As the Bentley convertible with the personalised number plates reversed belligerently towards us, the estate agent sighed. “Welcome to Weybridge,” he said.
This confirms many people’s image of this wealthy commuter town. Yet residents of Elmbridge, the Surrey borough where Weybridge is located, enjoy the best quality of life in Britain, according to a recent survey by the Halifax. Average weekly earnings are high at £1,064, 95 per cent of inhabitants are in good health, rates of employment and home ownership are above the national average, as are school results. It might not score so highly on culture, but London is only a half-hour train ride away.
Weybridge is a Teflon town — a place where the property market has recovered quickly from the crash because of its desirable housing stock, excellent schools, fast transport connections and accessible countryside.
Simon Ashwell, of Savills, estimates that prices fell by up to to 30 per cent between June and December 2008. But they are now back up by between 10 and 15 per cent and, he says, Victorian homes are back at peak prices. “There is no stock below £1.5 million and lots of gazumping.”
Stephen Parsons, of John D Wood, believes that while “no area is completely recession-proof”, the town has recovered much faster than in previous downturns. “I worked here in 1991 when there was a 40 per cent drop in four months. This time we’ve bounced back very fast from a 25 per cent drop. By summer, houses were selling over the asking price again.”
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The opening of the railway station in 1838 put Weybridge on the map. Transport is Weybridge’s great attraction — it’s within the M25, trains take 30 minutes to Waterloo and Heathrow is 17 miles away. The Surrey Hills provide a break from urban sprawl.
Parsons estimates that half of all buyers are from London and the majority are moving for schools. St George’s is a big co-ed independent, Heathside a state secondary with good results and a large catchment area. The best primary schools are Oatlands, Cleves and St Charles Borromeo. Charterhouse, Woldingham and Cranleigh are all near by.
London buyers, Ashwell says, tend to be nervous about the town’s gin-and-golf reputation. “The wives worry that they’ll end up on Valium in the afternoons,” he said. “But the lifestyle is pretty good; there are bars and sports clubs, and you get more space than you would in London.”
Houses are mostly Edwardian or 1930s, though a modern property is the new must-have. London buyers “used to insist on a London-type Victorian house, but now they want underfloor heating and plasma screens, which are easier to install in a new-build”, Ashwell says. Prices range from £300,000 for a cottage on Heath Road or Springfield Lane to £1.5 million for a five-bed on St Albans Avenue or Mount Pleasant.
Everyone who’s anyone in Surrey, however, lives on a private road, such as Beechwood Avenue or Godolphin Road. Prices there can reach £4 million, Ashwell says. “A step up from Weybridge proper.”
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For true Surrey exclusivity, however, St George’s Hill, on the outskirts of town, is the ultimate new-money ghetto. Five of the ten most expensive streets in the South East outside London are here, according to the property website mouseprice.com.
Built by W. G. Tarrant in 1911, the gated estate, once home to three Beatles, now houses businessmen attracted by the heavy security and golf club. Ashwell lists current and recent residents as the chief executives of BT, HSBC and Vodafone, plus “a lot of Roman Abramovich’s people”, along with Thaksin Shinawatra, Shilpa Shetty, Theo Paphitis and Boris Berezovsky.
Few of Tarrant’s original Arts and Crafts houses remain, having been replaced by Neo-Georgian mansions for the Russian market. Tim Hubbard of Property Vision, a buying agent, estimates that 20 per cent of homes on the estate are owned by Russians.
Transactions have halved from 31 in 2007 to 15 in 2009, but sales to individuals rather than developers have increased. Prices range from £2.5 million to £13.75 million — the price paid by a Nigerian oil millionaire in May 2008 for a 15,000 sq ft new-build.
The main developer is Octagon (020-8358 7900), which specialises in high-tech Georgian-lite. Inside one such house, all is grey marble, glass, leather floor tiles, mock-croc panelling and orchids. Another, named Split Pines, for sale at £7.5 million through Savills (01932 838000), is the same, except the marble is beige. Ravenridge, a £16 million, 16,500 sq ft mansion, is about to go on sale with Knight Frank. We await news of the hue of the marble.