THE City of London, the oldest part of the capital, has regularly been razed
by destructive forces: Boadicea, the Great Fire, the Blitz. Yet it has
always reinvented itself. Home to thousands of Londoners for hundreds of
years, in the 20th century the City became instead a place of work. In the
hundred years from 1851, the number of people living there slumped from
127,869 to 5,324.
Today the City is rediscovering its roots as a residential district; the
present population is 9,200 and that is rising fast. Nick Moore, of Hamptons
estate agents’ City branch, says the Square Mile has changed profoundly
during the seven years that his office has operated there. At first, his
clients were buy-to-let investors catering to the City worker rental market.
This was to change after September 11, 2001, when people started to get
nervous about commuting. “By 2002 our major market was pieds-à-terre
for bankers who went to the country on weekends,” says Moore. Recently,
however, “the corporation has started to cater more for residents, granting
late licences for restaurants and encouraging shops, so you can now buy a
pint of milk at the weekend. Now we have a growing number of buyers looking
for a seven-days-a-week home in the City.”
Two new developments where anybody would be happy to spend their weekends are
Sir John Lyon House, a 1960s tea warehouse on the river, and 7 Lothbury, a
piece of ornate Victoriana at Bank. The latter is an elegant, Grade II*
listed detached building on a secluded street behind the Bank of England,
next to the Wren church of St Margaret Lothbury. Built in 1868 by George
Somers Clarke, in the Venetian Gothic style, for the General Credit and
Finance Company, it’s now an impossibly grand block of flats. The front door
looks like the side entrance to a Byzantine basilica, with its striped arch
of white Portland and red Mansfield stone, supported by marble columns. The
first floor has a stone balcony supported by winged women and windows with
trefoil decoration.
Since 1962 the building had been used as a private dining club by traders on
the foreign exchange markets, but an attempt to turn it back into office
space failed stringent commercial planning regulations. A rare residential
conversion was the only option; it is the only one in the Bank area,
according to Caroline Palmer, of Savills, the agent handling the sale.
Marldon, the developer, has created eight neat one-bedroom flats and a
two-bedroom penthouse, with two more two-bedroom flats being built in the
basement and ground floor. Intended as pieds-à-terre for City
folk, the flats are quite small, though many have fabulous period features.
The penthouse is the only one with any outside space: a fantastic roof
terrace has cracking views of the Bank and St Paul’s, as well as eye-contact
with City workers in the next-door offices – though presumably not at
weekends or in the evenings.
Inside, the flats are all open-plan, some with mezzanine bedrooms. The
spotlights, speakers, alarm systems and satellite TV kit do not sit happily
with the lovely Victorian decoration, which is most resplendent in Flat 7,
the pick of the bunch. Once the bank manager’s office, the walls are covered
with incredible wooden carvings of dragons, birds, goblins, a pig, an
elephant, flowers and even a man who appears to have lost histrousers.The
show flat has a fantastic fireplace covered with Corinthian columns, huge
curling leaves, roses and gargoyles.
Prices range from £825,000 to £1.75 million for the penthouse, and in size
from 794 to 1,480 sq ft. Buyers must also pay an annual service charge of
between £4,172 and £8,875, ground rent from £250 to £450, and, as the
building has no parking, £185 each quarter for use of one of the five nearby
NCP car parks.
In the present frenzied market, it’s rare to hear of luxury flats remaining
unsold. 7 Lothbury was launched at the end of February and so far three
flats have sold and one is under offer. City workers may have pots of money
to spend on property, but not all want to live above the shop. Charlie
Markes, of Marldon, is aware of the challenge: “Building in the City does
reduce your audience. It might sound obvious but you have to find those
people who really do want to live in the City.” Buyers so far have been City
workers in need of a swanky week-night bolt hole within staggering distance
of the Vertigo bar at Tower 42, the Royal Exchange, the Coq d’Argent
restaurant and Leadenhall Market. Bucking the trend is a woman buyer who
works in the West End and has no connection to the City, but is,
marvellously, just sick of Chelsea.
Sir John Lyon House, an office block and warehouse built in 1963, has a
different appeal, though it shares a Venetian element with 7 Lothbury. Its
watery position, perched above the river, is a joy that compensates for a
lack of extravagant period features. The viewer’s gaze is here directed
outwards, across the river to Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge, the Globe
and, to the east, Tower Bridge. The area, just south of Upper Thames Street,
is accessible via the smart new walkway from St Paul’s to the river.
Sixteen two and three-bedroom flats, all with river views, are for sale here
from June 6. Some also look north towards St Paul’s and the City. The layout
is tall and narrow: one big three-bedroom flat takes up the whole of the
first floor, and the next three floors all have two two-bedroom flats and
one three-bedroom one with a balcony that wraps round the corner of the
building. The two flats on the fifth floor have private access to the roof
terrace, as does one of the four duplex penthouses on the sixth and seventh
floors. The ground floor will eventually become a restaurant, with tables
outside by the river.
All the flats will have huge glass walls, folding French windows and small
balconies. The view from the roof is stupendous, and you can smell the sea.
The building is flanked by a residential block, Globe View, on the west
side, and an office building, which overlooks the roof terrace, on the east.
Prices range from £650,000 for a 881 sq ft two-bed flat to £2.75 million for
a 2,644 sq ft penthouse.
Ed Hollest, of Savills, says that anyone who loves the river will want to live
in Sir John Lyon House, and he is probably right. There is a growing number
of people who love City living, riverside or not. “People used to just drive
through here on their way to the office,” says Hollest. “But the whole area
has changed. Now people stay after work for the atmosphere, and you can get
best of both worlds – work and play.”
Savills: 020-7472 5025 Hamptons: 020-7236 8398
FACTFILE
The average selling price of a flat in the City at the end of 2006 was
£425,240, compared with the national average of £189,695, according to the
Land Registry.
The City is the least crowded local authority area in London, at 3,000
residents per square kilometre. Kensington and Chelsea is more than five
times more densely populated, with over 16,000 people per square kilometre.
The Square Mile contributes more than 2 per cent of the United Kingdom’s GDP.
A total of 320,000 people work in the City every day.
