Knightsbridge means Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Burberry and countless other upmarket retail outlets. But London SW7 can also be about houses with hidden gardens, Victorian footpaths and an almost rural tranquillity.

This gentler mood starts opposite Harrods, on the north side of the Brompton Road, an area now lined with pavement cafés following a quiet campaign to revive this section of the street (inner-city regeneration, it seems, does not happen only in rundown areas).

As you walk west down Brompton Road in the direction of the Natural History Museum, you could miss Cottage Place — which would be a shame for several reasons. You would have walked past Brompton Road station, a disused stop on the Piccadilly Line which stands at the bottom of Cottage Place. And, even if Tube history is not your thing, you would have missed the chance to amble down the Victorian footpath that starts at the top of this tiny street and leads to Ennismore Gardens Mews. On the way you pass two of the capital’s smartest places of worship: the Brompton Oratory (Roman Catholic) and Holy Trinity Brompton (Anglican).

Michael Caine had a flat in Ennismore Gardens Mews at the start of “the Swinging Sixties”, a detail that, depending on your passions, may interest you more than a forgotten Tube station. And at about the same time, another film star, Ava Gardner, was moving into a flat just around the corner at 34 Ennismore Gardens, where she remained for the next 30 years. Frank Sinatra, one of her ex-husbands, was a frequent visitor. After her death in 1990, the residents put up an urn in her memory in the lush gardens of the square.

The second-floor flat above the home of Ava Gardner is now for sale for £3.5 million. For this the buyers will get 3,000 square feet (the flat spans two buildings), five bedrooms, four bathrooms and three reception rooms; wonderful views (from the front) across the gardens and (from the back) over the impressive dome of the Oratory; and admission to those gardens (only residents have keys), where there is an almost unnerving lack of traffic, or any other noise. Peter and Alexander Thorn, the speculative builders who put up Ennismore Gardens in the 1870s, made use of the honey-coloured Portland stone they had left over from a previous project — Blackfriars Bridge.

The flat is in immaculate decorative order, yet Dan Wiggin. of W A Ellis, the estate agents handling the sale, suspects that the buyers will still embark on a makeover. This is because the carefully maintained decor dates backs to the 1980s: the feeling of the era is so strong that it is hard not to start humming the hits of Duran Duran in the kitchen with its archetypal Eighties’ motif of red, black and white tiling.

The Kinks would be the mood music at a Sixties townhouse, a perfect example of its kind, in nearby Moncorvo Close, another stop on the route through alternative Knightsbridge. This property is already being renovated after a long period in the hands of one family; it will go on sale in the spring, also through W A Ellis. Modernisation to oligarch standard will provide everything the picky international banker demands, including neutron lighting, underfloor heating, air-conditioning and leather wall coverings.

But, whatever interior transformation is wrought to the five-bedroom house, it will not rival the private gardens that are enjoyed by the residents of Moncorvo Close. The patio behind the house has a side door that opens out into the dozen or more acres of lawns and flower beds surrounding Kingston House, a 1930s luxury apartment block built after the demolition of the stately home that stood on the site. The quiet atmosphere in these gardens proves beyond doubt that money may not buy you everything, but it can certainly get you some hush — and some great views. Hyde Park can be seen through the glass middle section of the Kingston House block.

The private gardens of Brompton Square may not offer such a degree of seclusion — the cars on the Brompton Road are too close for that. But a four-bedroom, five-storey house on the square’s eastern side, now on the market for £4.95 million, provides some compensation: it is Georgian, Grade II listed, has a first-floor sitting room with a view and, if this were not enough for an investment banker seeking the perfect combination of green spaces and retail opportunities, it is just minutes from Harrods.

KNIGHTSBRIDGE BRIEFING

Property prices in prime Central London, the area that takes in Knightsbridge, Chelsea, Kensington, Mayfair and Notting Hill, have risen by 25 per cent over 12 months, the highest rate of growth since 1997, according to the estate agents Knight Frank. Some of the best-quality properties in SW7 are said to have risen by 30 per cent.

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