Watch Crouch End Culture Code: We reveal why Crouch End is a crossroad of culture for artists, actors, authors and musicians

Watch Crouch End Health Code: why the area attracts those in search of a lifestyle that cares for the body and the soul

ZOMBIES walk the streets of Crouch End. In quiet Edwardi-an cul-de-sacs the living dead lurk, waiting to feast on your flesh. Or at least that’s what they did in the movie Shaun of the Dead, filmed on those semi-suburban streets by one celebrity resident, Simon Pegg.

Pegg has put N8 on the map. Look beyond the reanimated corpses and slapstick horror and you’ll see that Crouch End is actually quite pretty. It’s tucked away in a valley between Highgate, Hornsey and Muswell Hill and seems to have more than its fair share of trees. If it’s an actual park you want, walk over to Alexandra Palace (it has no Tube). Just as Streat-ham has become St Reatham, so Crouch End has become Crouchand. Those who call it Crouchand hope that the Tube never arrives at all. For them it’s all bikes and buses. And buggies.

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It’s not zombies you have to watch out for here. It’s buggies. At the start and end of the school day a convoy of yummy mummies crowd the pavements with giant three-wheelers. Walking along Broadway, the main street, is like reenacting the chariot scene from Ben-Hur. A buggy congestion charge would make a fortune.

N8 takes family-friendly to a new, almost cultish, level. Informally, every parking space at the nearby Sainsbury’s is a mum and kids space. No restaurant will refuse children. The smoking area at the back of the Californian-style Pick More Daisies café has been turned over to children, so that they can enjoy their organic postyoga treat in peace. Yes, there are good state schools and, of course, a Montessori. All of which makes Crouchand the last word in cool for children (as opposed to “the kids”).

“I’ve watched it grow and change,” says Robert Chalmers, author of Who’s Who in Hell, a novel set in the area. His hero, a failed therapist turned obituary writer, shacks up with his girlfriend in a flat over a colourful local café. “I based that place on Banners, a restaurant where I used to go and write every day. It’s like Crouch End: eclectic and relaxed. I moved here for ever ago, and it was considered the sticks then. It’s still hard to get to and it’s a lot more expensive now, but it’s still got a villagey feel.” The famous clock tower is a focal point.

Chalmers and Pegg aren’t the only creative types around. The writer and comedienne Arabella Weir lives locally, as does the actress Tamzin Outh-waite. Look very hard and you might spot Gollum, alias actor Andy Serkis. The actors James MacAvoy and Anne-Marie Duff are rumoured to be buying here.

One person’s cool is another person’s, well, uncool. You wouldn’t want to bring up a family in Hoxton. So N8 is perfect for parents and parents-to-be. And, of course, zombies.

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