Living in Shoreditch: area guide to homes, schools and transport

Shoreditchification — a term that doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue — was coined in this East End hub of all things trendy to describe the staggeringly rapid transformation of an area from toe-curlingly awful to cool and popular.

The process begins with an invasion of artists and designers seeking cheap space, followed by curious professionals who want to know why a neighbourhood is suddenly so hip.

Then property prices start to rise, stratospherically in the case of Shoreditch, where the average one-bedroom flat now costs well over £500,000.

Activists took to the streets in protest outside the newly opened Cereal Killer Café in Brick Lane, an eatery serving only cereal, in 2015, perceived then as the height of hipsterish folly.

Two years later, it seems to have weathered the storm. It is easy to parody Shoreditch as London’s capital of cool with a surfeit of skinny jeans and oversize beards but it retains plenty of rough-edged charm, with its converted warehouses and ever-changing gallery of street art.

It is also one of the few areas in London where it is possible to live and work in the same neighbourhood. Developers are building new co-working spaces in and around Old Street and the Silicon Roundabout to cater for the hordes of young digital entrepreneurs dreaming of starting the next Facebook.

A local building boom is under way. Tall residential and mixed-use towers, either under construction or in the pipeline, are beginning to dominate the skyline but there is no escaping Shoreditch’s rich history.

As the cranes go up and the piles get dug, the archaeologists get to work. When Galliard Homes started digging up an area off Curtain Road it discovered the remains of one of London’s first theatres.

The Curtain was built in 1577, a year after James Burbage built The Theatre, the first permanent theatre built in England since Roman times, less than 200 yards away.

In 1625 The Theatre was transported at dead of night to Southwark where it became the Globe.

The Curtain, where Shakespeare’s Henry V was possibly first performed, survived until 1677. It remains the country’s best-preserved Elizabethan theatre and Galliard named its new homes development The Stage in its honour. A heritage centre is planned in the central courtyard.

Local Savills estate agent Nicole Efthymiou says Shoreditch is exciting, with easy access to the rest of London. Three miles from central London, it has Islington to the north, Bethnal Green to the east, Whitechapel to the south and the City and Clerkenwell to the west.

More than 40 per cent of Efthymiou’s buyers come from overseas but she also gets a lot of young professional first-time buyers helped by the Bank of Mum and Dad.

The property scene

The Shoreditch Triangle, bounded by Old Street, Great Eastern Street and Shoreditch High Street contains some of London’s best warehouse conversions.

There are “right-to-buy” flats on the mainly council-owned Boundary Estate, one of the country’s oldest council estates, opened in 1900. The five-storey Arts and Crafts blocks radiate off Arnold Circus, a raised garden with a bandstand.

Around Columbia Road, site of the famous flower market, are two- and three-bedroom straight-off-the-street houses on the Jesus Hospital Estate. There are also new-build flats.

What's new?

Principal Tower in Worship Street, designed by Foster + Partners for W1 Developments and Canadian developers Brookfield and Concord Pacific, has 301 one-, two- and three-bedroom flats and penthouses in a 50-storey block.

It completes at the start of 2019, with a gym, spa, screening room, lap pool and 24-hour concierge and is part of the Principal Place scheme that includes Amazon’s new HQ. From £966,000 (principaltower.com; 020 3883 3333).

The Stage is a 37-storey Galliard Homes mixed-use development of 412 studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom flats and four-bedroom duplex penthouses, ready at the end of 2020.

The scheme includes offices, shops, a public rooftop and a heritage centre featuring the remains of the Elizabethan Curtain Theatre. Studios start at £685,000, one-bedroom flats at £800,000, two-bedroom flats at £1.2 million and three-bedroom flats at £2.35 million. Call 020 3770 2154.

One Crown Place is a 33-storey tower with 246 one- to three-bedroom flats plus offices and a hotel in a converted row of Georgian houses bordering Sun Street, Earl Street and Crown Place.

Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox for Malaysian developer AlloyMtd, it will be ready in 2020. One-bedroom flats start at £865,000, two-bedroom flats at £1,165,000 and three-bedroom flats from £2,395,000 (onecrownplace.com; 020 7205 2697).

The Atlas Building at the junction of City Road and East Road near Old Street Roundabout is a Rocket Properties development with a 40-storey residential block and a nine-storey office block designed by Make Architects.

The tower has 302 flats with one-bedroom homes from £810,000, two-bedroom flats from £1,029,000 and three-bedroom flats from £1,878,000 (theatlasbuilding.com; 020 7205 4570).

Hoxton Press in Penn Street, between Shoreditch Park and Regent’s Canal, forms part of the regeneration of the Colville Estate.

It comprises two hexagonal towers designed by Karakusevic Carson with David Chipperfield from developer Anthology.

The towers are selling off-plan for completion next year. One-bedroom flats start at £420,000, with two-bedroom flats at £810,000 and three-bedroom flats at £850,000. Call 020 3540 9890 for more information.

There will be 56 affordable homes in two separate blocks, one of 16 storeys, the other of eight storeys, in the Principal Place mixed-use development.

The developer of The Atlas Building is providing 97 affordable homes off-site through the Islington & Shoreditch Housing Association. The first homes will be in Kingsland Road.

Renting

Lettings manager Ben Rogers of Savills says about 20 per cent of his tenants are from overseas companies, mainly North American and European. “These tenants keep us busy at the beginning of year.

Later on in August and September we get strong demand from wealthy overseas students who are happy to pay a year’s rent up front.”

Staying power

Savills estate agent Nicole Efthymiou says that while there are some families in Shoreditch, it is essentially a neighbourhood for the childless.

When children come along, the tendency is for people to leave in search of a house with outside space.

Postcode

Shoreditch falls into E1, the central eastern postcode; E2, the Bethnal Green postcode; EC1 and EC2, and also into N1, the central northern postcode.

Best roads

A warehouse, especially with some outdoor space, in the Shoreditch Triangle, the area bounded by Old Street, Great Eastern Street and Shoreditch High Street, will be at the top of the wish list for most home seekers.

Up and coming

“Right-to-buy” flats on one of Shoreditch’s many estates of social housing offer the cheapest option for those wanting to join the Shoreditch party. One-bedroom flats start at about £350,000.

Travel

Liverpool Street and Old Street Tube stations serve Shoreditch. Liverpool Street is on the Circle, Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City and Central lines and Old Street is on the Northern line.

Shoreditch High Street Overground station has trains to Highbury & Islington and Canary Wharf via a change at Canada Water.

Eleven buses run up and down Shoreditch High Street with the No 8 to Oxford Street, the No 26 to Waterloo, the No 135 to Canary Wharf and the No 205 to Paddington.

Council

Shoreditch is where three Labour-controlled councils meet: in Tower Hamlets, Band D council tax for 2017/2018 is £1,246.82; in Hackney it is £1,328.99, while in Islington, Band D council tax stands at £1,351.08.

Shops and restaurants

Shoreditch’s back streets teem with independent shops, cafés and award-winning restaurants. Boxpark in Bethnal Green Road next to Shoreditch High Street station is a small shopping centre built from shipping containers where young businesses get the chance to sell their wares.

Nearby Redchurch Street, once branded the coolest street in London, is home to major fashion brands including Sunspel, APC, Versus Versace and J Crew. Fans of utility homewares make for Labour and Wait.

SCP in Curtain Road is a long-standing modern furniture and interior accessories shop selling designers such as Terence Woodgate, Matthew Hilton and Donna Wilson.

Two new hotel openings are putting Shoreditch on the London luxury hotel map. Nobu Hotel Shoreditch, complete with a Nobu restaurant, is in Willow Street.

The Curtain in Curtain Road, a hotel and members club with a rooftop swimming pool to compete with Shoreditch House in Ebor Street, has chef Marcus Samuelsson’s brand of American soul food at his restaurant, Red Rooster.

There are two Michelin-starred restaurants: The Clove Club in Shoreditch Town Hall in Old Street, and Lyle’s in the Tea Building, Shoreditch High Street, with an entrance opposite Boxpark in Bethnal Green Road.

Open space

This is a close-grained urban area with restricted open space — but if you’re interested in cocktails alfresco, there are rooftop bars.

Shoreditch Park on the northern edge is the main park, offering sports pitches, tennis courts, a giant boulder for rock climbing and an adventure playground.

Leisure and the arts

The local arts centre, Rich Mix in Bethnal Green Road, has a cinema and puts on exhibitions, music events, plays and workshops. Shoreditch Town Hall is run by a trust and holds a varied menu of classes, tea dances, family discos and theatre.

The Courtyard Theatre is a small fringe theatre off Pitfield Street. XOYO in Cowper Street is a top live music and DJ club over two floors.

The nearest council-owned swimming pool is at the Britannia Leisure Centre in Hyde Road, which Hackney council plans to redevelop as a new leisure centre and a comprehensive school funded by the sale of new homes.

Savills’ Nicole Efthymiou says she never gets asked about schools in Shoreditch even though there are some very good state schools.

Primary school

Primary schools rated “outstanding” by the Ofsted education watchdog are: Virginia in Virginia Road and Shoreditch Park in Bridport Place.

Comprehensive

Comprehensive schools rated “outstanding” are Central Foundation (boys, ages 11 to 18) in Cowper Street and Green Spring Academy (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Gosset Street. Haggerston (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Weymouth Terrace and Oaklands (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Old Bethnal Green Road are both judged “good”.

Further education

Hackney Community College (co-ed, ages 16 plus) in Falkirk Street is the local further education college and gets a “good” report from Ofsted.

Private

The only local private school is The Lyceum (co-ed, ages three to 11) in Paul Street, but the City’s two top-performing private schools — City of London School for Girls (ages seven to 18) in St Giles Terrace, Barbican, and City of London School (boys, ages 10 to 18) in Queen Victoria Street — aren’t far away