Ok, confession time. I feel under-prepared. I feel under-prepared because it was this building that I saw, with my own eyes, little more than a month ago that inspired me to come home and start writing again.
I am married with a couple of kids (sorry ladies), and once a month we do something called “Family Day”, which with us being that Ronseal sort of family, is pretty much just that – a day we spend together as a family. Obviously, we spend a lot of days together as a family, but Family Day means we go and do something that would be deemed “leisure” rather than “mundane / domestic / DIY”.
Greenwich is quite doable for us – we can drive to North Greenwich tube station in about 30 mins outside of the rush hour, and then the kids get the fun of London without having to get too far into the big smoke.
After a fantastic walk through Greenwich Park, trying and failing to find the statue with the Luftwaffe bullet holes, we approached the park’s eastern periphery in search of the wild deer. Having ticked them off the list, we walked towards the play area – and just outside the gate, we could see this place.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-53950009.html
It’s one of those buildings that really catches the eye.
“What’s that?”, I asked myself.
It’s a castle Ben, I told myself, in a rather aggrieved tone.
“Yes, I know it’s a castle. but why is it here?”
We moved on. I thought about it a bit more. We took the kids to the swings, which were nicer than the swings in Medway, and then we went home after a little detour via the Docklands, which absurdly is one of my favourite places in London despite standing for so much I detest.
I got home, and googled it.
It’s Vanbrugh Castle, which, it turns out has its own wikipedia entry. Not many of the houses I will feature on here have their own wiklpedia entry. It also taught me about John Vanbrugh, but enough about him. I’ll let you read the wikipedia entry rather than me just rehash it like some SEO enabled rehasher of other people’s words. It’s a good read (and note, the castle / Mr JVB lend their / it’s name to the road on which my last post, the Chamberlin, Powell and Bon designed Vanbrugh Park Estate.
Anyway, I’l stop blithering on now. Time for some love for this house.
Let’s have a look around.
(right next to the eastern entrance to Greenwich Park – withing hearing sound of the “wild deer”
That photo doesn’t do the imposing nature of the building justice. So let’s have another go.
As George Michael would say in reverse, let’s go inside…
Oh, and don’t get me started on the garden. A house in Maze Hill with, that’s right…
You get the general idea.
There are far better details all over the link on Rightmove.
So, what’s to like?
Well, this is an entirely unique property. There isn’t another one in the world, and I don’t think Redrow or Barretts or Persimmon would pull off this sort of architecture. It is of course a thing of beauty, if this is your sort of thing.
The history of the building, paraphrased in a rehashers rehash from the internet, is the Vanbrugh designed and built it for himself in the 18th century. That’s old by the way. Imagine what Greenwich would have been like then – the Royal Naval College just a stones throw would have been training the officer class of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, who, very much then, did rule the waves. It would have had extensive views out over the Thames, then a thriving, working river (we won’t mention how the slave trade helped it boom, because this blog is about property, not, national shame).
It’s had a great life since then. It remained a private residence for over 200 years, before being passed by an Oil Man to the RAF Benevolent Fund, who knocked it about a bit and used it as a school for the children of RAF personnel killed in service (which, when you think of it, in 1920 would have been a pretty radical career choice – planes weren’t as safe, or as numerous in those days). It stayed that way up until the ’70s, when it was converted into several homes, of which this wing is one.
It’s a huge place all the same. Four bedroom, four storeys, and almost 300 square meters of floor space. It’s massive. And the price, well, by London standards, isn’t as grandiose as the property itself. It’s on at £2.5m. You’ll struggle to get much more than a much smaller mews in parts of Belgravia for that. And this house is, imho, better.
There are wonderful vistas from here too. The iconic Power Station straddling the Thames juxtaposed with the skyscrapers of the financial institutions over the water at Canary Wharf makes for quite the visual history of this part of London without having to get David Starkey round to commentate. And of course, if you work up there (you’d need to to afford this), your commute couldn’t be much kinder.
What’s not to like?
It only has two parking spaces and street parking is an issue. You get a share of the freehold – which on the plus side, means you get to have more of a direct input with your neighbours in terms of communal issues (I am assuming the grounds etc will come with charges and the need to put money into sinking funds, and also you’ll need to check the legals in terms of maintenance of the bricks and mortar).
The location isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Personally, I really like this part of the world. The tourists might be a bit annoying, but you’ve got the park, the observatory, and an old tea-boat called the Cutty Sark (the best thing about which is the DLR station which you can walk to from here in about ten minutes). The market is pretty good too, and you’ve got a choice of eateries in Greenwich itself, as well as a decent cinema, and a Greggs. Greenwich is quite middle class, but if you want to feel a bit more down-to-earth if you’re new money, then Woolwich and Plumstead are just down the road.
I fancy a pint.
So do I, particularly as I know the only way I’ll ever spend a night in a place like this is if I manage to ingratiate myself with the owners, or become a gentleman thief, and therefore I might as well go down the boozer and have a few. Greenwich is full of decent, and not so decent pubs. Avoid the touristy ones by moving away from the Cutty Sark if you can. Oh, and of course, if you like your keg, and you like your craft, the Meantime Brewery up the road (probably about a fiver in an Uber), has its own bar which I need to go to at some point (nb: craft beer enthusiasts reading this, don’t @ me, ok?)
How do I buy this house if I have the money and want to live the dream?
Easy answer to that. Contact the agent, which is Winkworth in Greenwich. You can ring them on 020 8012 0785. They don’t know I’ve written this, so feel free to tell them you saw it, and their photos here – if they ask me to take them down, I shall of course do so. But I might do crayon scribbles to replicate it. We all know this post, and this blog, are well meant. But, y’know, I am sort of winging it here.
A little note from your author.
I am just a bloke who writes about interesting houses and flats and castles that I find on the internet. If you like what you’ve read, do share it on twitters, instas, facey, etc. I’d love it if you did. Thanks for reading.
That's an Interesting House 