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

Families flock to this riverside neighbourhood for its village feel and strong community links.
1/14
Anthea Masey4 April 2018

The south-west London suburb of riverside Kew is one of London’s special places, with among its gems an historic village cricket green and the world’s most famous botanical garden stuffed with rare and exotic treasures.

The local borough, Richmond upon Thames, is regularly voted the best place to live in London, with last year’s survey from property website Rightmove rating it highly for how safe people feel, the quality of local services, neighbourliness and its green spaces.

Families are attracted to Kew for its fine Victorian and Edwardian houses, its village atmosphere around the Tube and London Overground station and its local schools.

Having Kew Gardens on your doorstep is another plus, and although entry for occasional visitors is expensive many local families get unlimited access for around £2 a week by signing up as Friends of Kew.

And this year Kew has a big celebration with the reopening of the Temperate House, the world’s largest Victorian greenhouse, which has been closed for five years.

The £41 million restoration is the largest in the history of Kew and involved the temporary removal of more than 500 rare and in some cases endangered species.

It will reopen on May 5, and among the 1,500 species there will be rare examples of plants such as Taxus wallichiana, the source of Taxol, a chemotherapy drug for treating a number of cancers including breast cancer.

Daniel Lynch

Kew is seven miles south-west of central London on the south side of the river Thames with Gunnersbury and Ealing to the north; Chiswick to the east; Richmond to the south and Brentford and Osterley to the west.

Estate agent Daniel Killick from the local branch of Chestertons says Kew remains something of a secret.

“Everyone knows Richmond but it is only when people come to Kew that they discover how lovely it is. There is a strong sense of community and people are keen to support their local shops which keeps most of them independent. It is a wonderful place to bring up a family.”

Kew has Georgian houses from the era when it was a popular riverside village for wealthy Londoners to escape to. There are also detached, semi-detached and terrace Victorian and Edwardian houses and some later houses.

Some larger houses were demolished in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for blocks of low-rise modern flats. Kew Riverside is a newish development of houses and flats on land once owned by Thames Water conveniently located between the river and the Kew Retail Park.

The most expensive house currently for sale in Kew is a six-bedroom double-fronted Victorian house in Lichfield Road for £3.795 million. The most unusual is a former church in Cambridge Road with five bedrooms and bathrooms but strangely no kitchen, on sale for £3.295 million.

The most expensive Georgian house has five bedrooms on Kew Road on sale for £2.795 million. At the lower end of the market one-bedroom flats in modern blocks start at around £330,000.

NEW-BUILD HOMES

Emerald Gardens (020 3667 5572) is a Taylor Wimpey development of 170 one-, two- and three-bedroom flats and three bedroom penthouses in Bessant Drive next to the Kew Retail Park. Half are already occupied, the rest will be ready in April with the whole development completed by May.

One-bedroom flats start at £575,000; two-bedroom flats at £640,000 and three-bedroom penthouses at £1.25 million. The development is 85 per cent sold.

AFFORDABLE HOMES

Help to Buy is available on one bedroom flats at Emerald Gardens and the developer is offering all buyers a five per cent contribution towards their deposit.

PA Housing (01932 235801) has five one- and two-bedroom flats at Emerald Gardens launching this spring. Prices range from £135,000 to £172,800 for a 27 per cent share in flats with a market price ranging from £500,000 and £640,000.

WHO RENTS HERE?

Letting director Catherine Hanley from Chestertons says tenants are a mix of corporates who go for the new riverside homes in developments such as Kew Riverside and those on the Brentford side of the river and young couples who rent two bedroom flats often with the view to eventually buying.

She has a mix of landlords, with buy-to-let landlords in the new developments and local Kew-based landlords in the period properties.

STAYING POWER

Daniel Killick says that historically most buyers have been locals trading up or down but this is changing with buyers coming from wealthier areas of London such as Fulham and Kensington, and even Hampstead.

Families always want to stay although trading up can be difficult with the jump from a flat to a house often too wide a gap to bridge financially.

POSTCODE

Kew is in the TW9 Richmond postcode.

BEST ROADS

Tree-lined Lichfield Road has a large detached Victorian houses. The semi-detached houses in Lawn Crescent have a communal garden where residents hold a summer party and a bonfire night party; houses here cost around £2.2 million.

UP AND COMING

The area east of Kew Gardens station has later 1920s houses which are becoming increasingly popular with buyers who see the potential to extend to create large kitchen-cum-family rooms. Locals call this area North Sheen even though many of the streets are a few minutes’ walk from the station.

COUNCIL

Richmond upon Thames (Conservative-controlled); Band D council tax 2018/2019: £1,706.94.

Lifestyle

SHOPS AND RESTAURANTS

Kew’s village centre is clustered around Kew Green Station where there is a colourful flower stall and shop; an independent bookshop; a butcher; a branch of Tesco Express and Pizza Express; the Good Wine Shop with an interesting selection of wines and beers; Oliver’s, a long-standing wholefood store; Mia Wood for gifts and home accessories; Café Torelli a popular Italian café with outside tables; French restaurant Ma Cuisine; Australian all-day brasserie Antipodea and Michelin-starred The Glasshouse.

Newens, the Original Maids of Honour, is a landmark teashop in Kew Road serving the famous Maids of Honour tart, which legend has it was first baked for Henry VIII.

The Kew Retail Park off Mortlake Road has branches of T.K.Maxx; Next, Gap, M&S, Mothercare and Boots.

Award-winning florist and the 2018 RHS London Florist in Residence, Zita Elze has her shop on Sandycombe Road.

The Botanist on Kew Green is a popular gastro-pub and chef Antony Worrall Thompson operates out of the Kew Grill on the opposite side of the road. Lloyds of Kew on Mortlake Terrace is a well-stocked second-hand bookshop.

The Kew Village Market is held on the first Sunday in the month.

OPEN SPACE

There is no shortage of open space. Local families sign up as Friends of Kew Gardens to gain access for around £2 a week.

There are riverside walks in the Old Deer Park between Kew and Richmond and Richmond Park is not far.

LEISURE AND THE ARTS

The Kew Midsummer Fete is held each year in June on Kew Green; this year’s date is Saturday 23 June.

The Q2 Players are an amateur theatrical group that put on two plays a year in St Luke’s church in The Avenue. The next show Ravenscroft, a murder mystery set in a country house, is taking place between 26 and 28 April.

There are two theatres in Richmond, the Richmond Theatre and the Orange Tree and two cinemas an Odeon and a Curzon.

The nearest council-owned swimming pool is Pools in the Park in the Old Deer Park off Twickenham Road where there are both an indoor and outdoor pool. The Old Deer Park is also home to the Royal Mid-Surrey Golf Club.

Schools

Primary schools

Kew has a popular state primary school, The Queen’s CofE in Cumberland Road, which is judged to be “outstanding” by the Government’s education watchdog Ofsted.

The other local state primary schools are Holy Trinity CofE in Carrington Road, also judged to be “outstanding” and Kew Riverside in Courtlands Avenue and Darell in Niton Road both judged to be “good”.

Comprehensive

The nearest state comprehensive schools which is judged to be “outstanding” is Gunnersbury RC (boys 11 to 18) in The Ride in Brentford; the following are judged to be “good”: Brentford School for Girls (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Boston Manor Road in Brentford; Christ’s School CofE (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Queens Road in Richmond; and Richmond Park Academy (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Park Avenue in East Sheen.

The Richmond upon Thames School (co-ed, ages 11 to 16) in Egerton Road in Twickenham is a new Free School, which opened in September last year.

It is part of a new education campus linked to Richmond upon Thames College (co-ed, ages 16 plus), which is judged to be “good”.

Private

The private primary and preparatory schools are: Broomfield House (co-ed, ages three to 11) in Broomfield Road; Kew College (co-ed, ages three to 11) in Cumberland Road; Unicorn (co-ed, ages three to 11) in Kew Road; Kew Green Preparatory (co-ed, ages four to 11) in Ferry Lane; The Falcons (boys, ages seven to 13), which opened in October last year, in Kew Foot Road; Tower House (boys, ages four to 13) in Sheen Lane in East Sheen; and King’s House (ages three to 13) in Kings Road in Richmond.

The nearest private secondary school is Kew House (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Capital Interchange Way in Brentford; however, there are top performing private schools in nearby Barnes and Hammersmith.