I’ll let you into a little secret of mine – I am a huge fan of the terraced house.   This realisation has prompted me to do some research, which I think you may find interesting!

Terraced houses have been built in the UK since the late 1600’s. The earliest examples featured a row of uniform properties, with shared side walls. Interestingly, the terraced house was invented in France, between 1610 and 1615. However, it was in UK, in the 1700’s, that these houses gained massive popularity, with impressive Georgian examples such as Royal Crescent in Bath.

However, we are in East Dulwich, not Bath, so the majority of our East Dulwich examples are Victorian.  These properties provided affordable, decent accommodation to house the population boom caused by the Industrial Revolution. The terraced house was a far better alternative, in most cases, to the horrors of the Victorian slums, where basic sanitation was lacking and disease was rife.

Interestingly, the majority of Victorian East Dulwich terraced houses are based on a standard design. This tends to follow the layout of an upmarket front room, reserved for special occasions, a back room, where the family lived on a daily basis, and a scullery.  Upstairs, there were usually three bedrooms.  In 1875 the introduction of the Public Health Act meant that each house had to have 108ft of livable space per main room. Other amenities such as a private toilet and running water were also stipulated by the act. It wasn’t until the 1960’s and 70’s that these properties were first fitted with indoor toilets and bathrooms. The 1980’s brought gas central heating and the now commonplace Upvc double glazing followed after that.

When we take a look at the make up of properties in the East Dulwich, some very interesting numbers appear.  Of the 14,833 properties in SE22 …

And quite noteworthy, there are 3 mobile homes, representing 0.02% of all property in East Dulwich.

The average price paid for an East Dulwich terraced house in 1995 was £104,820 and the latest set of land Registry data indicates that today that figure stands at £869,288, a rise of 729% – that’s not bad at all is it.

There are some downsides to the Victorian terraced house. For a start, they can be expensive to maintain. However I recently read a report by English Heritage which suggests that maintaining the average Victorian terraced house over thirty years is around sixty percent cheaper than building and maintaining a modern house – quite fascinating don’t you think?

For more thoughts on the East Dulwich Property Market why not pop into the office at 1-2 The Parade, Dog Kennell Hill, East Dulwich or give us a call.