Well-connected: new-build homes in Sydenham near London Overground links are tempting family buyers

Loved by 'mad' King George III and once home to some famous faces, Sydenham is well-connected with lots of green space.
David Spittles22 October 2018

During sane periods, “mad” King George III would visit leafy, high-lying Sydenham to take the waters at the area’s restorative mineral springs, discovered a century earlier but made fashionable by the monarch.

However, it was not until the arrival of the railway and the building of The Crystal Palace in the mid 19th-century that Sydenham became a genteel place to live, counting Danish-French Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, inventor of television John Logie Baird and explorer Ernest Shackleton among its residents.

During the second half of the 20th century, the district fell under a veil as the inner city started to sprawl — until that veil was lifted by another railway initiative, the London Overground.

The orbital network opened up Sydenham to Docklands, Shoreditch and beyond.

North-of-the-river Londoners quickly realised they could buy a handsome Victorian property that was twice as big for half the price and still get to work quickly.

The “value gap” has narrowed but Sydenham remains a very worthwhile hunting ground for family buyers who want to put down roots in a well-connected area with good schools and lots of green space.

Lawrie Park Place is part of a tree-lined conservation area and brings 27 new houses on the gated site of a former Salvation Army mission.

Sympathetically clad in warm yellow stock bricks, with gabled roofs and bay windows, each house has either four or five bedrooms, a garden and garage or parking space. Prices from £1,095,000 for a home of 1,776sq ft, rising to £1,410,000 for a 2,368sq ft property.

To its credit, developer Kitewood opted to up the interior specification despite the lacklustre property market.

From £1,399,995: townhouses at Wells Park Place

The highlight is a large open-plan family kitchen/dining/living space with a wall of glass facing the garden. Doctors and lawyers are buying.

Sydenham Tennis and Squash Club is right next door, too. Call 020 8001 1454.

Wells Park Place is another of the area’s new builds — 46 homes set around landscaped gardens on Sydenham Hill. Four-storey townhouses cost from £1,399,995.

Call Crest Nicholson on 020 3437 0472.