Carla Passino
A built-in desire to move to the countryside is a very British thing. We make our fortune in the big, smokey city and then move out to pleasant pastures green — in search of a suitably old and large home — at odds with multiple other countries and cultures that have problems trying to convince its people to leave overcrowded cities. And this desire for rural living, to live out our Lord of the Manor fantasies — a title that dates back to feudal Anglo-Saxon England — is not solely baked into the DNA of Brits who grew up in the countryside. It’s baked into all of us, regardless of where or how we were raised.
No one is immune, not even Britain’s most famous supermodel, Kate Moss, who grew up in Croydon, South London, and sold this St John’s Wood home in North-West London in 2012, for £.6.8 million — to relocate to the Cotswolds. The Victorian stucco front property, which she lived in for a decade, is now back on the market with Arlington Residential, for £5,950,000.
There are six bedrooms and four bathrooms, spread across approximately 440 sq m of space. Everything is well proportioned and there’s plenty of natural light — including in the basement, eat-in kitchen which opens out onto a wide terrace, dug out of the garden — but it lacks much character. The upside of this is that the interiors are a blank canvas, ripe for redecoration.
Other bits of note include the garage, study, multiple dressing rooms (a model has quite a lot of clothes, after all), gym-cum-bedroom and attic storage space.
Outside, it’s all very pretty, thanks to a mixture of large sash windows and French doors, swirling, wrought iron railings, and an elegant, low pitched roof. Arlington’s director also wisely points out that the house is sheltered nicely by mature trees and is all but invisible from the road. The garden faces south-west.
However, our favourite part? The Kate Moss book, casually on display on the airy drawing room’s coffee table (above).
Despite our seemingly biological longing for the countryside, some of us still need to be in London for work, or in order to be closer to family and better infrastructure. And you could do worse than St John’s Wood which started life as, unsurprisingly, a wood belonging to the Knights of St John.
It was still rural and secluded in the Elizabethan era when, according to Alexander Wood’s Ecclesiastical Antiquities of London and its Suburbs, five Babington Plot conspirators, including Anthony Babington, fled here to avoid arrest (they were eventually captured on their way to Harrow and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered). By then, St John’s Wood was Crown property, but Oliver Cromwell sold it in 1649 and, after a succession of owners, it came into the hands of the Eyre family, who would develop it into London’s first garden suburb in the early 19th century.
Nowadays, it’s beloved by residents for its village atmosphere and many great pubs, restaurants, shops and cafes. Plus, everything from Regent’s Park to the London Zoo and West End is in easy reach.
The house on Greville Road, St John's Wood, is for sale via Arlington Residential at £5,950,000 — see more pictures and details
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