Living in Crouch End: area guide to homes, schools and transport links

A £30m revamp of the old town hall is bringing homes and entertainment to ‘the N8 Barbican’.
Daniel Lynch
Anthea Masey25 March 2019

Strangley, Crouch End’s biggest drawback has become a positive advantage. This London village with a fantastic café culture, imposing architecture and commanding views across the capital to the City, has historically been seen as a poor relation to other leafy north London hotspots because it lacks a Tube station.

Having to hop on a bus or walk for 20 minutes to get on a train is something of an inconvenience for time-poor Londoners.

However, not being on the Underground has helped to save Crouch End from becoming a tourist destination, strangled by visitors and overrun with chain stores — like Hampstead — or with property prices so painfully high that nobody apart from Kate Moss and wealthy overseas buyers could even consider living there — like Highgate.

Crouch End’s celebrity residents are plentiful, but tend to be lower key:actor Simon Pegg, comedians Katherine Ryan and Alan Carr, plus writers, and artists who studied at Hornsey College of Art back in the day and stayed in the area.

Its shops, restaurants and cafés are almost all independents, endowing a proper, authentic personality, and there is a sense of community and pride in the area that smarter, more transient London villages with a more international demographic tend to lack.

“When I first began, Crouch End was almost a suburb of Highgate,” says Nigel Ellis, director of Prickett and Ellis estate agents. “Now it has its own image and style and is very much sought after for its independent feel.”

The heart of Crouch End is the landmark clock tower which has stood on Crouch End Broadway since 1895, when the area’s grand villas, built for London merchants sick of life in the grimy, polluted City, were being joined by streets of more modest Victorian houses aimed at commuters attracted by Crouch End station on Crouch End Hill.

The station opened in 1867, but passenger services ceased in 1954 and Crouch End went into a decline that lasted until the Nineties.

During this time many of its grand old houses were carved up into student flats and the middle-class suburb turned into bedsit land. However, its fortunes have been changing as rising prices prompt a flow of families and young couples who might once have aspired to live in Hampstead or Highgate to plump for Crouch End instead.

Prices across the N8 postcode have held relatively firm in the face of Brexit and tax rises
Daniel Lynch

The property scene

Prices across the N8 postcode have held relatively firm in the face of Brexit and tax rises. According to Rightmove the average home in the area fell from £661,000 in 2017 to £648,000 now — a drop of some two per cent.

Vimal Depala, a manager at Tatlers estate agents, feels the steady market is thanks to local movers, along with buyers coming in from more expensive, central locations such as Angel and Shoreditch.

What buyers in Crouch End tend to want is one of its fine Victorian or Edwardian properties, with plenty of light and original features. “There are a lot more little new-builds starting to come up but the heritage is what brings people to Crouch End,” says Depala.

The most expensive homes in the area are the stately period red-brick semi-detached houses within a 10-minute walk of The Broadway. A newly renovated five-bedroom house in Womersley Road is on sale with Winkworth for £2 million (020 8012 3570).

However, even this seven-figure price tag shows Crouch End’s relative value, at just under £603 per square foot.

Prices are higher on the Highgate side of Crouch End, where a two-bedroom flat would cost somewhere between £650,000 and £700,000, says Depala. Closer to Hornsey High Street this falls to around £600,000 to £650,000.

New-build homes

After years of debate about its future, Grade II*-listed modernist Hornsey Town Hall, built in the Thirties, is to be converted into a mixed-use development to include 135 flats, a hotel, an arts centre and a new public square with cafés, shops and a street market.

Prices start from £499,950 for a one-bedroom apartment and £649,950 for a two-bedroom apartment. Visit hornsey-townhall.co.uk for more information.

Crouch End doesn’t have space for monster developments, but it does have boutique projects such as Darcies Mews, a small gated scheme of four modern, modular, detached houses clad in blackened timber, by Dudrich Developments.

Two 2,002sq ft, four-bedroom homes are for sale at Darcies Mews with Winkworth (020 8342 9999), Lanes New Homes (020 8012 4231) and Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward (020 3792 9267), priced at £1,575,000.

Renting

Young couples, either with small children or thinking about starting a family, are the most likely to arrive at Nikhil Depala’s office.

Staying power

Finances permitting, many people move to Crouch End as young couples, have kids and stay forever because of the good schools, safe atmosphere and generally family-friendly vibe.

Postcode

Crouch End is the posh end of N8. It shares the postcode with the less-villagey Hornsey.

Best roads

Buyers tend to want to be within an easy walk of the Broadway. Nikhil Depala of David Astburys estate agents recommends quiet but central streets such Coleridge Road and Coolhurst Road, both on the Highgate side of Crouch End, where a two-bedroom flat would cost around £700,000. Houses rarely come up but when they do a four-bedroom property would cost around £1.2million.

Up and coming

Vimal Depala of Tatlers predicts price rises around the Hornsey borders, traditionally the “cheap” end of Crouch End, particularly for Thirties properties which historically have been less prized than Victorian and Edwardian.

In straitened times, it seems, buyers are opting for value over looks. Some of the streets near Alexandra Park, including South View Road, are lined with small, pretty, purpose-built maisonettes. A two-bedroom property here would cost around £485,000.

Travel

There is no Tube station but Crouch Hill Overground, to Barking and Gospel Oak, is just over a mile away. Highgate Underground station, on the Northern line in Zone 3, is just over a mile to the west, and Harringay station, with trains to King’s Cross taking half an hour, is just under a mile to the east.

The W7 bus runs to Finsbury Park Tube station, while there are also local buses to Muswell Hill, Archway and King’s Cross.

Council

Crouch End is within the staunchly Labour-controlled Haringey council. Band D council tax is £1,575.80.

Lifestyle

Shops and restaurants

The charm of Crouch End is its excellent range of independent restaurants and cafés which sets it apart from all the other clone town high streets.

The choice is diverse: Banners is a long-running local institution, a breakfast-till-dinner joint with a global menu which helped establish Crouch End’s London village reputation. Sumak is great for traditional Turkish fare, while Bistro Aix is a classic French bistro, and Melange has a rustic French/Italian menu.

Gastropubs include The Queens, with its lovely Art Nouveau windows, and Edith’s House is a tiny, quirky and dog-friendly café.

Shopping is more of a mixed bag. There are high street basics, including a Waitrose, endless charity shops and some fairly expensive boutiques and gift shops. Mini Kin is where hipster local toddlers get kitted out, Flashback Records is great for hunting for rare vinyl, and Floral Hall Antiques is a gorgeously curated collection in a mash-up of different styles and eras.

If you want an Art Deco chandelier or an antique French mirror with authentically foxed glass, this is the place to look.

Open space

Crouch End’s leafy reputation is well earned by its proximity to landmark Alexandra Park and Highgate Woods. Parkland Walk is a linear park running south all the way to Finsbury Park.

Leisure and the arts

On the doorstep is Crouch End Picturehouse, with an excellent café and “baby cinema” screenings where local yummy mummies hang out. Moors Bar in Park Road has live music, theatre and film screenings, and there is comedy at Downstairs at the King’s Head.

A little further afield Alexandra Palace has a year-round programme of live music, exhibitions and events.

For fitness fans, Park Road Pools & Fitness has indoor pools and a lido, gym, exercise studio and café, and there are several tennis and cricket clubs around Highgate Woods.

Schools

Primary school

Primary school standards are routinely very high. Coleridge Primary School gets top marks from Ofsted, and a trio of other local schools — Rokesly Infant & Nursery School, Rokesly Junior School and St Mary’s CofE Primary School — all have “good” reports from the Government’s schools watchdog.

Comprehensive

As for comprehensive schools, Hornsey School for Girls, Greig City Academy and Highgate Wood School all hold “good” ratings from Ofsted. Crouch End is also within reach of the selective Henrietta Barnett School, for girls, one of the UK’s highest-achieving state schools.

Private

Within a short but highly congested school run are of some of north London’s top independent schools, notably Highgate School and South Hampstead High School.

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