London's new garden squares
London is already the greenest capital in Europe, with homeowners enjoying more than 600 garden squares. And the good news is that there are more to come.
As the BBC move out, Shepherd's Bush switches to a new programme
As Aunty leaves the Bush the borough seizes the opportunity to create a proper neighbourhood.
Spotlight on Camden Town
The shops and markets clustered around the high street and canal make Camden one of the most colourful of London's neighbourhoods. The area's period homes and loft-style apartments attract a mix of homebuyers.
Revealed: from Reading to Redhill – the top 20 commuter stations
Choose your route. Our exclusive property buyers’ guide shows travel times, costs and house prices.
Chelsea Flower Show 2012 preview
A spectacular 80ft tower - Chelsea's very own Shard of Grass - plus a glorious new Royal Jubilee rose and 18 show gardens will offer London gardeners inspiring ideas at this year's show.
Find a rated tradesman
Want to add value to your property, make your house a home, or sell your place fast? With 1,000s of tradesmen nationwide, rated and recommended by previous customers, this is the smart way to find a reputable tradesman.
Buy of the week: Camden Town
This two-bedroom flat has a pretty park on its doorstep, while buzzing Camden Town is only 10 minutes’ walk away. Big sash windows and high ceilings give a spacious feel and there’s a private garden with a studio/home office (£525,000).
Swap of the week: Willersey, Glouc
This little Cotswolds beauty is just across the road from the village green and duck pond. For £530,000 you get beams, exposed stone walls and an open fireplace, plus four bedrooms, a useful attic room and lush gardens to enjoy.
Life-changer: Trescowe, Cornwall
For a project brimming with potential, what about this coastal home, yours for £545,000? The family space includes six bedrooms, while its collection of outbuildings overlooking an acre of gardens could become income-generating holiday lets.
Spotlight on Camden Town
The shops and markets clustered around the high street and canal make Camden one of the most colourful of London's neighbourhoods. The area's period homes and loft-style apartments attract a mix of homebuyers.
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Elizabethan Burghley House
Of the multitude of historic homes within day-tripping distance of London, the Elizabethan palace Burghley House is, without doubt, one of the most spectacular, says Katrina Burroughs
The stunning Burghley House with its distinctive cupolas and sculptural chimneys
Hundreds of copper utensils line the walls in Burghley's Tudor kitchen
The sumptuous 17th century Heaven room by Antonio Verrio
From a distance, the house is overwhelmingly impressive, with an extravagant roofline of cupolas, a forest of sculptural chimneys and elaborately finialled stonework.
Up close, it is no slouch either - two lavishly painted rooms, the Heaven room and the Hell staircase (the damned writhing in a monstrous cat’s mouth), are sumptuous 17th century masterpieces by Antonio Verrio.
Its chatelaine since 1982, Lady Victoria Leatham, was a Sotheby’s expert in oriental ceramics, who infrequently appears on Antiques Roadshow, and consequently the Japanese porcelain collection at Burghley is especially fine.
Highlights of the house include the cavernous old Tudor kitchens, whose peeling walls are studded with hundreds of Georgian and Victorian copper utensils, from jelly moulds to huge turbot kettles, and dozens of turtle skulls, a reminder of a time when turtles were kept in the estate ponds to see the incumbents through Lent.
Visiting Burghley
Burghley House is open from 11am to 4.30pm (adult admission is £10.40). Burghley is one-and-a half-miles from Stamford in Lincolnshire, just off the main A1 Great North Road, 80 miles north of London and 15 miles north of Peterborough. The closest mainline train station is Peterborough.
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