Property

When I think of North London the names Highgate, Camden and Belsize Park trickle through my mind like a babbling brook. When I think of South London the names Catford, Brockley and West Norwood feel like a conker slapping against my cranium on a blustery November morning. But it doesn’t need to be that way, conkers used to be fun remember? The area has some great and affordable properties, a brank spanking new leisure centre and the West Norwood Feast...

The thing about Bounds Green is there isn’t really a great deal to say about it. Not that everyone wants to live somewhere edgy. In fact, most people don’t. It just happens that a lot of journalists do, and try and coax you into moving to an area where the odds of getting robbed or getting an organic micro-brewery pale ale, are about even. The area was originally a popular overnight stop-over for travellers, and you get the feeling the slightly...

My Girlfriend is from Sarf East London and always reminisces about the times gangs came down from Thamesmead and beat everyone up…Oh happy days. Also A Clockwork Orange and Misfits were filmed there, just to add to the mystique. My hands were actually trembling as I drove over there for a nose about (public transport is almost impossible from where I live, also in SE London) The area was built on marshland on south bank of River Thames, but oopsy...

When I think of Bermondsey I have visions of Ray Winstone’s terrifying role in Nil by Mouth, and Millwall fans throwing rocks at horses. It is also another place where I have lived, albeit for one night. An old uni friend said I could stay in his flat, as long as I behaved. On the first night (a Tuesday) I went out, didn’t come home and left the front door open. So I was ungraciously ejected from the flat. But...

I used to live in Finsbury Park, North London (to be fair I have lived in lots of parts of London, well apart from the posh bits, natch) and it was vaguely affordable then. Two things happened to me there 1, I dislocated my shoulder whilst very very drunk and 2, I got thrown out of my flat for failure to pay rent (anarchist/pauper….delete as appropriate) So you would think I would look back with a certain sense of anger at Finsbury...

It is over 20 years since there was a residents’ war against the M11 link road. The neighbourhood went all a bit Che Guevara and declared Wanstead “the Independent Free Area of Wanstonia” (catchy), some went all Robin Hood and built a tree house in a 250-year-old Chesnut and others went pitch fork in hands; to occupy the roof of John MacGregor – then Tory Transport secretary. Well that didn’t last long and the M11 now offers these militants great...

This is the proper East End (for the minute) and no it isn’t Forest Hill (ever). Its name is derived from a southern gate of Epping Forest which once stretched continuously down from Epping to the main Roman Road (now Romford Road) linking Camulodunum to Londinium. So bore the estate agent with that, when you are looking at the cheap properties, good schools and planned Crossrail station. Still not interested? Well I have even more (useless facts) An Anglo-Saxon jewelled...

I want to live in… Clapton Would you want to live in an area dubbed “murder mile” only a few years ago? No, well you are in the minority. There is nothing like middle class gentrification to bring down the crime rate. It is almost as if the local hoodlums are too embarrassed to commit crime next to a graphic designer with a handlebar moustache; ruins their street cred. So Clapton is yet another area conquered on the hipster map....

Walthamstow is “Awesomestow” apparently. Yes it is a bit cringe, but don’t let that put you off, it is becoming the creative hub of London. It even has a village bit (ok I know everywhere in London claims to have one, but this is the real deal) I don’t know many fashion designers, but of the ones who give me a minute of their precious time, all live in Walthamstow. The mass exodus from Dalston has washed-up the hipsters of...