FOR all the talk of falling house prices, Central London is still outrageously expensive. The average price per square foot in Chelsea is £1,700, rising to £3,000 for some exceptional properties, according to the estate agent Knight Frank. The well-heeled of Chelsea might not credit it, but exceptional properties also exist on the other side of the river, where you get a lot more square footage for your pound. An elegant, double-fronted, detached Georgian house with off-street parking and parkland views, is for sale on Clapham Common Northside, an area replete with excellent schoools, for £3.85 million. At 5,609 sq ft, including the separate coach house, this works out at £686 per square foot, a mere 15-minute bus ride from Sloane Square.

The five-bedroom house, built long before the surrounding Victorian terraces, was probably built as a country retreat by the creator of Royal Doulton china and was known as Spring-well Cottage. Today, the house’s handsome façade is hidden by electric gates. Inside, it has been immaculately decorated by Emma Excell, who bought it in January 2006.

Fresh from a divorce and having already done up houses in France and on nearby Macaulay Road with her former husband, Excell did not plan on extensive refurbishments. “It was the first house I’d bought on my own and it wasn’t supposed to be a project. I put in some new sash windows with acoustic glass to cut out the road noise, then the boiler broke and the electrics were ancient, so rewiring and replumbing were needed. The floors had to come up, so I had new walnut boards put down. Then I just decided to go for it.”

Excell moved into the two-bedroom coach house with her two daughters, aged 11 and 8, for six months while the rest of the house was brought up to scratch. “The house in Macaulay Road was large, with walk-in dressing areas and a cinema, and here it seemed a bit small, so I put en suites into all the bedrooms,” she says.

Today, the white walls, new acanthus-leaf cornices, rich, dark floorboards and statement artworks create a grand impression. The two front rooms are large (one runs right through to the back of the house), with big windows and marble fireplaces. The kitchen, with black units (including the fridge), leads to a slightly awkward dining room extension – they could be knocked through and reworked – with french windows opening onto the small garden.

Upstairs, the large en suite master bedroom with windows on both sides of the house has little alcoves for trinkets. Across the hall is another en suite bedroom, currently used as an office, and the two children’s bedrooms and a guest bedroom make up the top floor. Up here, the uninterrupted views over the common are lovely, and something of the original country house atmosphere still exists. “At one stage we wanted to move to the country,” says Excell, “but we opted for Clapham instead because it’s so green.” She is now “hankering” for a flat in Chelsea. “I wouldn’t mind another building project but my boyfriend might leave me!”

Clapham also attracts househunters with more modest means, who migrate south to avoid the chilly heights of prices in town. They are followed by smart estate agents who find themselves on unfamiliar territory. The Sanctuary, a new gated development next to Clapham North Tube station, is described by Knight Frank as “a rare and special chance to purchase high-quality property in southwest London”, as if Clapham were a remote sink estate instead of the home of the yummy-mummy.

The modern design is genuinely unusual for the area, though. “There are no other gated developments of high-spec modern houses round here,” says Cassandra Elliott, of Knight Frank. “You can’t get anything in Central London for under £1,000 a square foot, so places like this are becoming much more popular.” The new houses, yellow brick with slate roofs, shelter from the belching traffic on Clapham Road behind the offices of the film union Bectu, which sold the land to the developer Findon Homes two years ago.

Six neat houses are available, from a 1,205 sq ft fourbed at £675,000, to a 1,781 sq ft five-bed at £825,000. A high-spec five-bedroom house with garden and parking for £463 per square foot is a rare and pleasing thing. Inside all is neat and neutral, with Lutron lighting, oak flooring and Velux windows, and in each tiny garden is a little fountain and shed.

There’s also a larger communal garden with a zigzagging lawn and tables and chairs on a sandstone patio. Yonathan Laznik, of Findon Homes, hopes that “people will sit here on Friday evenings and invite their friends round for drinks”. Perhaps they’ll even make the trip from Chelsea.

Savills: 020-8673 4111, www.savills.co.uk Knight Frank: 020-7173 4900, www.knightfrank.co.uk

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