Live now where Orwell wrote 1984: rare new-build flats in an Islington conservation quarter that's part of one of London's most sought-after neighbourhoods
George Orwell wrote his masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four at a run-down house in Canonbury Square, Islington, where a heritage plaque commemorates his time there during the bleak post-war years.
Had the prescient author been told then that this pocket of London would one day be a coveted conservation area cherished by the capital’s chattering classes, he would probably have dismissed the assertion as a Ministry of Truth manipulation.
This superb Regency square with terraces of tall, thin houses around a narrow garden is perhaps not as peaceful as you might expect, since busy Canonbury Road dissects it. But it is part of one of London’s nicest neighbourhoods and even boasts its own art gallery and café, the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, housed in a splendid listed Georgian house and garden.
New-builds are rare in this conservation quarter but X-N5, a scheme of 10 apartments, slots neatly into the streetscape along tree-lined Grosvenor Avenue. Sleek, contemporary interior design is a step up from that found in the area’s period conversions, having parquet flooring, marble bathrooms and Lutron lighting.
Prices from £815,000. Call estate agent Fyfe Mcdade on 020 7354 4044.
