Living in Epping: area guide to homes, schools and transport
At this time of year the commute to Epping, at the furthest reaches of the Central line, is almost enjoyable. Overcrowding and delays become distant memories as your Tube train trundles past verges of frothy white cow parsley and elder, with the spring green of emerging fields of wheat beyond.
Out of their natural urban habitat, these trains, clattering through the Essex countryside, make for an incongruous sight — but travelling on them can be a pleasant way to unwind after a hard day in the City.
Perhaps Epping’s most famous former residents are rock legend Rod Stewart and his wife, Penny Lancaster, who were often spotted in the High Street of this pretty Essex market town.
The couple and their two sons have since decamped to nearby Durrington Manor in Harlow. They bought the classical Georgian house in 2013 for £4.65 million and have spent years restoring it.
Wood House, their listed Jacobean mansion in Epping, which they first put on the market in 2016 for £7.5 million, has finally been sold, but not before the price was slashed by £3.4 million. West Ham footballer Andy Carroll and his fiancée Billi Mucklow, a former star of reality TV’s The Only Way Is Essex, paid £4.1 million.
Wood House is a short distance from Copped Hall, a local landmark. This listed mid-18th century Palladian mansion was rescued from unsympathetic development in 1995 and is now run by a charitable trust which has spent the intervening years carefully restoring it with the help of a dedicated band of volunteers.
The house dates from 1758 but a previous Tudor house on the site was visited by Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I, and Mary Tudor lived there for a while before her five-year reign began in 1553.
William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was performed for the first time at Copped Hall in the 1590s.
The house is open for guided tours on the third Sunday of each month and for drawing classes and study days, while Sunday June 23 will see a performance of Shakespeare’s Richard II in the garden.
Epping is 17 miles north-east of central London as the crow flies. Estate agent Martin Young, from the local branch of Mullucks, describes it as a very peaceful and pleasant place to live, with a strong local following. But it’s also popular with families moving out from north and east London.
Surrounded by countryside, it is a few miles beyond the M25 but few of its residents realise that it falls within Britain’s officially designated Innovation Corridor, which runs all the way from north-east London, past London Stansted airport to hi-tech Cambridge and beyond to Peterborough. It is an initiative which seems to have bypassed the town.
Epping Forest district council has identified more than 20,000 residents whom it claims are digitally challenged, and has brought in an outside agency to help bring people up to speed with the digital age.
The council also finds itself within Harlow and Gilston Garden Town, one of three towns given Garden Town status by the Government in 2017, the other two being Aylesbury, Bucks, and Taunton in Somerset.
The plan is to build 23,000 new homes in and around Harlow in the period up to 2033, including up to 2,500 new homes, a new primary and secondary school on land at Latton Priory, an ancient listed Augustinian priory, now occupied as a farm, between Epping and Harlow.
The property scene
Variety is the spice of the housing market in Epping. There are large detached houses in spacious grounds in the surrounding countryside, while in the town itself you’ll find period cottages, Victorian and Edwardian semi-detached and terrace houses, along with detached houses from every era since.
This is a town where houses predominate. What flats there are tend to be purpose-built, but currently there are three times more houses for sale than there are flats.
Price per square foot in Epping is £550-£570, although some new developments of flats are reaching prices of £700-plus a square foot.
The most expensive house currently for sale is Badgers in Theydon Road, a five-bedroom detached property with an indoor pool and an entertainment suite with a games room, gym and cinema.
All this will set you back £2.75 million. Two period cottages are for sale in the town itself. A four-bedroom home in the High Street which was once three cottages is £860,000.
The other is a two-bedroom property in Lindsey Street, on sale for £425,000. A double-fronted four-bedroom Victorian house in Church Hill is on the market for £860,000.
At Theydon Grove, a popular modern development at the northern edge of the High Street, a four-bedroom terrace house is on the market for £750,000 and a five-bedroom detached house is £825,000.
One-bedroom flats in Epping start at about £295,000 — the price being asked for one in Spriggs Court overlooking Memorial Green.
New-build homes
There are no large-scale schemes currently being built in Epping, so availability is restricted mainly to family houses. At Lake View, Gaynes Park in Coopersale Street, a development of five strikingly modern houses in a 22-acre gated estate with an outdoor heated swimming pool, one five-bedroom house remains, priced £4.75 million. Call Savills on 020 7075 2806 or 020 8498 6600.
The Carpenters in the nearby village of Thornwood is a development of three-bedroom houses overlooking Thornwood Common which are ready to move into. Prices start at £555,000. Contact Lyttons on 01992 847056.
Herb Farm Granaries in London Road in Thornwood is a development of five houses with four or five bedrooms which will be ready to move into this autumn. Prices start at £975,000. Call Mullucks on 01992 560560.
Forest Drive in Wellington Hill in High Beech, Epping Forest, is a development of three detached four-bedroom chalet-style houses, priced from £1,175,000. Call Davis Homes on 01992 847061.
Groombridge in Kendal Avenue is a development of four newly built apartments in the style of a traditional Edwardian house. Two-bedroom flats start at £665,000 and the three-bedroom flat is priced at £1.1 million. Call Mullucks (as before).
First-time buyers
Help to Buy is available at a scheme of eight flats in Hemnall Street, where two-bedroom homes start at £499,950. Call Lawlors estate agents on 020 8502 5588.
Rental homes
With three times more homes available to buy than there are to rent in Epping, the choice for renters is restricted. One-bedroom flats start at about £975 a month and two-bedroom flats at about £1,100 a month.
There is a pretty two-bedroom Victorian cottage in Hemnall Street for £1,500 a month, a three-bedroom modern townhouse in Albany Court for £1,750 a month and a four-bedroom Thirties semi-detached house in Hillcrest Way for £1,850 a month.
Best roads
Hartland Road, close to the station, is where you’ll find large detached houses.
Up and coming
As for the town’s up-and-coming locations to watch, Mullucks’ Martin Young tips the area around St John’s Road off the High Street, where the district council plans to building a new leisure centre and swimming pool with the possibility of providing new shops, flats and a cinema.
Staying power
Epping has a strong local following, with many families living in the town for generations.
Postcode
CM16 is the Epping postcode.
Travel
Epping is close to the junction of the M11 and M25 and Epping Underground station is the last stop on the Central line.
The journey to Bank for the City takes 30 minutes and to Oxford Circus for the West End it takes 45 minutes. Epping is in Zone 6 and an annual travelcard costs £2,568.
Council
Epping Forest district council is Conservative controlled. Band D council tax in 2019/2020 is £1,756.
Lifestyle
Shops and restaurants
Epping High Street is a pleasant place with a mix of chain and independent shops, cafés and restaurants.
There is a large branch of Tesco and chain stores Smiths, Boots, Superdrug and M&S Food Hall. Chain cafés and restaurants include Caffè Nero, Prezzo, Wildwood, Costa and Starbucks.
Fred & Doug’s is a popular brunch spot and the George & Dragon is a fine old coaching inn.
Epping is a good place to look for interiors ideas, with a branch of Sofa Workshop, Todd Sloane for homewares and gifts, and Lathams Home, a local institution, which has been selling furniture and accessories since 1971.
Church’s is the local butcher and the Epping Bookshop has been going for 34 years.
Open space
Epping is surrounded by countryside and there is easy access to Epping Forest at High Beach, where there is a visitors’ centre, and in Chingford, where you’ll find historic Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge.
Leisure and the arts
Epping is all about the outdoors and there are numerous sports clubs and nearby golf courses. Epping Town Football Club, newly resurrected, plays in the Senior Division Four of the Essex Olympian Football League.
Epping Youth Football Club is at Stonards Hill Recreation Ground. Epping Upper Clapton Rugby Football Club is in Upland Road in Thornwood.
There are two cricket clubs — Epping Cricket Club in Lower Bury Lane, and Epping Foresters Cricket Club in High Road. Epping Tennis Club is also in Lower Bury Lane.
Epping Golf Course is in Fluxs Lane and there are two golf clubs: Blakes Golf Club in Epping Road in North Weald, and Theydon Bois Golf Club in Theydon Road.
Schools
Primary
Epping’s state primary schools all get a “good” rating from the Ofsted government education watchdog.
They are: Epping Primary in Coronation Hill; Ivy Chimneys in Ivy Chimneys Road; Coopersale & Theydon Garnon CofE in Brickfield Road; Theydon Bois in Orchard Drive and Epping Upland CofE in Carters Lane.
Comprehensive
Epping St John’s CofE in Bury Lane (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) is the local state comprehensive school which is rated “good”.
Davenant Foundation School (co-ed, ages 11 to 16) in Chester Road in nearby Loughton gets the “outstanding” rating.
Private
Coopersale Hall School in Fluxs Lane (co-ed, ages two to 11) is the local private primary school.
The top private schools within easy driving distance are Brentwood (co-ed, ages three to 18) in Middleton Hall Lane in Brentwood and Bancroft’s (co-ed, ages seven to 18) in High Road in Woodford Green.