Ok, I thought I’d hold off the whole Dave Sedaris thing (I’ve never read his work btw, but have listened to him online), but only a few posts in and I’ve caved.
The blog, is, and resolutely I state this, remains, primarily about property, and not about me. That said, if a writer (blogger) is to have a voice, any sort of individuality, then he needs to give himself a bit of space and a bit of freedom of expression. And if you lot are going to love this blog it needs to be about more than bricks and mortar, and why not make it a bit about me. After all, homes are for people, and people have stories.
None of these are on the market at the moment, but have a look at Ashdown Close in Beckenham. It’s a road that has a little bit of me in it; or at least, a little bit of Ashdown Close is in me, or, to be more accurate, my past.
You see, when I was born (in 1979), it was an event that occurred little more than a mile from here at the now closed, and of course swankified, Beckenham Maternity Hospital. My parents lived at that time (they were only 22!) in the neighbouring road, Ellesmere Avenue. If you look between the hexagons, you can see the town houses over the back that share a large communal garden with these unique homes.
Ellesmere Avenue was built at the same time, or thereabouts, as Ashdown, but there was a strict rule for playing out. You could play out in Ellesmere (and at that time, there were a lot of us kids, all of a similar age to each other), but you could not play out in Kemerton Road (off which both closes spurred from) and you absolutely never, ever could venture into Ashdown Close.
Being a bit of a local history bore, but having run out of things to think about in the Medway Towns where we moved to when I was 10, I had a nose about the history of this little bit of Beckenham. A few years ago, and before all the Bowie griefmania, I wrote about that particular period of Beckenham, and don’t intend to do so again. You can if you want read that old article here. One of my favourite Twitter follows, Jamie Manners, told me it was “a great read”, and he’s Oxbridge, so that’s about as good a compliment as I will ever get. But this blog, as I opined early on, isn’t about me. It’s about property, or more importantly, homes. So let’s take a nose around the public domain information so you don’t have to.
That’s an interesting road. What do you know about it?
Well, funny you should ask. I was about to get to that point. When I was bored once, I thought about all the change that had swept through Beckenham. I thought about what it would have been like in the 60’s when my mum relocated there from Wandsworth via Croydon courtesy of her high flying Police Officer dog-handler supremo father, Chief Inspector Wilkinson of Imber Court and Keston. I thought then about how the thirties semi he had bought in Links Way (near the Berni Inn), had been when built an expansion of the affluence and the new commuter belt. And then I thought about all the old grand Victorian and Georgian houses that were more abundant the nearer you got to Beckenham Junction station, and how, even when I was a kid more and more of them were being stripped for flats. And then I remembered some of those that had been stripped for flats when I was a kid, the ones that I would walk past each day on Kemerton Road on the way to school, and had a look on Street View to see what had come of them. And of course, they’d done the logical thing in this era of property as an investment, and that was that property had truly eaten itself. They’d been demolished to make way for luxury homes.
So then I thought about what would have been where Ellesmere Avenue and Ashdown Close were built during the last throes of a time before Thatcher, so I did that wonderful thing the internet lets us do so well, and that was dig down and speculate based on half facts. There was a wonderful interactive map of where every German V2 had landed during the second world war, and quite a few landed in this part of South London. One landed in fact on land just off Kemerton Road. Happy with this excuse, I decided that much like the Barbican, it lay derelict for years with a big hole in the ground full of bits of old house. Then I found an aerial map from the 1940s that showed it was probably just fields during the war, and fortunately it probably missed the grand old houses, but probably knocked the windows out. Whatever the guesswork, there was probably precisely nothing there. And I am happy with that.
Right mate, enough of all this boring stuff. Tell me about ‘dem houses. What is it with the design?
I actually don’t know, but to save you a job, I had a look through the Rightmove sold prices and nabbed some photos. Only a couple have been up recently – which given the size of the road, isn’t totally incredible.
You’ll notice the living room is hexagonal. Yep, hexagonal.
So let’s double check that with a floor plan.
Now in terms of time and place, it’s hard from looking Inside Number 9 to see what potential these have. So let’s have a look and see if there are any that are free of furniture. Oh, there are.
This is inside a neighbouring house. The amount of light those windows throw in is incredible. Three sets of french doors. That’s as many doors as there are bedrooms….
Talking of which, the problem with a house this shape is the practical use for modern living. We have more stuff now than ever before. We don’t like spending time together, so the big hexagonal theatre of family fun isn’t perhaps ideal for most families. You’ll notice on Rightmove that several of these have converted down to two bedrooms to get more bed space, and given the rooms you can understand why. But these are just fascinating houses.
If anyone knows about the architect and stuff, hit me up.
So what’s Beckenham like then?
Well, I haven’t lived there for 30 years, so that’s in its favour. Reading Tim Lott’s The Scent of Dried Roses, essentially a history of South London’s journey from working class to middle class will give you some ideas. And of course, you could always visit. In the sixties it had an art scene so buzzing that it created David Bowie. And he made the Three Tuns on the High Street (about a 10 minute walk from here) a sort of cool go-to hangout for years after he upped sticks and went stateside and coke-addled. That the Three Tuns is now a Bowie themed Zizzis might tell you all you need to know.
Ok, I’m cash rich and I want to buy a house. Where do I start?
You start somewhere between £500k to £600k which is cheaper than period properties in this area (but still a few quid however you look at it) And the primary school round the corner with one form entry is among the best in the UK (if you can squeeze your kids into the tiny odd shaped room). The High Street up the road (about a ten minute walk) has everything from Chazzas and Lidl to bespoke cheese and meats etc, and has recently had traffic calming measures that might make it nicer. Also, Kelsey Park is literally minutes away and is stunning – not many suburban open spaces have a lake and a bridge. You see the odd celebrity there too (or at least I did thirty years ago when I am told I fed the ducks with James Bolam). It’s undeniably a great area to live.
I fancy a pint.
So do I. Beckenham is a bit of a “night-out” sort of town these days for those from the surrounding areas, so avoid the High Street unless you like to feel old. Plenty of decent old boozers around if my memory serves me correctly. The Woodman saw my late uncle give me many a warm Coke while we sat on benches outside. Just be prepared to spend a few quid. You get a lot of bankers and city types here because of the excellent rail links from Beckenham Junction, and of course, nearby Penge is now on the Overground into the heart of the City, and all the creativeness areas of Hackney. That said, if you wanted to show your mates at Hungry Tortoise Digital Agency how damn cool you were, buying a house here for the price of a bedsit at London Fields, and saying “well, do you have a hexagonal living room? No, you don’t even have a living room!” would probably make you friends.
So, there’s nothing for sale at the minute?
No, only my soul. If you want me to write for you and you’re not one of my regular readers, my day job is killing me. Hit me up etc
All images are copyright the original agents and I will take them down if threatened / asked to.
That's an Interesting House 