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

Sandwiched between its wealthier north London neighbours, this vibrant spot promises value for home buyers and a year of culture for all.
Daniel Lynch
Anthea Masey12 February 2020

A giant street party is planned in Kilburn to celebrate Brent’s year as London Borough of Culture. On Saturday July 11, a mile-long stretch of Kilburn High Road will close to traffic for the event.

The High Road occupies a section of historic Watling Street, an ancient road paved by the Romans. Once known as Music Mile, this is where pubs used to vye for the attention of the local Irish community with pipe and fiddle players. This summer’s day-long festival will feature music stages and food stalls along the length of the road.

Another highlight of this year’s cultural festival will be the first play from Kilburn and Willesden’s favourite daughter, Zadie Smith. The best-selling author promises a reimagining for the 21st century of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, who may well have travelled to Canterbury along the High Road.

Smith’s play, The Wife of Willesden, promises a reflection on women’s lives in 21st-century Brent and will be performed in November at the theatre once known as The Tricycle, which reopened a year ago with the new name of Kiln, following a multimillion-pound redevelopment.

Kilburn High Road is the busy spine running through the middle of a district which finds itself caught in a pincer movement between two better-off neighbours, Queen’s Park and West Hampstead.

Estate agent Callum Hodgson, sales director at the local branch of Marsh & Parsons, says Kilburn’s one- and two-bedroom period conversion flats are popular with first-time buyers. They can expect to pay between £400,000 and £500,000 for a one-bedroom flat, often bought with a financial contribution from their parents.

Especially popular is the North Kilburn conservation area where there are two- and three-storey Victorian terrace houses, west of Kilburn High Road and north of Willesden Lane, close to Kilburn Underground and Brondesbury Oveground stations.

Kilburn’s greatest building is the Grade I-listed Victorian Gothic Church of St Augustine in Kilburn Park Road.

Built by followers of the Oxford Sect or Tractarians who proposed a return to Catholic traditions in the Church of England, the tall spire is visible throughout the neighbourhood.

Designed by John Loughborough Pearson with an elaborately decorated interior, it is often called the “Cathedral of north London”.

Journalist and architectural writer Simon Jenkins recently argued that gems such as this one should be open to the public and buzzing with activity, rather than left empty for most of the week. He suggests “concert halls, coffee bars, drop-in centres, crèches, libraries, youth clubs, even farmers’ markets”.

Leonard Bernstein conducted an English Bach Festival concert at St Augustine’s in 1977. Had the church been on the other side of the road, it could again have had a starring role, in Brent’s year of culture. However, it sits in Westminster borough and so will miss out.

Kilburn is conveniently situated on the A5, or Edgware Road, which leads directly to Marble Arch. It is four miles from central London with West Hampstead and St John’s Wood to the east; Maida Vale to the south; Queen’s Park to the west and Cricklewood to the north.

The property scene

The regeneration of the South Kilburn estate, stretching from Kilburn High Road, down Kilburn Park Road, up Malvern Road to Queen’s Park station and then along south of the railway line, is at the halfway stage and due to complete in 2029.

It will bring 2,400 new homes, a new primary school, a health centre, shops, restaurants, a new park and a tree-lined boulevard on Carlton Vale.

Kilburn has mainly Victorian houses of up to four storeys, while its most desirable houses are in the Mapesbury conservation area
Daniel Lynch

Elsewhere Kilburn has mainly Victorian houses of up to four storeys, with most of the larger ones converted to flats.

Two-bedroom garden flats in North Kilburn conservation area start at £600,000, with two-bedroom first-floor flats from £500,000. Three-bedroom houses in roads such as Torbay Road start at about £1 million.

Kilburn’s most desirable houses are in the Mapesbury conservation area between Walm Lane and Shoot Up Hill, an Edwardian suburb with semis and detached houses. Doer-uppers start at about £2.2 million.

Marsh & Parsons has a fine house in Walm Lane near Mapesbury Dell for £4 million, a new record for the area.

New-build homes

Park Place, by Godfrey, is a scheme of 45 flats with a residents gym behind Kilburn High Road overlooking Kilburn Grange Park.

One-bedroom flats start at £525,000 with two-bedroom flats at £635,000 and three-bedroom flats at £715,000.

Two-bedroom penthouses start at £940,000 and three-bedroom penthouses at £1.3 million. Call Savills on 020 7409 8756.

Next door to Park Place, Arbor Collection is launching soon, with 27 flats that also overlook the park.

One-bedroom flats start at £485,000; two-bedroom flats at £800,000 and three-bedroom flats at £1 million, with a three-bedroom penthouse with a 500sq ft terrace at £1.45 million. Call developer Victoria Taylor on 07825 984 675.

The Camden Collection are private homes being developed by Camden council.

Abbey Road Cross on the corner of Belsize Road and Abbey Road has 141 flats, of which 47 are for private sale, all move-in ready. The remaining two-bedroom flats start at £650,000.

Noma Westminster is a development of 26 two- and three-bedroom flats at the junction of Kilburn High Road and Oxford Road.

The developer is Latimer, part of housing association Clarion, and the scheme is part of the regeneration of the Tollgate Gardens Estate which will bring 229 new-build flats, of which 103 will be affordable.

Two-bedroom flats start at £756,000 and three-bedroom flats at £897,000. Call JLL on 020 7205 2496.

Brondesbury Mews off Brondesbury Park, from housing association Network Homes, has 17 shared-ownership flats.

The scheme is part of the South Kilburn Estate regeneration. One-bedroom flats start at £154,000 for a 40 per cent share of a home worth £385,000. Two-bedroom flats start at £210,000 for 40 per cent of a flat with a full price of £525,000. Call 0300 373 3000.

Renting

Brian Ashe, lettings manager at Marsh & Parsons, says Kilburn is popular with young professionals and couples aged 18 to 30. House shares range from £750 and £850 a month for a room.

There is also a good supply of one- and two-bedroom flats in period conversions. The entry level rent for a one-bedroom flat is £1,100 a month rising to around £1,500 a month. There are few houses to rent but one example is a five-bedroom house in Kenilworth Road, available at £3,200 a month.

Staying power

Families will live in Mapesbury for a generation; elsewhere Kilburn can still be transitory.

Postcode

NW6 is the Kilburn postcode which also includes Queen’s Park and parts of West Hampstead. Mapesbury, though, is in the NW2 Cricklewood postcode.

Best roads

Anywhere in Mapesbury. And tucked away close to Kilburn High Road there is a pocket of white stucco villas in Priory Terrace and Priory Road.

Up and coming

Kilburn is still undervalued and still has some catching up to do to be on a par with Queen’s Park or West Hampstead.

Transport

Kilburn has two London Underground stations — Kilburn on the Jubilee line and Kilburn Park on the Bakerloo line.

There are also two London Overground stations: Brondesbury on the Willesden Junction to Stratford line and Kilburn High Road on the Watford Junction to Euston line. All stations are in Zone 2 and an annual travelcard to Zone 1 is £1,444.

Buses are a good option in Kilburn, with the No 16 to Victoria via Marble Arch; the No 98 to Holborn via Oxford Circus and the No 189 to Oxford Circus via Quex Road.

Council

The boundary between Brent and Camden runs down Kilburn High Road, with Brent to the west and Camden to the east.

Brent council is Labour controlled and Band D council tax for 2019/2020 is £1,582.85. Camden council is also Labour controlled and Band D council tax for 2019/2020 is £1,562.35.

Lifestyle

Shops and restaurants

Kilburn High Road is a busy shopping street. At the southern end close to Kilburn High Road station is where most of the big high street chains are clustered.

There are branches of Aldi, Argos, Boots, Clarks, Iceland, M&S Food Hall, Poundland, Primark, Sainsbury’s and Sports Direct.

On the corner of Kilburn High Road and Belsize Road there is a branch of growing pizza chain Franco Manca.

In quieter Belsize Road, Little Bay, a restaurant famed for its baroque interior, offers value-for-money menus, and Hart & Lova is a pretty café, bakery, and patisserie.

At the northern end there is the typical London high street mix of betting shops, pawnbrokers, cash converters and phone shops, south Asian grocers with magnificent displays of fruit and vegetables and independent shops and cafés.

Wingmans, specialising in chicken wings and cocktails, is a newish arrival and a big hit with the team at Marsh & Parsons, having made the journey from pop-up van to a permanent restaurant.

Other highlights are Folkies Music for musical instruments; the North London Tavern and The Black Lion, two pubs serving above-average pub fare; Ariana 11, an Afghan restaurant; Small & Beautiful, a greasy spoon during the day, a restaurant at night; and Hillman, a butcher since 1848.

Another newcomer is Kake Di Hatti, a North Indian café, an offshoot of the famous Delhi chain, serving giant naans.

Music venue The Fiddler was opened by Vince Power who ran the legendary Mean Fiddler in Harlesden.

Open space

Kilburn Grange Park off Kilburn High Road has had a makeover and now has some adventurous new play structures as well as an outdoor gym to add to the tennis courts.

Mapesbury Dell in Hoveden Road is a tucked-away garden where the community holds summer events.

Leisure and the arts

Kiln in Kilburn High Road – the renamed Tricycle – reopened in September 2018 after major redevelopment; this award-winning theatre, which also features a cinema, will play a major part in Brent’s year as London Borough of Culture.

On Sunday February 16 it is holding a fundraising event with Dame Helen Mirren in conversation with Jim Carter.

Schools

Most parents in Kilburn send their children to state schools although there is a choice of private schools in nearby Hampstead.

Primary schools

Kilburn’s state primary schools are all judged by Ofsted to be “good” or better.

The “outstanding” primary schools are: Kingsgate in Kingsgate Road and St Eugene de Mazenod RC in Mazenod Avenue.

Malorees, infant and junior schools, in Christchurch Avenue are a popular choice for parents in the Brondesbury Park area of north Kilburn; the two schools are judged to be “good”.

Comprehensive

The two “outstanding” state comprehensive schools are church schools: St Augustine’s CofE (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Oxford Road and St George’s RC (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Lanark Road.

The other comprehensives, both rated “good”, are Queen’s Park (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Aylestone Avenue and Hampstead (co-ed, ages 11 to18) in Westbere Road.

Private

There are two private infants’ schools: Mulberry House (co-ed, ages two to seven) in Shoot Up Hill and Minster Road and Broadhurst (co-ed, ages two to five) in Greencroft Gardens.

There are two private primary schools: Rainbow Montessori (co-ed, ages three to 12) in Woodchurch Road and Naima Jewish Primary.