-fashioned but, like your granny, you have to love it. Back when he was a knitwear model Roger Moore swam at the Art Deco Lido which, thanks to sponsorship from Evian, is no longer threatened with closure. At its summit the park affords uninterrupted 360-degree views of London.

Herne Hill has disappointingly few new buildings. By far the most exciting is the studio of the artist Kate Whiteford, which looks like a face concentrating on solving a crossword. The eyes, two big windows, flood the double height space with light, and the nose, a very thin three-metre tall door, permits entry for her giant canvases. Inside I found two small folding stools sold only in Monchique, a tiny Portuguese mountain village. Whiteford is the only other person I know who has them. Already reluctant to leave Herne Hill, this remarkable coincidence made me want to start house hunting. And I know just the unfeasibly cheap eyrie . . .

DAMIAN BARR

Local agents: Sales: Burnet Ware & Graves 020-7733 1293; Sales & lettings: Oliver Burn 020-7274 3333

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