London’s prettiest neighbourhoods?

[Plantyplantyplant]

My friend and I were talking about this as we have another who wants to come back to London, but says she needs to live somewhere “pretty” and London doesn’t have enough of that unless you’re an oligarch and can afford Hampstead.

But I think London has a lot of pretty places to live!

What do you think London’s prettiest neighbourhoods are?

Richmond and Barnes are lovely but we moved from that area because the plane noise was so horrific and really impacted our sleep and any enjoyment of our outside space.

Dulwich Village is beautiful.

@ElephantLover yes it's such an incredible place to live, outstanding schools, parks, restaurants, everything one needs in walking distance and even houses under £600k with what feels like their own park (Abbey Recreation Ground) that has free tennis courts and excellent transport links to the centre. I love Morden Hall Park. When I visit we'd spend the entire day there, it's beautiful and a fab cafe and shop. I need to arrange another visit.

Do you have kids in any of the schools? My friend's children attend Merton Park and she says it's fab.

I second St Margarets

Very surprised at this. Wilmore End is a very shabby estate of tiny houses right by the busy Morden Road. Further over around Church Lane etc is indeed lovely but I wouldn’t describe Wilmore End as particularly desirable. Unless of course you were trying to sell a house there!

Interestingly, there is indeed a house for sale in Willmore End. It doesn’t seem to be selling 🤔

I looked up Wilmore End on the strength of this thread and I must say I wasn't expecting a very basic 1960s/1970s estate. The location may be otherwise excellent but most people just won't buy a house that looks like these, so the value is always impaired.

I also looked it up! Wasn’t as pretty as I expected. Quite near a busy road. Maybe somewhere that needs to be seen in real life!

Well in fairness you get a house for a reasonable price, near (apparently) a very good school. Up in NE London you wouldn't get anything like that for the money, so I can totally see the appeal - it's just that if you were expecting pretty you are in for a shock.

The reality is that anyone living there wouldn’t have a hope of getting into Merton Park School. Not a chance.

Instead your closest and most likely option is the considerably less ‘naice’ Merton Abbey School.

Another vote for Ealing/Chiswick. Lots of lovely parks and tree lined streets.

I think it’s easy to name pretty streets, and even pretty collections of streets. So much London housing stock is beautiful.

It gets much harder (and more expensive) to find pretty high streets.

Stoke Newington - Church Street and Clissold Park area, and Islington

Blackheath is lovely

As is Greenwich - the right hand side of the park has the oldest houses and on a wintery evening it's like stepping back in time to the 18th Century - would love to time slip there