Living in Sevenoaks: area guide to homes, schools and transport
Sevenoaks in Kent is an affluent families’ commuter town 37 minutes by train to Charing Cross. There can’t be many towns where you can walk straight off the high street to find yourself in a 1,000-acre medieval deer park with access to one of the greatest houses in England, Knole, for more than 400 years home to the Sackville family.
Sevenoaks could be described as a stately home with a town attached. The Sackville family still live at Knole even though the house now belongs to the National Trust, which is in the middle of a multimillion-pound Heritage Lottery-funded restoration.
Author and poet Vita Sackville-West grew up in the house and claimed in her book about the house, Knole and the Sackvilles, that it was a calendar house with seven courtyards for the days of the week, 12 entrances for the months of the year; 52 staircases for the weeks in the year and 365 rooms for the days in the year.
Vita Sackville’s West’s friend and lover, Virginia Woolf, set her novel Orlando, the story of a sex changing boy who lives through the centuries, at Knole.
Estate agent David Johnston from the local branch of Savills describes Sevenoaks as a market town with an easy commute into London and he says having Knole Park on the doorstep is a huge bonus.
There are also good schools. Sevenoaks School, which dominates the southern end of the High Street, is a highly selective private co-educational day and boarding school with the feel of a university campus. Pupils take the International Baccalaureate and parents of day pupils pay £7,785 a term.
Sevenoaks also has an ever-expanding grammar school. Prime Minister Theresa May quietly dropped her pledge to allow new grammar schools after last year’s snap general election when she realised she would fail to get the reform through Parliament.
In Kent, the county council has got around the ban on new grammar schools by opening a £19 million annexe to Tonbridge-based Weald of Kent Grammar School for girls.
The new school, which will eventually have a total of 450 pupils with boys in the sixth form, opened in Seal Hollow Road in Sevenoaks in September last year.
Sevenoaks is 21 miles south-east of central London close to the M25 with Bromley to the north; Maidstone to the east; Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells to the south and Westerham and Caterham to the west.
The property scene
You’ll find everything from modern one-bedroom flats to vast newly built mansions selling for many millions of pounds in Sevenoaks. The most expensive house currently for sale is Rivendell in Parkfield on the gated Wildernesse Estate.
The six-bedroom Georgian-style home has an outdoor swimming pool and tennis court in a two-acre garden, and is priced at £5.7 million. There are large Twenties family houses in town centre roads such as Oakhill Road and Kippington Road close to the station for between £1 million and £5 million. Ashfield in Kippington Road is a five-bedroom double-fronted Twenties house in the Arts and Crafts style, for £2,295,000.
Savills’ David Johnston says families are transforming unremarkable Fifties and Sixties houses into stylish modern homes in roads such as Marlborough Crescent and Lyndhurst Drive. One example is in Garth Road where a five-bedroom house has had a modern makeover with a barn-style double-height entrance hall and is now for sale for £1.35 million.
The town centre also has period houses, cottages and roads of Victorian houses around St Botolph’s Road close to the station. The Chantry is a listed early 18th-century house with a walled garden at the southern end of the high street, priced at £2.7 million.
Fans of Arts and Crafts architecture will find a house designed by Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott for sale in Quaker Close. Four-bedroom listed Seal Hollow House has a double-height great hall lit by a large bay leaded-light window, and is priced £1,499,000 or can be rented for £2,900 a month.
What's new?
Wildernesse House in Wildernesse Avenue is a PegasusLife retirement development for the over-60s set in 23 acres.
The developer has created 23 one- and two-bedroom apartments within the Grade II-listed main house and built eight mews houses in a contrasting contemporary style.
There is a communal residents’ lounge on the ground floor of the main house; a spa, pool and gym on the lower ground floor and a tennis court and restored croquet lawn in the grounds. A separate newly built restaurant sits facing a kitchen garden and orchard.
Two guest suites on the top floor are available for residents to use. Sales start at £649,950 for a two-bedroom mews house. One- and two-bedroom apartments start at £625,000. Sales are off-plan for completion in December.
Private tours can be booked of the show units and grounds. Contact Savills on 01732 789740.
Developer McCullochs is selling McCulloch Mews, with four two-bedroom mews houses in the high street. Prices start at £600,000 for completion at the end of November. Call 020 8466 5725.
Bourchier Court in London Road offers 95 one- and two-bedroom flats from Be Living. There is a concierge, residents’ business suite, lounge and landscaped communal courtyard gardens. A selection of two-bedroom apartments remain priced from £394,995 and all are ready to move into. Contact Savills (as before).
St Catherine’s Court in Bradbourne Vale Road is a development of 15 one- and two-bedroom flats near Bat & Ball train station. Only three flats remain with one-bedroom flats from £275,000 and a two-bedroom flat at £375,000. Contact Savills (as before).
Bluebell Farm offers 14 two-, three- and four-bedroom houses converted from traditional farm buildings outside the village of Seal, in five acres of communal grounds with two lakes.
Four properties remain, with prices for a two-bedroom house from £425,000, three-bedroom houses from £950,000 and four-bedroom houses from £1,299,000. All are move-in ready. Call Hamptons International on 01732 280801.
Affordable homes
Help to Buy is available at Bourchier Court and St Catherine’s Court. At Ryewood by Berkeley Homes, with 500 flats and houses in Dunton Green north of the centre, 18 homes remain, from £290,000 off-plan for a one-bedroom flat and £323,000 for a two-bedroom flat. Call 01732 809571.
Renting
David Johnston says Sevenoaks has a busy rental scene and houses are popular with families who want to move to the town but haven’t yet found the right property to buy.
Staying power
Sevenoaks is a place where families put down roots.
Postcode
TN13 is the main Sevenoaks postcode which covers the town centre and most residential streets. The Wildernesse Estate, however, is in the TN15 postcode which covers the area to the east of the town centre.
Best roads
The Wildernesse Estate is the place where people aspire to live. The large Victorian and Edwardian houses around St Botolph’s Road are also very popular.
Up and coming
Buying a Fifties or Sixties house and extending it to provide contemporary living space is a trend and provides an opportunity to add value to a home.
Travel
Sevenoaks sits to the south of the M25. Sevenoaks station has fast trains to Charing Cross which stop after 28 minutes at London Bridge before completing their journey in 37 minutes. There are slower stopping trains to Cannon Street and Blackfriars. An annual season ticket to a mainline station costs £3,500.
Council
Sevenoaks district council is Conservative controlled. Band D council tax in 2018/2019 is £1,806.09.
Lifestyle
Shops and restaurants
Sevenoaks has a busy town centre along London Road and High Street. The two streets form a triangle with little alleyways that connect the two.
There is a small shopping centre, Bligh’s Meadow, in the town centre off London Road where there is a large M&S, Phase Eight, Gap and Laura Ashley. Elsewhere the town centre has a mix of high street chains and independent stores.
Among the chains there are branches of Crew, Sea Salt, Jojo Maman Bébé; Space NK; Sweaty Betty; Fat Face and White Stuff. The chain restaurants represented are Côte, Zizzi, Bill’s, Prezzo and Wagamama. Danish Collection describes itself as a lifestyle store selling the best in Scandinavian design in home accessories, jewellery and fashion. The Compact Disc Shop & The Record Shop has a huge choice of second-hand CD and vinyl records.
Hoad’s is a specialist children’s shoe shop which has been trading in Sevenoaks since 1898. Lorimers is one of a small local chain selling stationery, arts and crafts, toys, greetings cards and gifts.
Gas Station is a family firm which has been selling jeans for 30 years with shops in Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells. Bank Street has a couple of stylish menswear shops: County Clothes, a small chain selling contemporary and traditional menswear brands, and Harveys Menswear.
At the southern end of the High Street, Bea Das atelier is a fashionable dressmaker and wedding dress designer, and there are two musical instrument shops, The Guitar Centre and TA Craig, for violin sales and restoration.
There is a choice of independent restaurants with Branded for steaks; Ephesus specialises in meze, the Middle Eastern alternative to Spanish tapas; Otto’s is an independent coffee house and kitchen; and the Giggling Squid is branch of a fast growing chain of Thai restaurants. Eat’n’Mess is a bakery and café, and The Vine is a family-run restaurant in Pound Lane.
Open space
Knole Park to the immediate east of the town centre is an ancient 1,000-acre deer park with Knole, one of the greatest houses in Britain, at its heart where there is a café and bookshop.
The Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve and Jeffery Harrison Visitor Centre in Bradbourne Vale Road to the north of the town centre is a nature reserve with five lakes and a mixed habitat of ponds, seasonal flooded pools, reed beds and woodlands run by the Kent Wildlife Trust.
Leisure and the arts
The Stag Theatre in London Road puts on live shows including a Christmas pantomime, and films.
This is golf club country; the two nearest are Wildernesse Golf Club on the Wildernesse Estate and Knole Park Golf Club in Knole Park. The local council-owned swimming pool is at Sevenoaks Leisure Centre in Buckhurst Lane.
Schools
The town has a good selection of state and private primary and preparatory schools.
Primary school
All but one of the state primary schools are judged “good” or better by Ofsted.
The “outstanding” primary schools are: St Thomas RC in South Park; Lady Boswell’s CofE in Plymouth Drive; Riverhead Infants in Worships Hill; Chevening St Botolph’s CofE in Chevening Road and Sundridge and Brasted CofE in Church Road in the village of Sundridge.
Comprehensive
Knole Academy (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Bradbourne Vale Road is the local comprehensive school. Trinity (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Seal Hollow Road is a Christian state Free School, which opened in September 2013. Both schools are judged to be “good”.
Grammar
The arrival of a new state grammar school, an annexe to Weald of Kent Grammar School (girls, with boys in the sixth form), which opened in September 2017 in Seal Hollow Road is an added attraction.
As well as the annexe to Weald of Kent in Sevenoaks there are six grammar schools in nearby Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.
In Tonbridge, there’s Judd (boys, ages 11 to 18 with girls in the sixth form); Tonbridge Grammar (girls, ages 11 to 18, with boys in the sixth form) where pupils take the International Baccalaureate, and Weald of Kent Grammar School (girls, ages 11 to 18, with boys in the sixth form).
All three are judged to be “outstanding”. In Tunbridge Wells, there’s The Skinners’ School (boys, ages 11 to 18); Tunbridge Wells Girls’ (ages, 11 to 18), both judged to be “outstanding”, and Tunbridge Wells Boys (ages, 11 to 18) which is judged to be “good”.
Private
The private primary and preparatory schools are: Solefield (boys, ages four to 13) in Solefields Road; The Granville (girls, ages three to 11, boys in the pre-school ages three and four) in Bradbourne Park Road; New Beacon (boys, ages four to 13) in Brittains Lane, and Sevenoaks Preparatory (boys ages three to 14) in Park Lane in Godden Green.
Sevenoaks School (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in the High Street is a top co-educational private boarding and day school, which is a big draw. Pupils here take the International Baccalaureate.
Walthamstow Hall (girls, ages three to 18) in Holly Bush Lane is an all-through private school.