Living in Barnes: area guide to homes, schools and transport links

This affluent riverside village has great summer festivals, handsome homes and good private schools.
Daniel Lynch
Anthea Masey15 August 2018
Village atmosphere and some of London’s best private schools entice commuters and families to Barnes, on the Thames in the extreme north-east of the borough of Richmond.
The heart of the village is its beautiful pond where, even in this summer’s heatwave, the planting has stayed lush and green, with swathes of pink rosebay willowherb waving in the breeze.

Overlooking the pond is Rose House, a distinctive pink Georgian property that is home to the Barnes Community Association, which over the years has fought to protect the village from overdevelopment.

Hard to imagine today, 40 years ago developers had their eye on the strip of land between Hammersmith Bridge and Small Profit Dock including the Leg o’ Mutton Reservoir, running between the river and Lonsdale Road. Local campaigners saw off plans for tower blocks and a shopping centre.

Other victories included preventing the demolition of Rose House itself for a supermarket. At this point campaigning groups came together, bought Rose House and formed the Barnes Community Association.

Today the association runs Barnes Fair on the second Saturday in July, now attracting 15,000 visitors, and more recently the Food Fair, which this year is on September 15 and will feature cooking demos from Raymond Blanc of Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and Ian Salmon, head chef at Rick Stein’s Mortlake restaurant.

The association also supports Barnes Children’s Literature Festival, London’s largest, and with its foot still on the campaigning pedal it is currently lobbying Transport for London to have the route of the No 22 bus from Piccadilly to Putney Common extended to Barnes.

You'll find a surprising variety of homes in Barnes (Daniel Lynch)

With Richmond Park close by, the river path and 100 acres of London Wetland Centre in the village, there’s a huge choice of weekend walks and waterside pubs for Sunday lunch.

Local Marsh & Parsons estate agent Samuel Bide says: “Families move here from Fulham and Clapham but there’s a very strong local housing market, too. Once here, people don’t move away. It’s a strong community.”

Barnes sits five miles south-west of central London, on the south side of a loop in the Thames with Hammersmith to the north; Fulham to the east; Putney to the south and Chiswick and Kew to the west.

The property scene

You'll find a surprising variety of homes in Barnes. There are lovely Georgian riverside homes on The Terrace; Regency villas and double-fronted Victorian houses on Castelnau, and Edwardian and later detached, semi-detached and terrace houses, including the famous “lion houses” with their lion statues on gateposts and gables.

Victorian cottages are to be found in the area known as Little Chelsea off White Hart Lane, with mansion flats close to Hammersmith Bridge and Barnes Bridge; converted flats in the former Harrods Furniture Depository building and modern houses and flats in the Barnes Waterside development to the east of Castelnau.

In The Terrace, where there are blue plaques to the composer Gustav Holst and the founder of the Royal Ballet Dame Ninette de Valois, there are currently three homes for sale, the most expensive being a five-bedroom listed house with a balcony overlooking the river, priced £5.25million.

The 5,700sqft house has only changed hands once since 1949. A double-fronted Victorian house in Castelnau with a garden by renowned designer Dan Pearson is for sale at £4.5 million.

One-bedroom flats in Barnes start at about £375,000, which is the price of a one-bedroom modern apartment for sale now in Boileau Road.

What's new?

The Villas in Beverley Road is a Berkeley Group development of seven four-storey, five-bedroom houses that are being sold off-plan for completion between next month and December this year. Prices start at £3,599,000. Call 0203 944 1902.

Affordable homes

Barnes itself currently has no affordable homes but the nearest significant development, in Teddington in the borough of Richmond upon Thames, is Informer House, where housing association RHP is planning to build 22 one- and two-bedroom shared-ownership homes. Call 020 3166 2200 for details.

Renting

There are twice as many homes to buy in Barnes as there are to rent but even so, it’s a good place to find family rental houses in very good condition that were once lived in by their landlords. Another popular option are mansion flats with up to three bedrooms.

Marsh & Parsons has homes to rent in Barnes ranging from a one-bedroom flat in Elm Bank Mansions at £1,550 a month to a five-bedroom Edwardian semi in Westmoreland Road at £6,995 a month.

Senior lettings manager Rupert Osborne says there is strong demand for houses in the catchment area of the very popular Barnes Primary School in Cross Street which is rated “outstanding” by Ofsted. The presence of the Swedish School in Lonsdale Road also makes Barnes popular with expatriate Swedes.

“Barnes is a family area and tenants here like a degree of certainty, so we manage to negotiate a lot of two-year and three-year leases,” adds Osborne.

Staying power

Marsh & Parsons estate agent Samuel Bide reports a strong local market with people in Barnes trading up and down because they are keen to stay in the area.

Postcode

SW13 is the Barnes postcode. However, the area around White Hart Lane falls into the SW14 Mortlake postcode.

Best roads

It’s a busy road but Castelnau with its large double-fronted houses, especially those that back on to the London Wetland Centre, is still the road to which everyone aspires. Samuel Bide says anywhere near the pond is also popular, especially the “lion houses” in roads such as Hillersdon Avenue.

Up and coming

The “Boot houses” in north Barnes, in roads such as Nowell Road and Stillingfleet Road represent the best value in Barnes.

These very simple houses were flung up by builder Henry Boot in the years after the First World War when there was a housing shortage.

Three-bedroom unextended houses can still be bought for about £700,000; extended they can sell for as much as £1.2 million. The company built 80,000 houses between 1919 and 1939.

Travel

The South Circular Road runs through Putney and East Sheen to the south of Barnes. Barnes station is to the south and Barnes Bridge station is on the river.

Trains from Barnes Bridge take about 26 minutes to Waterloo, a few minute less from Barnes. Most stop at Clapham Junction for trains to Victoria and Vauxhall for the Victoria line. Both stations are in Zone 3 and an annual travelcard to Zone 1 costs £1,600.

There are no commuter bus routes through Barnes. However, the following buses pass through Barnes — the Numbers 33, 72, 209, 283, 419 and 485 — and go to Hammersmith, where many commuters pick up the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City or Piccadilly London Underground lines.

Council

Richmond council is Liberal Democrat controlled. Band D council tax for 2018/2019 is £1,706.94.

Lifestyle

Shops and restaurants

In Barnes village there are shops, cafés and restaurants along the High Street and Church Road; most are independent although there are branches of PizzaExpress; Côte, Gail’s; upmarket butcher The Ginger Pig; Fired Earth tile shop and fashion store Jigsaw.

There is a fishmonger, several fruit and vegetable shops, a cheese shop and a bookshop. The Swedish community is served by Totally Swedish, which sells food and gifts from Sweden, and Nordic Style, which sells painted furniture in the Gustavian style.

Luma has an interesting range of rugs, ceramics and interior accessories. Riva is a long-standing Italian restaurant and favourite of the Evening Standard’s restaurant critic Fay Maschler. Sonny’s Kitchen is a restaurant serving modern European food and Sunday lunch with a café and shop next door.

The café and dining room at the Olympic Studios cinema serves food throughout the day from breakfast through to dinner and there is ample outdoor seating. Local Marsh & Parsons estate agent Samuel Bide is a fan of &feast, the café and event caterer.

There is a farmers’ market every Saturday from 10am to 2pm in the grounds of East Manor Surgery in Station Road, close to the pond.

Open space

There’s plenty. Barnes Common is a 120-acre Local Nature Reserve and Site of Nature Conservation Interest.

The Beverley Brook, a small tributary of the Thames, runs through the Common and there is the Beverley Brook Walk, a six-and-a-half-mile walking trail starting at New Malden station through Wimbledon Common, Richmond Park and Barnes Common before reaching the Thames at Putney.

The Thames Path follows the river unobstructed for the whole loop in which Barnes nestles.

The London Wetland Centre in Queen Elizabeth’s Walk is on the site of a former reservoir; it isn’t free but families join the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) to get free access for £69 a year.

Leisure and the arts

The Olympic Studios cinema, café and dining room in Church Road opened five years ago in what was the Olympic Studios, a pioneering music studio where the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix all recorded.

The OSO Arts Centre – it stands for Old Sorting Office – is the local arts centre on Barnes Green. It puts on a varied programme of theatre, music and comedy in its 74-seat auditorium.

Schools

Primary school

State primary schools in Barnes are all judged to be “good” or better by the Ofsted government education watchdog.

Those that get the “outstanding” rating are: the very popular Barnes Primary School in Cross Street where there are possible plans to extend it from a two-form to three-form entry school; St Mary Magdalen’s RC in Worple Street; and Thomson House in Sheen Lane in Mortlake.

The increasingly popular Lowther in Stillingfleet Road is judged to be “good”, as is St Osmund’s RC in Church Road opposite the pond.

Oasis Academy Putney, on the site for the former Putney Hospital in Lower Richmond Road, Putney Common, is a new school which opened two years ago and has not yet been inspected by Ofsted.

Comprehensive

The nearest state comprehensive schools are Richmond Park (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Park Avenue in East Sheen; Ark Putney Academy (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Pullman Gardens in Putney, both judged to be “good”, and Ashcroft Technology (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in West Hill in Wandsworth, which is judged to be “outstanding”.

The other nearby “outstanding” comprehensives are across the river in Fulham: Fulham Cross Girls’ (co-ed, ages 11 to16) in Munster Road; and Lady Margaret CofE (ages 11 to 18) in Parsons Green.

There are two “outstanding” Catholic comprehensive schools: The London Oratory (boys, ages seven to 18, with girls in the sixth form) in Seagrave Road in Fulham and Sacred Heart (girls, ages 11 to 18) in Hammersmith Road in Hammersmith.

Private

Barnes and nearby Hammersmith has a concentration of top private schools. In Barnes there is St Paul’s School (boys, ages seven to 18) and the Harrodian (co-ed, ages four to 18), while for the expat Swedish community there’s The Swedish School (co-ed, ages three to 18) all in Lonsdale Road.

In Hammersmith there is St Paul’s Girls (ages 10 to 18) in Brook Green; Latymer Upper (co-ed, ages seven to 18) in King Street and Godolphin & Latymer (girls, ages 11 to 18) in Iffley Road.

The private primary and preparatory schools near Barnes are: The Falcon School for Girls (ages three to 11) in Woodborough Road in Putney; Hurlingham Nursery and Pre-Prep (co-ed, ages two to seven) in Gwendolen Avenue, also in Putney; Azbuka Russian-English Bilingual School (co-ed, ages two to 11) in Vernon Road in Mortlake; Tower House (boys, ages four to 13) in Sheen Lane in East Sheen; Bute House (girls, ages four to 11) in Luxemburg Gardens in Hammersmith and King’s House (boys, ages three to 13) in Kings Road in Richmond.

The other all-through private schools are: Ibstock Place (co-ed, ages four to 18) in Clarence Lane in Roehampton, and Putney High (girls, ages four to 18) in Putney Hill in Putney.