An architectural intervention: The Old Dairy in Bloomsbury brings contemporary new homes in this Zone 1 hotspot

Bloomsbury has been a residential district for more than three centuries, owing its existence to the nobility – the Southampton and Bedford families – who developed the area as one of the capital’s first planned suburbs.

When the aristocrats moved out, Bloomsbury became fashionable for radicals and romantics, but the area’s cachet waned during the second half of the 20th century when it became more renowned for housing universities and hospitals.

In recent years it has regained its status as a top place to live in central London, largely due to Bedford Estate, still the major freeholder, which has undertaken a neighbourhood makeover – making streetscape improvements bringing in independent retailers and creating stylish homes above shops.

Renovated Brunswick Centre, an iconic 1960s estate of flats and shops, has been a boon, while reborn King’s Cross, on the doorstep, has given the area momentum too.

No surprise then that developers are snapping up scarce plots tucked away behind garden squares and mews.

The Old Dairy, pictured, dates back to the time when milk used to be brought to the capital by locomotive. The site sits in a conservation area wrapping around listed St George’s Gardens, a walled community space and ancient burial ground.

Sensitively redeveloped into 13 apartments and two townhouses, the project is an elegant architectural intervention that picks up on the site’s former commercial use, with burnished metal cladding plus lattice brickwork evoking small-scale mews housing – an organic yet industrial feel.

Prices start at £875,000. Call CBRE on 030 7420 3050.