Anne Ashworth
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The most expensive streets in Britain rarely go by such a name. They are more likely to be called avenues, drives, granges, groves, roads, rises, vales and walks. But the streets that contain the most expensive properties are gardens. Or, best of all, squares.
Kensington Square (average price £5,534,4800) and Chelsea Square (£5,098,047), in London, top a poll of the 20 most expensive streets in England and Wales. None of the multi-millionaires’ rows listed is a street. The poll, prepared by Mouseprice.com, a property data website, is based on Land Registry sale price statistics, up-dated with current estate agents’ particulars.
Blue plaques proliferate in Kensington Square, which was home to, among others, Edward Burne-Jones, the Pre-Raphaelite painter. Marc Roget, of Roget’s Thesaurus, went to a school on the site of 42 Kensington Square. This painstakingly restored Georgian house is now on the market for £6,950,000.
Portnall Rise in Virginia Water, one of Surrey’s most salubrious locations, takes third place in the poll with an average price of £3,446,220. The attraction of this street is not its artistic and historical connections, although lovers of Art Deco architecture would be in raptures: it is part of the lush and verdant 1,750acre Wentworth Estate, famous for its golf club.
Ravenscroft Road, in Weybridge, an equally moneyed part of Surrey, and Park Avenue South, in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, are numbers four and five in the Mouseprice. com poll. Their average prices are £3,233,140 and £1,881,283 respectively.
The appeal of Park Avenue South lies not only in its luxurious detached properties, but also in Harpenden’s convenient location: close to the M25 and Luton airport.
Greg McCann, of Ashton, the local estate agents, describes Park Avenue South: “There are lovely big gardens and a wide range of homes, some of them backing on to open farmland. Yet it is just five minutes from the town centre.”
Whitebarn Road (average price £1,855,880), in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, and close to Manchester, offers the same combination of homes with every imaginable domestic comfort, seclusion and commuting convenience.
But the glamour of its footballing residents has rubbed off on the village; its name is nowadays inextricably linked with the free-spending, spraytanned WAGs.
Nearby Hale has acquired something of the same bling reputation; Hill Top, its most sought-after street, has an average price of £1,849,392, putting it at number seven in the poll.
The drably named Western Avenue (£1,520,032) and Mornish Road (£1,434,300) occupy ninth and tenth places. But these are smart streets in Branksome Park, a tree-lined suburb of Poole, on the hill above the exclusive Sandbanks.
A recently built home in Branksome Park — more popular with successful entrepreneurs than sportsmen — featured a £33,000 sarcophagus-shaped bath, which gives some idea of the standard of luxury in homes in the area. The top streets in Wales are in the Cardiff suburbs and have average prices below £1 million. Cefn Coed Road (£698,467) features large detached homes built in the 1930s on large plots 15 minutes from the city centre.
Chris Saye, of Kelvin Francis, the local estate agent, said: “It is the equivalent of Surrey in the style of property and desirability.”
The average price in Twyn-cyn may be only £677,767, but it is still known as Cardiff’s millionaires’ row.
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Can you please explain better what are the price you quoted (here and in the list of the 200 most expensive streets)? How can you give price in pounds? Is the price of an house, a price of a flat, the price per square-metre or the price per square-foot?
Or shall assume, since no reference to a specific building or flat, but only to a street, that the price shown is the total "value" of the street calculated as the sum of the values of all the houses/flats in that street?
A F, Milano, Italy
In my opinion the best looking homes in London are the tall red georgian ones in Grosvenor Square, although I don't know how many of them are still used as actual homes nowadays.
The best Square that is still residential is probably Eaton Square.
Andrew, Vancouver,
Another day, another flawed survey. Aside from this article not being based on the top 200 as set out in the link provided within it (as Dave from Manchester pointed out), if it is solely based on sales, ratther than market value, then those streets that have had a high volume of sales recently when prices have been high will come higher than those where there have been few sales in recent years but where the market value would be higher - indeed, the fact that properties rarely come on the market in particular areas may increase their values (maybe this is why Eaton Square doesn't feature?).
Why does the Times continue to give column inches to these meaningless surveys?
Simon, Newcastle upon Tyne,
The top 20 list published in the paper bears little resemblance to the full top 200 list. Whilst the top two addresses in each case are the same, the third place location Portnall Rise in the former list only comes in at twenty three in the full list. Perhaps I have misunderstood, but it seems strange and a little confusing.
Dave, Manchester, UK
EATON SQUARE considered Londons best address not on the list? And what happened to Eaton Place, Belgrave Square. These properties are priceless.
Joseph, London,
Who cares, really. What is more important is whether you are happy where you live not how much your home is worth. Family and friends are much more important than living in a posh expensive property.
Heather Cole, Halifax,
I like the punning headline, but ultimately it's all rather silly. If I could afford a property in Chelsea by virtue of its being in a Street rather than a Square or Garden, I would jump at it.
Barry, Wallington, UK
They appeared to of missed my street off the list!
Chris, London, UK