Urban and rural — the high streets that top the league

The Great British High Street Awards for 2015 are taking votes, with the shortlist featuring high streets as diverse as Bradford’s North Parade to West Kilbride’s village high street on the Firth of Clyde.

However, with the government recently announcing that permitted development rights are to be extended indefinitely, it is likely that more offices and shops will be converted into places to live, transforming more high streets into residential areas.

With this in mind, Hamptons International has collated a list of the 30 most expensive high streets to live on, exclusively for The Times (see the table in the gallery). The list ranges from Kensington High Street in London, where the average price of a home is just over £1.8 million, to Wimbledon High Street, with an average property price of £588,600.

Being based on price, the table is dominated by London, with nine of the top 30 entries in the capital, but South Cambridgeshire also has a strong showing, with four entries, as does Windsor and Maidenhead, with three.

Fionnuala Earley, the residential research director at Hamptons, says: “Residential properties on high streets have shared the ups and downs of the overall housing market. And just with any other housing market the economic conditions dictate the vibrancy. It’s no surprise, then, that the most expensive high streets are in London and the south of England, which have benefited most from the economic recovery so far.”

Demand for prime central London property has meant Kensington and Chelsea also had the largest growth in prices over the past ten years at 251 per cent, but London isn’t the only area where high street properties have increased so much. In Datchet, high street prices rose by 205 per cent, and Bushey Heath, Fordwich and Dedham all increased by more than 100 per cent in the past ten years.

Earley says: “The fact that prices in high streets outside London are still more expensive than some of the central London favourites and have seen prices grow almost as fast shows that high streets outside the capital are still attractive and buyers are willing to pay to live there.”

Earley also looked at the cheapest high streets in England and Wales and found that many of these were in the north and Wales, with Grimethorpe High Street near Barnsley the cheapest in which to live with an average residental property price of £47,929. This was followed closely by Bedlinog High Street in Merthyr Tydfil, with an average house price of £51,064.

“Five of the high streets with the cheapest property are in Wales — but these haven’t necessarily seen the slowest growth in prices. Skewen in Port Talbot saw a 26 per cent rise in prices over the past ten years, more than ten percentage points more than in Eton, the seventh most expensive high street,” Earley says.

So what makes a high street a desirable place to live? In short, the same things that attract us to any other street: a great mix of period properties with easy accessiblity to transport and amenities.

“A picture of a high street could be all manner of things, from a city centre buzzing with familiar shop fronts, to a market town with a mix of independent and national shops. Or urban villages with traffic-free zones, or rural villages with the local pub and bakery serving the local community. And what could be more local than living on the high street? The convenience of everything on your doorstep or the charm of the ancient high street with its chocolate-box cottages and cosy British pub,” says Earley.

Kensington High Street certainly fits the definition of “city centre buzzing”. According to Mark Sommerville, the manager at Hamptons in Kensington, this is often what people want. “Overseas clients buying for their children, particularly daughters, will want a place on a high street that never closes — it is perceived as much safer than turning down a quieter, darker street at night.”

Kensington High Street is lined with shops topped by mansion blocks with large well-proportioned lateral spaces, in contrast to the properties on the neighbouring streets, which tend to be dominated by traditional Victorian houses. Hamptons has a 2,829 sq ft, seven-bedroom flat on the top floor of Melbury Court overlooking the high street for £3.65 million. It is as far from a poky flat above a shop as you can get.

The appeal of the busy high street is further endorsed by the rapid selling of a development of flats — an office to residential conversion — on Kensington High Street, which all sold off-plan for a record £2,400 per sq ft. One of the flats, due for completion next year, is back on the market for £1.499 million via Hamptons. The one-bedroom property is expected to be snapped up quickly.

Developers who see the appeal of a vibrant high street include Peabody, which has Carters Yard on Wandsworth High Street (£582,750 for a two-bedroom apartment). London Square’s Teddington development is close to Teddington High Street (penthouse apartments from £1.05 million).

The most expensive high street outside London is in Hurley, in Windsor and Maidenhead — it couldn’t be more different from the hustle and bustle of Kensington. It is a quintessential village high street with a couple of pubs, a shop and a hairdressers. James Butler, the manager at Hamptons’ Henley office, says: “It is a pretty village with historic properties and a long high street, which is a no-through road that leads down to the river with a lot of residential properties.”

Butler explains that the village has suffered slightly from the slowdown in the prime London market — attributed mainly to the higher stamp duty for expensive properties — but says the arrival of Crossrail in nearby Reading and Maidenhead should revive interest. That said, properties on the high street do not tend to stay on the market for too long, such is demand for the pretty street.

Another attractive, quiet entry in our top 30 is Southover High Street in Lewes, East Sussex. Liz Hollington at Strutt and Parker in Lewes, says the residential street, to the south of the town’s main shopping road, is somewhere buyers will pay a premium to live. Its attraction is its location, close to the station and shops, as well as its proliferation of period homes.

“There is a wonderful mix of architecture, from the 16th century right up to modern day, with everything in between. There is also a really pretty old church and then, right in the centre, a crescent that looks as if it has just been plucked out of Islington,” Hollington says.

A winning combination of transport links and picturesque period properties also accounts for Eton’s desirablity, according to Seb Stanford-Smith, the senior manager at Hamptons in Windsor, Berkshire. “You fall out of your front door and there is history all around — and then there are the transport links.” Prices here are likely to remain high (an average of £895,398) because of a dearth of supply — Eton College owns surrounding land, so building is restricted.

Eton’s high street is a mix of shops, restaurants and residential buildings. A penthouse on the street recently went to sealed bids, eventually being snapped up by a parent who wanted a base from which to visit sons studying at Eton.

In South Cambridgeshire, being close to the city combined with a village vibe accounts for the villages of Little Shelford, Foxton, Harston and Harlton appearing in our list. Chris Carey, the head of residential for Bidwells estate agency, says: “They are all in close proximity to Cambridge, on the desirable southern side, making them very good for commuters into London or Cambridge — a lot of residents work in London and send their children to Cambridge schools. Shelton, Foxton and Harlton are all very pretty, unspoilt villages, with the odd post office, pub and general store, while Harston is bigger with more facilities.”

The best of both worlds is also the attraction in Whitchurch-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. Alex Barton, the head of Strutt and Parker in Newbury, says: “It is a very pretty old listed high street, with two pubs and a rare toll bridge. It has a mix of Victorian and older Georgian houses, ranging from £500,000 to £3 million. It is away from the busy feel of Pangbourne but just a ten-minute walk to the shops there.”

High streets are for those that like to be close to the action, even if it is in a village where the action might be little more than a leisurely cricket match. Rupert Marchington, in Knight Frank’s Cirencester office, isn’t surprised by Meysey Hampton’s appearance in our listing. “It is a good Cotswold village with a big enough population to have a proper community feel, with a church, pub and school, although there are no shops. The residential high street runs down to the village green — it is a very typical village, with a manor house, a rectory and stone cottages.”