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July 16, 2017

Going places: a guide to the Lake District 11

Posh Benidorm — no, really. Buy in from €30,000 20

Tim Henman on not playing tennis and the joys of wine 30

£2M OFF

Seven-figure price cuts... ...yet gazumping is at a record high. What’s going on in the housing market? 12

2 July 16, 2017 The Sunday Times

Home MAKING MOVES

CO DURHAM

£695,000

LONDON SW18

FROM £450,000

For the price of a one-bedder in central London, you could snap up the grade II listed Old Vicarage, a seven-bedroom house on the village green in Gainford, eight miles from Darlington.

The 18th-century home has a cantilevered staircase, original sash windows and south-facing drawing and dining rooms with statement marble fireplaces. The owner gets fishing rights on the River Tees; the adjoining three-bedroom property is for sale separately. Durham’s cathedral and castle are a 40-minute drive away.

01833 690390, georgefwhite.co.uk

Here’s a new — and bigger — offering from Pocket Living, builder of one-bedroom homes in the capital.

The first Pocket Edition scheme of 36 two- and three-bedroom flats is due to be completed in Wandsworth next summer, with full-height windows, underfloor heating and study nooks; residents can mingle on the roof terrace or at the bike-repair station.

Similar developments are being launched in Kingston and Deptford.

020 3713 9278, pocketliving.com/edition

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

FROM

£1.35M

Once sound studios used for producing everything from Teletubbies to Doctor Who — Ronnie Corbett, Matt Lucas and Lord Attenborough are among the stars to have swung by — a trio of ancient grade II listed barns in Denham, near Uxbridge, have been turned into three-bedroom homes. Buy all three for luxurious multigenerational living.

Time your commute right and trains from Denham to London Marylebone take less than 20 minutes.

07453 368967, www. denhamcourtfarm.co.uk

The Sunday Times July 16, 2017 3

£3.95M

BRIAN RASIC/GETTY IMAGES

OXFORDSHIRE

Soaring property prices, a much-loved country home, ruthless London developers and, of course, the nature of art and class — EM Forster’s classic novel Howards End covered it all. There’s a small-screen miniseries on the way, with Hayley Atwell; in the meantime, you’ll recognise Peppard Cottage, near Henley-on-Thames, as the star of Merchant Ivory’s Oscar-winning 1992 film version. The idyllic-looking ivy-covered home in Peppard Common dates from the 14th century and has nine bedrooms.

020 7629 8171, knightfrank.co.uk

INSIDE THIS WEEK Our analysis of the housing market

12

COVER This six-bedroom house in Chelsea came on to the market for £11.5m in June 2015. It’s now on sale for £9.5m (020 7225 3866, struttandparker.com)

The ultimate in shabby chic

16

Brilliant outdoor lighting

23 FEELING THE BLUES Even guitar heroes aren’t immune to the perils of trying to flog a second home.

Eric Clapton has put his unassuming farmhouse in Provence back on the market. The 10-bedroom home, which had a €3.25m price tag, went under offer last year, but the sale fell through and now it’s going for a song at €2.25m (£1.93m).

The 72-year-old’s summer pad is far removed from the two-up, two-down house in Ripley, Surrey, where Slowhand slept on a camp bed throughout his childhood. That home had an outside toilet, whereas this one, near the village of Nans-les-Pins, has nine ensuites, an outdoor pool and tennis courts. Shutters and thick stone walls keep the heat at bay.

020 8144 5501, home-hunts.com

‘‘

QUOTE OF THE WEEK Plants to make you breathe easy It is disgusting, my life’s work is in part dedicated to getting washing machines out of the kitchen.

— TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp. Get your laundry room in shape: see page 19

24

PLUS Home Front 4 Makeover masterclass 8 Home Help 18 Overseas 20 Time and Space 30

4 July 16, 2017 The Sunday Times

HOME FRONT

Home Opinion

HELEN DAVIES

@TheSTHome

I

n the game of “guess how much that house is on the market for now”, I think I have a winner. We all have a few of those might-have-been dream homes that, if you had hitched yourself with a mortgage, would have made you a millionaire by now, but this property is in a different league.

The price of Caversham Park, a glorious grade II listed manor house in the Thames Valley, has risen by a factor of 1.25m since it was listed in the Domesday Book with a value of £20. It is now on the market for about £25m with Lambert Smith Hampton.

Since 1086, there have been changes, naturally. The estate has shrunk and it is now for sale with a mere 93 acres of rolling lawns, tarmac driveways and less attractive postwar outbuildings. That’s the Second World War, not the English Civil War, when Charles I was imprisoned in a house on the same site. Last year it played host to Antiques Roadshow.

Battles, the crown and the fate of the country have had a fair influence on the evolution of Caversham Park. In 1542, the lease for Caversham was given to Francis Knollys, one of the first members of Henry VIII’s formal bodyguard. He started to build the first manor house on the site;

it was finished by his son William, who entertained Elizabeth I there in 1601. Royal entertaining continued until 1633, when Caversham Park was bought by the Earl of Craven for £10,000.

The house burnt to the ground in 1850 and was rebuilt in classical style around an iron frame, designed by the architect Horace Jones. This version of the manor house is what survives today (to varying degrees).

Taxes and the economic consequences of the First World War meant Caversham Park was put on the market in 1920 — I haven’t found out that price yet — and its sale to investors the following year saw the 1,800-acre property subdivided, with the mansion and park taken over by the Oratory School, which extended the chapel.

Following another fire and financial struggles, the property was sold to the BBC in 1941. It soon became the headquarters of BBC Monitoring, playing a key role in tapping communications from Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, to newspaper and radio networks. Staff would transcribe and summarise 240 broadcasts a day into an 80,000-word document called the Daily Digest, which was delivered to London.

‘‘

The price of Caversham Park has risen by a factor of 1.25m since it was listed in the Domesday Book with a value of £20 A licence to print money?

Caversham Park, near Reading, has been owned by the BBC since the 1940s

From 2019, anyone living at Caversham Park will be able to speed their way into the capital — to Bond Street in 53 minutes or Liverpool Street in just over an hour — thanks to the new Crossrail station at Reading, two miles away.

The property has many possible futures — it could become a hotel and spa, or posh offices, or be restored as a stately mansion, all 64,000 sq ft of it.

Or converted into flats, with more in the grounds. A large proportion of the park was sold for housing in the 1960s, when it became Caversham Park Village — a three-bedroom semi is on sale for £410,000. My best guess? Posh retirement homes for £1.25m.

Finally, thank you to one friendly reader who, following my request for the naughtiest things you’ve ever done in a showroom, shared this confession. While visiting a show home, in the spirit of fun, he (for it is always the less fair sex, it seems) grabbed his wife and threw her onto the bed. “It was meant to be outrageous — no one else was around — but she bounced back up and collided with my face, giving me a fat lip.”

Stay in touch by emailing helen.davies@sunday-times.co.uk.

Reveal all on Twitter @TheSTHome, and showcase your real homes — and pets — on Instagram @sundaytimeshome

8 July 16, 2017 The Sunday Times

STAIRWAY TO

HEAVEN Remodelling a bungalow, rather than rebuilding, saved this owner £250,000, says Cherry Maslen The setup How do you go from faded bungalow to palatial, glazed, open-plan dream house without knocking it down and starting from scratch? That was the question for Adrian Davis, 44, and his partner, Brian, 40, both avid Grand Designs fans, when they bought a dormer bungalow in Weybridge, Surrey, for £962,000 in 2014.

The plot was fine, with a large, sunny garden, but they were quoted a budget-busting £700,000 for demolishing the three-bedroom house and building a new one to their desired design and scale.

The solution Local architects Concept Eight took up the challenge. To save on digging

new foundations, they drew up plans to remodel and reuse the existing structure as far as possible, incorporating the garage and opening up both levels with a central glazed atrium. The estimate for this was £450,000. Expansive glazing would be used front and back, with white render and vertical timber cladding linking the two storeys.

Another reason for the cost difference, according to Mufajel Chowdhury, director of Concept Eight, is that builders price new homes at a higher rate than renovations.

“When we put the work out to tender, we presented it as an advertising opportunity — the house is on a main road where a builder’s board would

be highly visible,” he says.

That encouraged contractors to offer a discount.

The strategy also paid off for Adrian, 44, a doctor, and Brian, 40, who works for the police, when dealing with suppliers. “We got discounts from our bathroom and kitchen suppliers by letting them use advertising boards as well,” Adrian says.

Renovating rather than building from scratch involved compromises, but clever ways were found to make the layout work. “We thought of extending the open-plan space the whole width of the back of the house,” Adrian says. “But by retaining the garage wall, we saved about £40,000 on structural steels.”

VICKI COUCHMAN

Home Improve

LOVE YOUR HOME

The Sunday Times July 16, 2017 9

Main picture, Adrian Davis with Megan at his revamped Surrey home. Right, the house when he bought it for £962,000 — it’s now on sale for £1.95m

Part of the garage is now a small room with views over the garden; another section is a storeroom for garden kit, so there’s no need to clutter up the landscaping with a shed.

The sliding doors to the rear open onto a huge paved entertaining space, with cushioned seating around a fire pit on one side and a hot tub and a barbecue station on the other. The carefully landscaped sloping garden leads to more seating and a half-hidden secret garden at the bottom.

An unusually long shower room on the ground floor, once the study, doesn’t look disproportionate because it’s next to the home gym. And the small bungalow kitchen is now a spacious utility room, leaving the kitchen proper a wow-factor zone: there’s a concrete island with a built-in hob. The aqua-blue reflective glass behind the work surfaces and the designer tap mirrors the garden trees beautifully — a novel way to bring the outside in.

The pair became pretty hot at sourcing the high-quality fittings they wanted at low prices. “We found what we wanted, then started Googling ‘sale’ to see if we could get better prices,” Brian recalls. “We trawled bathroom

showrooms, then went online and spent a third of what we might have done.”

In complete contrast to the white-walled open-plan space at the rear, the main room at the front of the house has dark painted walls, dark-stained floorboards, old leather sofas and a big faux animal-skin rug. “We wanted it to look like a room in a club,” Adrian says.

There was more design freedom on the upper floor, which has five bedrooms, some with ensuites, as well as a family bathroom and a study.

The master bedroom isn’t huge, but it doesn’t have to be: a cleverly designed dressing room makes good use of a narrow space, with open shelving and hanging sections (all Ikea). It cost less because they decided they didn’t need cupboard doors.

One item they splurged on was the top-notch Air Uno ceiling extractor above the island hob, but even then they bought an end-of-the-line model for £400. The full price would have been £1,600.

The same goes for the glazing. They spent a lot on the sliding doors to the garden, because of the importance of a precision mechanism, but shopped around for the rest of the glass, slicing 50% off

the £70,000 quote from a national company by using a local supplier in Weybridge, Team Frames, which did the job for £34,000.

The verdict “We didn’t go one penny over budget because we watched what everyone did wrong on Grand Designs,” Brian says. “We worked with the architect to get the design right, so we didn’t make any changes during the build.”

What would they do differently? The house is now on the market for £1.95m (01932 221331, jamesneave. co.uk) because the couple want to try their hand at another project and keep working their way up the property ladder. Next time they would be more realistic about the timescale and would spend more on lighting: “It makes such a difference,” Brian says. “We’ll definitely be using what we’ve learnt on our next house, and we know which tradespeople and suppliers we can trust.

“We also know that neither of us likes decorating — we’re always going to leave that to someone else.”

Concept Eight Architects; 01932 809444, concept8.co.uk

The Sunday Times July 16, 2017 11

Home Move JOE DUNCKLEY/DOUG PEARSON/GETTY IMAGES

GOING PLACES THE LAKE DISTRICT The new World Heritage Site is not just for hiking and holiday homes, says Jayne Dowle Carlisle M6 Penrith Keswick

Ullswater Lake District National Park Ambleside Hawkshead Lake Windermere Oxenholme 10 miles

One fell swoop The view over Ullswater from Birkhouse Moor, right. Below, native Herdwick sheep

IN TRAVEL How to make the most of a Lakes break; page 4

Why it’s hot The world of Wordsworth and Wainwright is being rediscovered by extreme-sports enthusiasts, cyclists and wild swimmers, and the recent Swallows and Amazons movie introduced its charms to a new generation. Now, to top it all, the Lake District has been awarded World Heritage Site status by Unesco.

This means the largest national park in England and Wales is up there with the Grand Canyon, the Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu.

The 912 sq miles of Cumbria charted

by Alfred Wainwright in his 20th-century guidebooks also form the backdrop to a huge variety of fabulous houses. Some of the grandest were built as holiday retreats for Lancashire’s cotton- and shipbuilding barons, and even once humble Lakeland homesteads can now command £1m-plus prices thanks to their stunning views.

VOCAL LOCAL

Seeking a better quality of life and fell views, the illustrator Sally Anne Lambert, 54, relocated to Lakeland from Merseyside three years ago with her mother, Maureen, 81, and daughter Katie, 25.

They sold up and pooled their resources to buy a property

Why it’s not There’s a shortage of affordable housing, driven by the lack of new-build sites and the region’s popularity with second-homers — research for the Lake District National Park puts the proportion of second or holiday homes at 18%. This is creating a generational shift, as young people and those on modest incomes are forced out.

Education, education, education There are more decent state schools than you can shake a shepherd’s crook at.

Primary options include Langdale CofE, in Chapel Stile, and Grasmere CofE, in Grasmere, both rated good by Ofsted. In terms of secondaries, Keswick School is judged outstanding, and Ullswater is in the catchment area for Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, in Penrith. The co-ed Windermere School, for ages 3-18, is the top-performing independent in Cumbria, according to The Sunday Times Parent Power guide.

Get connected The West Coast Main Line runs east of the Lake District, connecting Oxenholme, Penrith and Carlisle with London (3-4 hours) and Glasgow (1-2 hours). Direct trains from Oxenholme to Manchester take just over an hour. For

£3.3M

in Hawkshead for £430,000. Their home is a five-minute stroll from the centre of the village, which has a GP, a pharmacy, a post office and a Co-op.

“It’s a semi with five bedrooms, so it allows me a studio and a spare room for visitors,” says Sally Anne, who also designs cards (moongazercards.com).

“Mum, who had just had a hip replacement, needed a downstairs bedroom and bathroom, and she wanted a little garden.

“It is a wonderful place for an artist, too, with connections to Beatrix Potter and views of mountains that change colour and mood with the weather and seasons.”

£1.195M

drivers, the M6 is the main artery; it’s about five hours to London and 90 minutes to Manchester and its airport.

Superfast fibreoptic broadband is being rolled out across Cumbria, with download speeds of 80Mbps-330Mbps promised where geographically possible.

Be seen in Stout footwear and a cagoule, basically, but if you want a hearty pint brewed on site, head to the Drunken Duck gastropub, between Hawkshead and Ambleside. Foraging for delicacies such as forest herbs and fungi is a big thing, as is locally sourced meat, pioneered by Kevin Tickle at the Forest Side, in Grasmere (grand tasting menu £95pp), and Ryan Blackburn at the Old Stamp House, in Ambleside, which offers Cumbrian fine dining (mains from £19).

If you want to feed your mind, there’s the Theatre by the Lake, in Keswick, where Conrad Lynch is the new artistic director. Or hang out in Wordsworth’s homes at Dove Cottage and Rydal Mount, and be inspired by Brantwood, where the Victorian polymath John Ruskin lived and laid out the gardens.

Buy in The most popular areas include Windermere, where prices have risen 17% in a year to an average of £403,803, and neighbouring Bowness-on-Windermere, where homes typically cost £364,492 — though you can expect to pay a hefty premium for a coveted detached house with lake frontage. For a more modest terraced two- or three-bedder, head to Ambleside (average sale price £226,535) or Keswick (£275,284).

Why we love it It’s breathtakingly beautiful and brilliantly connected.

BOWNESS-ON-WINDERMERE

The Swallows would have loved Storrs Holme, a five-bedroom house with a magnificent waterside setting, 140ft of lake frontage and two boathouses.

Built in the 1920s, it’s half a mile south of town, with extensive gardens and panoramic views.

015394 44461, hackney-leigh.co.uk

NEWBY BRIDGE

The living space in this recently built five-bedroom home opens onto a decked entertaining area, and there’s a sheltered balcony off the master bedroom, which also has a walk-in dressing room.

It’s less than a mile from Lake Windermere.

01539 733500, fineandcountry.com

FIND YOUR BEST PLACE

Check out our Best Places to Live 2017 at thesundaytimes. co.uk/bestplaces. And tell us where else we should visit @TheSTHome

12 July 16, 2017 The Sunday Times

Home Cover GATESHEAD

ONE OF THESE

This threebedroom semi in Low Fell came onto the market in May for £239,950 with your-move.co.uk.

After 50 viewings and several offers, it was sold subject to contract on June 6 for 17% more than the asking price

HOUSES HAD

50 10

VIEWINGS AND A

BIDDING WAR.

THE OTHER HAS ONLY HAD

AND IS STILL ON SALE

AFTER A PRICE CUT Transactions are down, sales are falling through and the housing market is predicted to crash — yet gazumping is at a six-year high. What on earth is going on, asks Hugh Graham

B

ritain is a topsy-turvy place right now. The strong and stable government is weak and wobbly, a previously unelectable socialist is leading in the polls, Brexit may not mean Brexit and the only certainty is uncertainty. As in politics, so in property.

The country market has been stagnant for years, London has been stalling for 18 months and we’ve been warned that a wider crash is imminent. Yet gazumping — that harbinger of white-hot markets that reached its frenzied peak in the new Labour era — is back again. What is going on?

New research from Countrywide estate agency shows that gazumping is at a six-year high in Britain. In the east of England, 5.7% of offers accepted by a seller in 2017 have subsequently been rejected in favour of a higher one from a different buyer, 30 or more days later. In the East Midlands, the figure is 4% — double the rate seen in 2011. And while a rate of 3.9% in the northeast of England might not sound high, that’s four times what it was in 2011.

The rate in the northwest has more than doubled since 2011, to 2.9%; the West Midlands and Yorkshire have also recorded six-year highs, as has Britain as a whole (3.6%, compared to 2.4% in 2011).

The gazumping rates came out even higher in the latest survey by emoov.co.uk. The online estate agency found that a whopping 36% of respondents had been gazumped

on a recent purchase, up from just 13% a year ago. It also revealed that 35% of buyers in London had been gazumped, 27% in Manchester, 26% in Birmingham, 23% in Leeds and 20% in Cardiff. Admittedly, its research was based on a survey of just 1,000 purchasers.

So it seems gazumping and bidding wars are on the rise in the regions.

Why are people splashing the cash and playing dirty in such a moribund market? “What these numbers are showing is that we have a lack of stock across Britain, and that’s become an issue,” says Fionnuala Earley, chief economist at Countrywide, who attributes the dearth of supply to homeowners staying put. “People just aren’t moving. They aren’t confident enough to put their house on the market.

“It could be that they can’t afford to move because of the higher stamp duty, it could be the squeeze on household incomes due to inflation, but mostly it’s just uncertainty. We’re now down to the crux level of people who really need to move. There’s not

enough property around to sell, there’s less choice and there’s a lot of competition for the nice houses.”

Indeed, in the areas where gazumping has risen most, the choice of housing stock has narrowed drastically: in the east of England, there are 57% fewer houses on the market in 2017 than there were in 2011, according to Countrywide; in the northeast and northwest, there are 61% fewer; in the East and West Midlands, stock is down 57% and 53% respectively. In Britain as a whole, it’s down 52% compared to 2011 and 14% year on year.

These findings are backed up by the latest monthly survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which found that new instructions in June had dropped for the 16th month in a row, with 19% more respondents seeing a fall rather than a rise in the amount of property coming onto the market. Against this backdrop, average stock levels have slipped to a record low.

“It’s also about expectations of price growth,” Earley says. “In 2007,

everyone in London wanted to get in because they were likely to make gains. They could afford to make a higher offer. Now expectations are weaker in the capital, and there’s more to choose from, so there’s more likely to be negotiation.”

Try telling that to Dhaval Shah, a technology consultant who had a £580,000 offer on a two-bedroom maisonette in Finchley, north London, accepted in October. Shah, 32, and his then pregnant wife, Tatianna Rodrigues, spent £2,500 on solicitors and admin fees and bought new furniture, only to be gazumped by £30,000 the day before they were due to exchange contracts.

The agent had taken the property off the market, but it was a multiple listing, so another firm had kept it live on its website. “It’s the second time in three years I’ve been gazumped,” Shah says. “I’d advise people to take out insurance. You can buy it for £50 and get your professional costs refunded if you get gazumped.

“With the property we ended up buying, we drew up a legal agreement

and paid a £5,000 deposit so the property was taken off the market and we were legally bound to exchange in an agreed time period.”

Like many potential purchasers who feel cheated by the system, the couple want change. Indeed, before the election, the government had promised to look into the buying process and eradicate the practice of gazumping. “It needs fixing,” Shah says. “It rarely happens in Scotland and never in America, where my wife is from.”

Yet it frequently happens with the most unlikely houses: properties that need fixing up. Annette Smith [not her real name] admits that she recently gazumped a doer-upper in Twickenham, southwest London.

The five-bedroom Edwardian semi had been in the same family for 60 years and was ripe for renovating and extending. It was marketed for £900,000. The first buyer’s offer of £800,000 was accepted — and Smith jumped in with a bid for £815,000.

“I didn’t feel guilty,” says the market researcher, 25. “The other

An offer you can't refuse? Gazumped property sales, % of total 2011 2017 4.4 4.0

London Source: Countrywide

4.8 3.2

Southeast

2.5

3.5

Southwest

4.7

5.7

East of England

4.0

3.9

2.9

2.0

2.0

East Midlands

West Midlands

0.8 Northeast

1.7

2.9

Northwest

2.2 2.7 Yorkshire and the Humber

2.1

2.4

Wales

2.4

3.6

National average

The Sunday Times July 16, 2017 13

LONDON N1 On Harecourt Road, in Canonbury, this three-bedroom house was put on sale in March for £1.6m. The price has since been reduced to £1.5m (brickworks london.com)

TOP TIPS TO AVOID BEING GAZUMPED

l Prove you’re serious Show

that you are committed to buying by getting a survey booked as soon as possible. Once that’s complete, and before you get solicitors to do local searches and act on your behalf, ask the vendor to take the property off the market.

l Get to know the sellers Try to

be in regular contact with the vendors throughout the buying process: hopefully, this will make them less inclined to accept another offer from a stranger.

l Take control The quicker you

get to exchanging contracts, the better. Devote as much time as possible to this, keeping in touch with your mortgage broker, your solicitor and the estate agent, and making regular progress checks.

l Protect yourself Home buyers’ protection insurance will cover your costs if you are gazumped — well worth the £50 fee.

l Embrace technology Take

advantage of hi-tech property platforms such as View My Chain (viewmychain.com), which tracks the entire conveyancing process, and Gazeal (gazeal.co.uk), which locks buyers and sellers into a deal and prevents them pulling out.

Home Owners Alliance; hoa.org.uk

buyer was a developer who wanted to turn it into a house in multiple occupation, and had been messing the agent and vendor around. We were proceedable, we want it to be our home for 15 years, and we love the house — it’s a blank canvas.

“The developer has since come back and offered £865,000, but I’ve been told our offer of £815,000 still stands, as we are in a better position to complete.”

Knight Frank’s residential market update for July fleshes out the story behind these bidding wars. “Despite the easing in residential property price growth over the past 12 months, low mortgage rates and a lack of homes coming onto the market for sale are acting as firm anchors for pricing,” says Grainne Gilmore, the estate agency’s head of UK research.

“And in recent months, the traditional picture of house-price growth in the south of England outpacing that in the north has reversed. Prices in the north and Midlands are now showing greater growth than southern regions.”

Hotspots aside, overall market activity is now substantially below the 1.2m-1.3m annual sales common before the financial crash, according to research by Lloyds. Places as diverse as Westminster and Hull have seen falls in sales of 55% or more over the past decade, while every local authority in England and Wales had fewer sales in 2016 than in 2006.

Yet there has been “a surge in demand” in north Essex over the past two years, says Carl Eastwood, director of Nicholas Percival estate agency, near Colchester. “We’ve seen gazumping happen twice recently.

It most often occurs on properties with the potential to extend and refurbish. There are fewer and fewer

‘‘

of these around, so when they come on, we tend to get a bit of a frenzy. It happened on a couple of houses in villages outside Colchester in the Gazumping most £300,000-£400,000 range.

“Once we’ve agreed the sale, often occurs on people ring up wanting to view it. properties that I tell them that it’s under offer and they say they want to put in a higher have the potential offer. I don’t like gazumping — there’s to extend and a problem with the system in this country — but we are legally obliged refurbish to report all offers.”

The practice is occurring in pockets across England and Wales.

“We have gone from absolutely no gazumping to some,” says Sam Gibson, head of Strutt & Parker estate agency’s office in Morpeth, Change in number of homes listed for Northumberland. “Why? There is a sale in England and Wales, 2011 to 2017 shortage of supply of nice houses.

When you have something special, 0 like a house on the beach, gazumping Decrease Increase can happen.”

It can even be a strategy for the -61% vendor from the outset. “We are Average seeing gazumping happening more -61% -52% and more in 2017,” says Jamie Carter, head of Strutt & Parker’s Chester +22% office. “If a vendor is willing to be bold and price attractively from the outset, it will generate the levels of interest necessary to obtain multiple buyers.

-57% “We recently had a property agreed at just below the guide -53% -57% price, but a week later a buyer who had previously viewed -34% the property came back and offered 10% above the guide. In another case they -44% offered 25% in excess. We obviously have to report all -53% offers to our client.”

-23% Gazumping tends to happen when a property hasn’t been on the Source: Countrywide market for long enough

to have maximum exposure. “If a seller accepts the first offer on the table, rather than leaving it on the market for a longer period, this is when people who feel they missed out might come back with an attempt to gazump,” explains Bruce King, director of Cheffins estate agency in the popular Essex town of Saffron Walden. “We tend to mitigate the levels of gazumping by dealing with sealed bids or best and final offers.”

Indeed, most agents try to distance themselves from the g-word. Philip Jackson, director of Maguire Jackson estate agency in Birmingham, says he has seen a rise this year in the number of transactions going to “best offers” on loft apartments in the city’s hip Jewellery Quarter, where buyers will pay 2%-3% above guide price to secure a flat.

Yet even the “best and final offers” approach doesn’t always deter the most determined gazumpers, who won’t take no for an answer, says Chris Stonock, an estate agent at Your Move in Durham. “At that stage, someone who didn’t get it sometimes still comes back wanting to make a higher offer, but in our experience most sellers say ‘They had their chance’ — and there’s a lot of wisdom in that.

“Often, people who want a house at any price get cold feet later on.

Three weeks down the line, their solicitor asks, ‘How much did you offer?’ They reply, ‘I got carried away, I will reduce my offer now.’

Then they try to wriggle out of it and renegotiate. Our advice is to go with the people who have honoured the process.”

Indeed, the gazumper who snatched Shah’s dream house ended up pulling out of the deal, leaving the vendor in the lurch. Sellers beware.

16 July 16, 2017 The Sunday Times

Home Country

TOO POSH TO

READER’S HOME

PAINT

It’s definitely more shabby than chic, but the Cotswold home of the original hippie aristocrat, Sir Mark Palmer, has charm by the caravan load, says Giles Hattersley

P

erusing the brochure for Mill Hill Farm as the train races towards Gloucestershire on a muggy summer morning, my first thought is: these owners are either seriously posh or legally colour-blind. It’s both, as it turns out, and rather brilliantly so.

Sir Mark Palmer, 5th Baronet of Grinkle Park in the County of York and of Newcastle upon Tyne, whose extraordinary, class-splintered life includes a childhood stint as page of honour to the Queen (his godmother), a few years running Christine Keeler’s modelling agency and living the better half of the 1970s in a gypsy caravan, has trouble with browns and greens. But is this an excuse? He married Catherine Tennant, a famous astrologer, who is in full possession of the colour spectrum.

Forty years ago, they bought a stunning 19th-century farmhouse on the edge of the National Trust village of Sherborne, threw on a lick of paint and called it a day.

This is not the manicured Cotswolds, or even the Clarkson/Cameron Cotswolds.

Rough-looking dogs circulate the yard as Palmer throws open the back door to greet me in trackies and a pair of disintegrating Crocs. Then it’s straight to the kitchen, where Tennant and their thirtysomething son, Artie, are puffing away on fags, the mess of the weekend papers scattered over a large pine table

and all the woodwork painted a lurid shade of granny-smith green.

“It’s not Daylesford,” Tennant, 68, booms proudly. “It’s the opposite of Daylesford. We’re downsizing before we get too old to move.” They also hope to help their children buy their own homes.

So what was Mill Hill Farm like when you came to view it in 1977? “Tidy,” deadpans Palmer, 75. “It was all thick, dark-brown gloss everywhere,” Tennant adds. “But the kitchen was this green, so we just went on with it.” To be fair, Palmer points out, he’s not exactly sure what colour it is.

This is the only privately owned farmhouse in the village, as the National Trust owns the rest. “It means there are more local people living here,” Tennant says. “It also means there are more young people around, as it’s all so expensive normally.” The avalanche of cash that has tumbled into the Cotswolds in the past decade has left them largely unscathed.

But still. They moved in almost half a century ago — they must have done loads to the place? “Not really,” Tennant says, and we all laugh. “We’ve got a friend who makes really expensive kitchens for people, and he’s been trying to copy our units.” They certainly look, um, authentic.

“We didn’t have a fridge when I was little,” says Artie, who is an artist and lives in the family pile (his sister, Iris — also an artist and formerly a model, like her

ADRIAN SHERRATT

The Sunday Times July 16, 2017 17

TIMES + One lucky Times subscriber and their guest will win tickets to The Big Feastival in the Cotswolds and a Belvoir hot-air balloon ride over the festival. Enter at mytimesplus.co.uk

True originals Palmer, far left, with his wife, the astrologer Catherine Tennant, and their children, Artie and Iris. The couple bought Mill House Farm in 1977 and have not done much to it, except creating a ceiling of stars in the library, bottom left

cousin Stella Tennant — lives nearby).

“We’ve got a sunken larder,” Palmer protests, but the yoghurt still got a bit fizzy. There follows some family debate about what constitutes a larder, and whether a pantry is the same thing, or is that more for plates and glassware? Tea is poured, more cigarettes are lit — it’s hard to imagine that whoever buys the place will fill it with the same atmosphere.

Palmer takes me on a tour. As well as the six-bedroom farmhouse, there are barns, stables, courtyards, walled gardens, orchards, paddocks and river frontage. The decor might be described as “too posh to care” — or perhaps “too hippie to”. They’ve installed a mini pub on the ground floor: “Who needs a dining room?” he says.

The library, where Tennant works on her new website, interactivestars.com, and scrolls through Rightmove for a property to downsize to, has a ceiling painted with stars, which they did with a print block on a stick in 1977. Across the hall, the sitting room is charming and beyond scruffy — which sets the tone for the rest of the tour.

Honestly, they just don’t care. I’ve never met people selling a house for nearly £3m so happy for you to find them just as they are. It is a refreshing change. Dusting be damned. A slight Miss Havisham vibe hangs over the rooms, a hodgepodge of random furniture — be it a 1980s leather corner sofa in Artie’s room or the lingering heirlooms.

Cotswolds AONB Stow-on-the-Wold Cheltenham A40

Sherborne Charlbury

MILL HILL FARM

Burford

Cirencester 5 miles

‘‘

It’s not Daylesford — it’s the opposite of Daylesford.

We’re downsizing before we get too old to move

They had a big party at the weekend, and in one of the spare rooms the tail end of a spliff lies forgotten on a china saucer. Perhaps this image could be a new family crest?

Palmer is in the horse-breeding business these days. His clients include local notables and old family friends, and he looked after Jerry Hall’s steeds for a while.

We gaze across the grazing fields while he talks me through his double life with his gypsy friends and the upmarket racing set. “Horses are a great leveller,” he says.

“I like people from all walks of life. I don’t like to get stuck in one thing.”

Alas, the cool breeze of homogeny is blowing down this Cotswold valley.

With each passing year, the number of “unfashionable-looking” houses gets scanter. Most of the Palmers’ neighbours already have immaculately painted pale woodwork. But they aren’t ones to moan. “We don’t mind who buys it — this could be a whole other cottage, really,” Palmer says, pointing to one of the barns.

Back in the kitchen, Tennant lights another fag and says stoically: “Best move before we get too old to.” As you have no doubt foreseen, she has consulted the stars: “Jupiter, the planet of good luck and new horizons, is now rising in my chart, which makes this the ideal time to move.”

Mill Hill Farm is for sale for £2.85m; 01451 830731, butlersherborn.co.uk

18 July 16, 2017 The Sunday Times mes

ILLUSTRATION: ILLUS O MICHAEL C DRIVER

Home Experts rts THE BEST

ICE-CREAM MAKERS BEST OVERALL Sage by Heston Blumenthal The Smart Scoop BC1600UK Ice Cream Maker, 89/100; £278; johnlewis.com ü Versatile, with 12 hardness settings. Makes up to 1 litre of ice cream. ü Easy to use. ü Displays progress on screen and has useful audible alerts. ü Formed a lovely creamy gelato in 30 minutes. Firm ice cream needed longer. ü Good recipes, coped well with chocolate chips. û Noisy.

BEST BUDGET Andrew James Premium Digital Ice Cream Maker, 83/100; £28; amazon.co.uk ü Makes up to 1.5 litres. ü Digital timer. ü Simple controls. ü Good results for ice cream and sorbet. ü Plastic collar on bowl prevents frozen fingers. û Bowl must be placed in the freezer in advance. û Tricky to clean. goodhousekeeping.co.uk/ institute

READERS’ CLINIC

WHAT MAKES A GOOD SHED? TP, Finchley

Edward Baker, Tunbridge Wells Buy one that’s at least 50% bigger than you think you need. Raise it off the ground so air can circulate underneath: lay fence posts down 12in-15in apart on top of a stone-flagged area and place the floor on top. That way it won’t rot. Line with fibreboard for insulation and use good asphalt sheeting for a long-lasting roof. Install power, lights and a solid bench. Treat every few years with wood preservative.

Annette Tither, via email Buy two, as my husband and I did, so you each have your own storage area and there are no arguments.

Future questions l Should we buy a bidet? l How can I stop my fridge from freezing food, often on the top shelf?

Send your tips, tricks and questions to homehelp@ sunday-times.co.uk

PROBLEM OF THE WEEK DO I HAVE WOODWORM?

Q

I live in a Georgian house and have started to notice lots of small holes in my wooden floorboards and in an old dressing table.

Is it woodworm?

LH, via email

A

HOME HELP

Struggling to shift the stench of smoke, or looking for taps with a French accent? Ask our experts

Q

We are buying a house owned by a smoker. We are both non-smokers, and we’re hit by the odour as soon as we enter. When we move in, we will leave our clothes in a caravan while we wash the walls and decorate. Do you have any tips on what we should use to remove the smell?

Barry Morris, Worcestershire

A

Cigarette smoke does two things: it coats the walls, leaving a dirty and smelly film, and it permeates fabrics and carpeting, making it time-consuming to eradicate all trace.

Here are some steps you can take. First, run an air purifier on its highest setting for several days. Fill an oil diffuser with water, add 15 drops of citrus oil and run continuously until the water has evaporated.

Wipe each wall and ceiling with a rag and all-purpose cleaner. Then mix half a gallon of white vinegar with half a gallon of water and wipe again with this mixture.

Repeat until all discoloured streaks are gone.

Next, vacuum the carpet thoroughly, including the edges — use a narrow attachment. Sprinkle baking soda generously over the entire carpet, allow it to sit overnight, then vacuum again before spritzing with a bottle of water infused with 20-30 drops of citrus essential oil.

Should any odour remain, repeat the carpet treatment with a thicker coating of baking soda. If this doesn’t solve the issue, then unfortunately the carpet may need to be replaced. Should the walls and ceilings retain any smell, applying an odour-removing primer and two coats of latex-based anti-mould paint should do the trick.

Declan Curran, founder of Empire Holdings; empire-holdings.co.uk

Q

I have rust on my hollyhocks. I have read that trimming the leaves right back will not damage the flowers and will prevent it spreading to other leaves. However, I find that all the leaves

get rust regardless, even though these plants self-seed throughout my garden. Can rust spread?

Also, I have tried to dig up the plants and start afresh, but they are so old and deep, it is impossible to get all of the root out.

What should I do?

CG, via email

A

I’m not convinced that cleanliness is next to godliness, but I do know that it makes a big difference to rust-prone hollyhocks.

Removing leaves with mottled black or bright orange marks as soon as you spot them won’t affect the flowers, but that is just the start. You also need to dig up all the spent flowers and collect every fallen leaf to prevent infection spreading to your seedlings.

I won’t pretend that digging the fleshy roots from stony ground is easy, but chopping them off at the roots with an old bread knife or a sharp hoe works well, especially if done repeatedly; put the stems and roots in the green wheelie bin.

As for the risk of spreading, rust is the collective name for

Small holes in wood at this time of year are not unusual. From May to October, wood-boring insects emerge as adult beetles to breed. Old houses are particularly prone to woodworm because items are often passed from owner to owner or house to house.

Woodworm is not actually a worm, but the wood-eating larvae or grubs of insects (mostly the common furniture beetle). The main damage is caused inside the wood and can occur years before adults emerge through the holes.

The larvae prefer dark places, but, after emerging, the beetles head to the light: you may see them by windows or loft hatches.

If there are signs of an infestation, take immediate action. DIY products include woodworm-killer solutions that treat localised infestations on tables and chairs, but there are more sophisticated options: Controlled Atmosphere Technology (CAT) is a safe method that uses inert

a group of 4,000 fungal diseases; thankfully, the one that attacks hollyhocks only spreads to other members of the mallow family, such as abutilon, lavatera and hibiscus. Everything else in your garden will be safe.

Toby Buckland is a garden writer and the host of tobygardenfest.co.uk

Q

I want to buy French taps with the words “chaud” and “froid”, rather than “hot” and “cold”, but I can’t find them anywhere. Do you know where I might source these, and will they be compatible with British sanitary ware?

AW, via email

A

Most firms that make taps are international; even in France, manufacturers use “hot” and “cold” or red and blue. That said, it’s easy to find vintage taps with the French words online — you can even buy a pair of ceramic “chaud” and “froid” inserts (21mm in diameter) on eBay for £15.

gases in a controlled atmosphere to eliminate eggs and larvae; it also penetrates fabrics and leaves no harmful residues.

If the damage threatens structural integrity, the affected wood should be replaced. Seek advice from restoration specialists; a skilled carpenter may be able to restore the affected item.

To prevent infestations, take precautions with the wood you bring into your home, and apply protection: wax polishes, treatment fluids or sprays.

When buying furniture (old or new), inspect all surfaces for a peppering of holes about 2mm in diameter — these are a reliable way of confirming an active or past infestation. Pay attention to unpolished surfaces and the bottom of the legs.

New holes usually have dust around them. With old infestations, the wood will have darkened over time and the dust will have gone.

Woodworm infestations also occur in flatpack furniture and laminate flooring.

If the item has been treated for woodworm, ask to see a certificate showing when this took place.

Professional treatments should come with at least a 25-year guarantee.

Rentokil offers free surveys.

Treatments start at about £450, but vary depending on the extent of the infestation.

DIY solutions start at £10.

Berwyn Evans, UK product manager of Rentokil Property Care; rentokil.co.uk The only modern taps with inscriptions in French tend to be relatively expensive. They include Catchpole & Rye’s La Loire range, based on elegant 19th-century designs (£300 for a pair of basin pillar taps; catchpoleandrye.com), and Lefroy Brooks’s La Chapelle range (monobloc tap and pop-up waste from £365; just-lefroy.co.uk). The ultimate choice is probably THG’s Faubourg lever-handled taps, which start at about £1,500 (thg-paris.com).

Buying vintage or French taps may cause problems for your plumber. French taps have 14mm fittings, as opposed to 15mm in the UK. Flexi pipes will usually get around the problem, but it is easier to buy taps in Britain from a respected manufacturer.

Fleur Liversidge, senior associate at Studio Indigo; studioindigo.co.uk

DO YOU NEED HELP FROM ONE OF OUR EXPERTS?

Email your questions to homehelp@sunday-times. co.uk. Advice is given without responsibility

The Sunday Times July 16, 2017 19

HOW TO...

ORGANISE YOUR LAUNDRY ROOM

Laundry and utility rooms can be a source of enormous irritation — the steam, the noise, the insufficient storage, the wellies dumped there by the rest of the family, the dirt, the dog basket — or they can be a haven of calm where you retreat for some quiet ironing and Radio 4.

If yours is vexing, it’s worth giving it an overhaul, because there is a laundry list of small changes that can quickly improve its appeal and efficiency.

WALLS

Make sure the paintwork is up to the job. A laundry room will become humid, with steam from the iron and damp from drying clothes, so you should be using moisture-resistant paint marketed for kitchens and bathrooms. Dulux has a Bathroom+ range (from £10 a litre) and Little Greene does an eco-friendly Intelligent Eggshell (£59 for 2½ litres); if those are too expensive, check out the own-brand ranges at DIY stores.

FLOORING

Flooring needs to be fit for purpose, too. As in the bathroom and the kitchen, carpet isn’t ideal. If you have Downton delusions, go the whole flagstone hog.

Otherwise, ceramic tiles are perfectly serviceable and, as the area will be quite small, this is an opportunity to treat yourself to something special. If you fancy pattern, there’s the funky British Tile Collection, from WorkHouse (from £119 a sq metre), or Bert & May’s colourful geometric encaustics. Plain options from Fired Earth include Quarry White and Grey Terracotta (£67.40 a sq metre in the summer sale). Rubber or vinyl flooring, in a neutral or snazzy colour or a pattern, will give a contemporary lift to your laundry room’s decor: try Harvey Maria or the Colour Flooring Company (from £28 a sq metre) for designer options, Homebase and Carpetright for budget.

STORAGE

This should be tailored to the way you use the room. Do you need a linen press for dry towels and bedding, or just cupboard space for the impedimenta of laundry:

soap powder, ironing water?

Is yours also a depot for cleaning products? If so, a secure cupboard for bleach and dishwasher tablets will be invaluable. A common complaint is that, amid generous storage space, many households lack a closet tall enough to take an ironing board and brooms. If you don’t have a full-height cupboard, it’s worth paying a carpenter to build one. A good spot is in the dead space alongside the washing machine: if there’s enough depth, the same closet can accommodate a stepladder and a folding clothes airer.

The most beautiful are the birch extending clothes dryer from Garden Trading (left; £145) and the lovely retro Laundry Maid from deVol (below; £265), but Lakeland’s heated tower airer (£110), part of the bestselling Dry:Soon range, has its fans.

SOUNDPROOFING

There’s also plenty of good “off the shelf” storage. Ikea has an ingenious approach to household organisation, as does Lakeland. The Elfa range, from Store, is a collection of racks, ventilated shelving and baskets that can be customised to your needs.

A utility-room set costs £241 in the website’s summer sale (aplaceforeverything.co.uk).

THE KIT

Once storage is sorted, consider whether your drying kit needs upgrading.

Clothes airers, if you buy the more attractive wooden options, tend to become mildewed with age, so review and replace them regularly.

Noise can be an issue in the laundry room. Some spin cycles are loud enough to interfere with listening to the radio in the kitchen next door.

Rather than investing in soundproofing for the room (though you could replace the door with a more substantial one, or hang a curtain on the kitchen side), check out the new, quieter appliances on offer. John Lewis sells a range with Quiet Mark certification.

LOCATION

Finally, if you are starting from scratch or working on a refurbishment, and have the option of putting your laundry room wherever you please, consider having it upstairs. This may not be the traditional location, but time and again I am told how much it smooths the running of a household. Dirty laundry is

generated upstairs, in the form of discarded clothes and bed linen, so the trip to the washing machine is shorter and laundry becomes more of a pleasure and less of a chore.

COMPROMISES

What if you haven’t the luxury of a dedicated room at home? In defiance of Kirstie Allsopp’s recent edict, the “laundry room” in smaller flats is usually an integrated washing machine within a compact kitchen. Here, there may still be some outdoor space where you can hang washing to dry. A rotary clothes line can leave your washing smelling much fresher than tumble drying; inexpensive options are available from chains such as Argos and Wilko.

In the absence of even a balcony, you may have to resort to one of those airers that hang from the shower head or perch over the bath (Lakeland’s foldable over-bath deluxe model costs £22).

Or outsource the whole business with Laundrapp (from £2 an item, or £11 for five shirts; laundrapp.com).

Katrina Burroughs

20 July 16, 2017 The Sunday Times

One of the stars of ITV’s sitcom shows Cally Law the secret side of the Costa Blanca, where she’s just bought a flat for €30,000

M

ost people have a good idea of what Benidorm is all about, even if they’ve never been: a concrete jungle on the Costa Blanca, full of loud Brits with bulging red bellies. It’s not for everybody, but if you want sun, cheap alcohol, karaoke and chips with everything, it is perfect.

The long-running ITV sitcom Benidorm captures the raucous spirit of the resort with affection. It may not have received much in the way of critical acclaim, but it consistently features in the National Television Awards, which are voted for by viewers, and there’s an American spinoff, set in Mexico, on the way.

Filming has just finished on series 10, and the actress Janine Duvitski has been a key player, spending up to four months a year working in the town. For series one, she had

to live there, too. “When we first got to Benidorm in 2006, we were living in a hotel and eating not very good English food, like sausage and chips — I hated it,” she recalls. “Then they took us for a meal in Altea, just 15 minutes away, and I saw another side to the area. It’s a beautiful town with lots of great restaurants.”

For the next few series, most of the cast — which has included Johnny Vegas, Joan Collins, Nigel Havers, Tim Healy, Sheridan Smith, Una Stubbs and Shane Richie — were put up in Albir, a modern town popular with the Dutch and Norwegians. Things were looking up, especially because there were few Brits about.

As the show has become more popular, the cast have found themselves being harassed.

Duvitski, 65, no longer goes into Benidorm unaccompanied, and even has a bodyguard when working. “People are

REGINA SIEBRECHT/GETTY IMAGES; ALBERT BENTALL

Home Overseas

BEYOND BENIDORM

The Sunday Times July 16, 2017 21

Villajoyosa, left, is just eight miles from Benidorm, but feels worlds away. Janine Duvitski, right and above, discovered the town when filming the ITV sitcom, and has bought two properties there

usually sweet, but they are often drunk — and everybody wants selfies,” she says. “I play a swinger, so they’re inclined to want to kiss me, and when I won’t, they say things like, ‘You are up for it on the telly.’”

The cast consequently tend to go out mob-handed — and not in Benidorm. One Sunday they went for lunch at a restaurant in the old town of Villajoyosa, a traffic-free enclave of gaily painted old fishermen’s houses right on a sandy beach. It’s just 15 minutes’ drive south of Benidorm, but it might be a million miles away. “I loved the old town and was amazed by the prices compared to modern flats and villas,” Duvitski says.

She was so impressed that, in July 2014, she bought one.

It was an old wreck, a “double” — houses here are typically tall and one room wide — and she paid €115,000 (then about £91,000) for it. She spent €15,000 on doing it up, then bought an extra two rooms from the owner of an adjacent property for €30,000.

The result is an elegant warren with three double bedrooms and four day beds in odd spaces, original tiled floors and old beams, three terraces and the odd eccentric touch. In the kitchen, there’s a butler’s sink, a basic oven, lots of Spanish cookbooks and a paella burner. The huge TV in the sitting room — they call it the “Moroccan room” — is hidden behind a wall hanging, raised by pulling a silken rope and hooked up to a satellite dish so they get English telly.

They tried to do without air conditioning, but they’ve

given in. It gets hot here — which is part of the reason for staying. “Benidorm the series won’t last for ever, and I never expected it to go on as long as it has,” Duvitski says. “I’ve realised how much I like Spain, the people and the food. Here we are, right on the sea — you can literally get up, put your costume on and have a swim. And it’s never so crowded that you can’t get a nice patch of beach. We swim, have lunch and sangria, a siesta, go to the market.”

An added bonus is that the Brits who holiday here tend to be what she calls the “Boden set”, more likely to recognise her daughter Ruby Bentall, who plays Verity in Poldark, than Duvitski herself.

She hasn’t done much about learning the language, getting by with the words for “white coffee”, “orange juice”, “cut”, “mime” and “silence, please”.

The rest she leaves to her husband, Paul Bentall, who has just finished playing Severus Snape and Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in the West End. When they’re not working, lunching or siesta-ing, they roam the local antiques stores and reclamation yards: “There’s a fantastic shop in Altea’s old town, selling beautiful Spanish antiques and paintings.”

And, as jobs go, hers could be worse. “They pick me up at 6am and take me to work, where I change into a swimming costume and lie on a sunbed by the pool,” she says. She admits being slightly embarrassed about the “swinging” aspect of her

The Brits who holiday in Villajoyosa tend to be the ‘Boden set’ — more likely to recognise Ruby Bentall, Verity in Poldark, than her actress mother

Altea VILLAJOYOSA Benidorm Alicante

Mediterranean Sea 10 miles

character, Jacqueline, recently widowed. “But they were happily married, and she isn’t nasty in any way. They are ordinary people who go swinging or dogging, but she’s now part-owner of the hair salon and there’s a possible love interest on the horizon.”

Back home, the tumbledown alleys of Villajoyosa are mainly occupied by gypsies displaced from Alicante decades ago, but properties there are steadily being bought and renovated by British, Norwegian, Belgian and French incomers. Spaniards from Madrid and Barcelona are also buying boltholes there, according to Sharon Miller, who owns and runs Moorish Homes, a local estate agency (moorishhomes.com).

These newcomers tend to keep the original wooden doors and the metal grates over the windows in what is now a conservation area. No neighbouring houses can be painted the same colour, and there is a colour chart to be adhered to.

“Prices have stabilised,” Miller says. “They are not going up, but they are not going down, either — and many cheap properties sell quickly. At the peak of the market in 2006, a beach property might have fetched €5,000 a square metre. Now it’s nearer €1,500 a square metre. But it’s really come up in the world.”

It’s not hard to see the attraction. Flights to Britain from Alicante airport are cheap and frequent — Duvitski popped back last summer to film a Trollope adaptation, Doctor Thorne, for ITV — and there’s no need for a car.

Beniconnect will pick you up at the airport and drop you off in Villajoyosa for €16, and there are trams to Benidorm or Altea. In July, the town hosts its Moors and Christians festival, one of the most traditional fiestas in Spain.

Duvitski has just bought a flat opposite her house for €30,000, including taxes, and it will make a pleasant one-bedroom apartment.

She’ll stay there when she lets the main house, which is available from mid-July, and says it will come in handy when the family visits.

She and Bentall have six children between them, and several grandchildren, but the truth is, she can’t resist a bargain doer-upper. In fact, she already has her eye on yet another house in her alley.

“I’m ashamed of my property addiction,” she says. It’s a serious affliction.”

The actress sees possibility in the most unlikely places, and her husband is adept at translating her vision into reality. Nowhere is out of bounds: “There are even lovely old tapas bars in Benidorm’s old town, if you know where to find them.”

Casa Wilfredo is available to rent from July 27 via Airbnb

WORLD AFFAIRS

Q

I am thinking of buying a pied-à-terre in Paris, as prices look set to keep rising, but should I be worried about further hikes in second-home taxes?

C Norman, by email

A

TIMES + One lucky Times subscriber will win a six-night beach holiday for two to Jamaica. Enter at mytimesplus.co.uk

The capriciousness of French property-tax rules is a source of frustration for many British buyers. The capital’s left-wing council recently voted in favour of raising the council-tax surcharge levied on second homes in the city from 60% above the normal rate to 250%, in a drive to free up properties for Parisians. This move still requires parliamentary approval. The suggested increase would be between €1,000 and €2,500 a year (£880-£2,200) for most second-homers, depending on the value of the property.

While this is not a negligible amount, it could easily be mitigated by the dramatic rises the Parisian housing market is witnessing. You can buy a decent one-bedroom flat somewhere central, such as Le Marais, for less than €500,000, and the potential capital appreciation in the medium to long term should outweigh any tax increases.

You could also consider letting your property — although, inevitably, there would be tax implications in both France and the UK.

Tim Swannie, director of the buying agency Home Hunts; 020 8144 5501, home-hunts.com

THAILAND No, this isn’t the New York skyline: 98 Wireless is a 25-storey Beaux Arts-inspired apartment block on Wireless Road, in Bangkok’s embassy district, with 77 two- and three-bedroom homes. Residents can use the grand tearoom, pool, spa and business lounge.

FROM £2M

00 66 2201 3198, 98wireless.com

FROM €500,000

ITALY

A 20-minute drive from Florence, Villa Capponi is being transformed into 14 flats with one to three bedrooms; one-bedders start at €500,000. The

16th-century property is set in 25 acres of gardens, vineyards and olive groves.

00 39 3479 207270, villa-capponi.com

The Sunday y Times JJuly y 16,, 2017 23

KATRINA RINA BURROUGHS ROUGHS

CHRIS TONNESEN

@Kat_Burroughs It takes a lot for tennis to grab my attention. The grunty ball-bangers bore me dreadfully. But an undignified tussle over a piece of bath linen? Consider me hooked.

The textile in question was one of the official Wimbledon towels, manufactured for 30 years by a British firm, Christy.

Such is their popularity that last year the company sold 29,000 to spectators during the two-week tournament.

The official merch stand, however, is not the only route to ownership. After his win over Christian Garin, Jack Sock launched a towel towards a souvenir-seeking young fan in the crowd. It became the focus of a tug-of-war between the kid and a panama-ed buffer. Buffer won with ease; kid retired disappointed; Twitter, led by Judy Murray, sat in judgment.

Murray failed to mention that the players, including her sons, are the most prolific tea leaves when it comes to Wimbledon towels.

They should be returned after each match, but only a third are. It’s a crime committed equally by male and female players, Christy reveals, but some are notorious snafflers.

With Serena “eight a day” Williams expecting her baby in a few weeks’ time, there may well have been considerably more to go round this year.

Leaving social media screeching gleefully “What is wrooong with him?”, I visited the serene surroundings of Liberty last week for the launch of the fashion designer Bella Freud’s Psychoanalysis scent. The great-granddaughter of Sigmund, Bella was partly inspired to create the fragrance by her own analyst.

The range, including a scented candle with hints of tobacco flower, amber and cedarwood, is available in mid-September, exclusively from Liberty.

While you wait, lie back on Ercol’s Studio Couch, in Bluebell Gray’s Treslaig (£4,995; ercol.com), and tell me about your childhood. Any traumatising towel incidents?

This transparent acrylic LED table light from Fatboy (H25.5cm) is wireless and chargeable. It’s also available in green, yellow, blue or grey. £90; amara.com

You can rely on the Italian brand Seletti to bring something surprising to the party — and these resin monkey lights are no exception. They come in standing, sitting or hanging primate form and are mains-powered, with a 450cm cable.

The lamp and cable are waterproof, but the plug must be kept indoors. This model is 76.5cm high. £165-£220; ovohome.com

THE EDIT

AGENDA

Home Interiors

THE BEST IN

OUTDOOR LIGHTING Northern Lighting’s new Poppy outdoor lights are inspired by the seed pods of the plant. The sectional powder-coated steel stems can be driven into the lawn or slotted into a circular base, and stand up to 139cm tall. £172; hollowaysofludlow.com Made in the UK

by Old School Electric, this traditional oval bulkhead lamp has a cage frame inspired by marine lighting. It comes in solid brass and measures H24.5cm x W16cm. £90; abodeliving. co.uk

Also from the Poppy range, by Northern Lighting, this table oil lamp in powder-coated

The perfect finishing touch for a summer party outdoors, these coloured glass candleholders with mirrored bases are from Oliver Bonas. Picture shows green Mose tealight holder (H10cm; £20) and blue Mose lantern (H20cm; £35). oliverbonas.com

Point the way to the bar or the garden with this decorative LED Arrow light in powder-coated metal. It measures W43.5cm x H18.5cm and takes two AA batteries. £20; lakeland.co.uk

steel comes with a removable childproof lid.

It’s available in Skinny (H27cm) or the wider

Bold (pictured; H22cm), in off-white, black or green. £131; holloways ofludlow.com

Lakeland’s solar-powered garden light chain features 20 bulbs on a 10-metre cable. They light up automatically after dusk and change colours, blinking through pink, blue, green yellow and red. £35; lakeland. co.uk

24 July 16, 2017 The Sunday Times

BREATHE

EASY

GETTY IMAGES; DAVID TOWERS/MEGELANIC CLOUDS/ALAMY

Home Gardening

With the right mix of plants, you can counter air pollution even in an urban setting, says Kit Peel

A

s we pound the pavements in the heat of high summer, air pollution is more apparent than ever in our cities. It’s made up of dust, soot, heating and exhaust fumes, and a host of other noxious by-products of urban life, all swirling around our streets in the form of tiny, poisonous particulates.

We already know that pollution causes heart and

lung disease, cancer, asthma and bronchitis, and new research suggests it may also be responsible for some cases of Alzheimer’s, depression and a decline in brainpower. On July 31, the government will publish its plan to improve air quality — but you can take action in your own garden.

Plants are our best defence against air pollution: trees, shrubs, hedges and other greenery trap particulates in their leaves before we breathe

them in. But can we really plant our way to a healthier future?

Mark Laurence creates green walls across the world as head of Mark Laurence Design, a Chichester-based company that specialises in sustainable landscapes.

He has long been a champion of the environmental benefits of planting, and wishes other garden designers were equally progressive. Yet he fears that for many of his peers — and their clients — “aesthetics come first and environmental impact last”.

So how do you design an urban garden that will combat air pollution?

PLACEMENT

Green defences should be placed closest to the source of pollution, according to Prashant Kumar, professor and chair in air quality and health at the University of Surrey. In urban areas, this means planting hedges or other green barriers as near roads as possible.

In a front garden, a 4ft- to 6ft-high hedge bordering the pavement is ideal, Kumar says, and will reduce pollution by more than 60%. You could also place shrubs behind it.

They will help, but the roadside hedge is key.

Trees are the next layer, as they can be effective barriers to pollutants. Professor Barbara Maher, co-director at Lancaster University’s Centre for Environmental Magnetism and Palaeomagnetism, found that planting a row of young silver birches in front of houses on a busy street reduced air pollution by about 60% in those homes.

That said, much as we want them on our streets, trees can clog up airflow when wrongly placed, leading to a build-up of pollution.

The worst case is when street trees rise up above house height and their canopies join over a road, creating a green tunnel. The pollution then has nowhere to go. “If I could do one thing, I would pollard all the big trees on city streets,” Maher says.

Clean air acts Plants and trees with hairy leaves, such as whitebeam, right, and lamb’s ear, below right, are good at trapping pollutants, as are climbers like ivy, above. A roadside hedge, below, is the best form of defence

CUTTINGS

The Sunday Times July 16, 2017 25

A POTTED GUIDE TO...

TAKING CUTTINGS

Great news! You can take cuttings of the plants you want gazillions of, but can’t afford (hydrangea, lavender, philadelphus, pelargonium, penstemon — I could go on). Each requires slightly different treatment, but the general idea is the same.

You need sharp secateurs, a knife or scalpel, containers and compost: I use a mix of sand, vermiculite, perlite and shop-bought cuttings compost. Everything should be scrupulously clean.

For hydrangeas, water the night before, then snip just below a pair of leaves, preferably on a non-flowering shoot, keeping three pairs of leaves If there are a lot of large trees on your street, using more in your front garden is probably not a good idea. If you have relatively few street trees, widely spaced, then planting trees with an upright form and narrow crowns between a hedge and the house can be effective.

Don’t encircle your property with trees, though, as that will risk stagnant air, warns Alessio Fini, professor of arboriculture at the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Milan. In rear gardens, away from traffic, you can plant more densely, but make sure air can still circulate freely.

As for other plants, a clipped lawn has no value in tackling air pollution. Tall plants such as grasses help a little. Green walls and climbers won’t help much with airflow, but they have the benefit of being a potentially dense vegetation layer that catches pollutants: up to 35%, according to some studies. Green roofs will cleanse the air, too, but, given their location, won’t directly benefit the environment inside your house.

WHAT TO PLANT?

Choose species that will grab particulates and hang on to them until they can be washed away by rainfall.

That means plants and trees with a high leaf density — the more leaves, the more they catch. Think twice, however, about using dense hedging such as yew or leylandii if your garden is exposed to high winds. These can become

almost solid barriers, and particulates will hit them and crash over into your garden.

Another thing to bear in mind is that some otherwise effective species, including birch, emit pollen, which can cause hay fever and breathing difficulties for those with asthma. Others, especially oak, produce volatile organic compounds when stressed, which can be dangerous to health.

Plants with hairy leaves (such as silver birch, Betula pendula; whitebeam, Sorbus aria; or lamb’s ear, Stachys byzantina) or waxy leaves (ivy, Hedera helix; Chinese juniper, Juniperus chinensis; or cherry laurel, Prunus laurocerasus) are best. And, as air pollution is a year-round problem, it makes sense that your first line of defence — the roadside hedge — should be evergreen.

Urban greening, done well, is a win-win solution, says John Dover, emeritus professor of ecology at Staffordshire University. It’s not hard to imagine greener, cleaner cities of the future, and the benefits to public health. Dover also makes the important point that we shouldn’t be too focused on air pollution, but should consider the other values of urban planting, which include shade, insulation, food and habitat for wildlife.

Tijana Blanusa, principal horticultural scientist at the Royal Horticultural Society, reckons we can all do our bit to help and get planting. “Put something green in to start with,” she says. “Plonk it in!”

above. Remove the tip from the cutting just above a pair of leaves, to encourage bushiness, and remove the lowest pair with a knife. You should be left with a 2in cutting with one pair of leaves.

Cut the leaves in half to reduce moisture loss. Push each cutting into a pencil-wide hole in the compost, so the leaves sit just above the surface, then firm gently. Water thoroughly and place in a propagator or put a large plastic bag over the pot, sealing with an elastic band.

Keep on your kitchen windowsill, where you can check on the cuttings, making sure the compost is moist but not wet. Your new plants should root within a few weeks — pot them on and harden them off outside, ready for planting.

Laetitia Maklouf

IN THE GARDEN THIS WEEK l Keep feeding, paying particular attention to plants in containers.

This is the secret of fabulous displays.

l Spreading alpines that are getting

patchy can be encouraged into regrowth if you spread horticultural grit on the bare bits.

l Chop perennials that have flowered and gone over, such as geraniums, down to the ground. Water well every day for a week and you’ll get a nice mound of fresh leaves (and possibly a second floral flush).

l Mulching thickly will help your

plants enormously, as moisture will be retained and weeds suppressed.

It’s often difficult to get in around plants when the garden is in full bloom, so use a trowel rather than a shovel. Ensure everything is well watered before mulching or it can have the opposite effect, stopping moisture from penetrating the soil and into the plants.

cuttings@sunday-times.co.uk

WE DIG

For those gardeners who think they have everything, may we present the leaf brush? Based on a tong-like system, it has soft goat’s-hair bristles that will sweep away the dust on your houseplants, leaving them shiny and clean. At £40, it is one of the fabulous range of brushes available at oxfordbrushcompany.com.

30 July 16, 2017 The Sunday Times

Home FLO SMITH/ALAMY

TIME AND SPACE TIM HENMAN

Left, relaxing in Provence. Below, a Kadai fire bowl

The former tennis star on why he now spends more time in his wine cellar than on court

HOT STUFF

I

was born and brought up in Oxfordshire: my parents still live just north of Oxford, and now my wife, Lucy, and I own a home in the county, in a village called Aston Tirrold. We moved about 13 years ago from Barnes, in southwest London. We were starting to have children — Rosie, 14, Olivia, 12, and Grace, 9 — and my wife has horses, so we needed space.

It’s an old house. The main part was built in 1743, but the earliest bit, the rear, dates from 1620. We take the view that we are only custodians. I love the house and I want to live there for ever.

Henman loves to drink and collect fine wine

Where in the world would you like to live if you weren’t where you are now?

Melbourne — I played the Australian Open there many times. When I stopped competing, my wife and I thought about buying a place overseas. I was never allowed to ski when I was playing tennis, because of the injury risk and disability insurance, so we thought about buying a ski chalet, but we also liked France and Italy for the hot weather. Then we came across the Hideaways Club and the concept of fractional ownership. I’ve been to about 15 properties: France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Ko Samui, in Thailand.

What’s your favourite room?

Probably my wine cellar. I’ve always enjoyed wine — drinking it and laying it down for the future. There’s nothing hi-tech about the cellar. It’s underground, it’s dark and it has a constant temperature.

My prize possession is my 18-litre bottle [melchior] of Château Giscours 2009.

Do you have a tennis court?

Yes, it’s an artificial grass court. My family enjoy playing, but I can’t say I use it very often. I might hit with my daughters in the summer, but they use it a lot more than I do.

So you never go five sets with your former competitors?

That’s definitely not going to happen.

Henman owns a snooker-cumdining table

on the river, with underground parking.

I sold it a couple of years later for twice that. I dread to think what it would be worth now. If I’d had any money, I should have bought 10 of them. I’ve always been a fan of property as an investment.

Where was the worst place you ever lived?

When I left school, I was based at the Queen’s Club for a couple of years. We used to stay in B&Bs in Earl’s Court. We

‘‘

When I was growing up, with two brothers who were also sports-mad, there wasn’t a window in the house that we didn’t smash with a bat or a ball

didn’t have much money, so the more people you could get into the room, the cheaper it was. There were times when four of us were living in a basic room.

Any property disasters?

Not really, unless you count the windows in my childhood home. When I was growing up, with two older brothers who were also sports-mad, there wasn’t a window in the house that we didn’t smash at some stage with a bat or a ball.

What’s been your best move on the property ladder?

My first flat. In 1997, I paid £124,000 for a new two-bedroom flat in Chiswick. It was Born and bred in Oxfordshire, Henman now lives in a village in the county

GREEN GRASS OF HOME

What did you miss most about home when you were on tour?

It changes once you’ve got family. Being away from the children when they were growing up was hard. Also, when you’re away for 35 weeks of the year, you miss your own bed. I used to struggle with my neck. The pillow was quite important — you had to get it just right.

Do you have a favourite heirloom?

My grandmother had a dining-room table that rolled over into a snooker table.

There’s a company in Hungerford [Sir William Bentley Billiards] that does them, and we had a copy made. It spends a lot more time as a snooker table than it does as a dining-room table.

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?

Princess Diana, Churchill, Muhammad Ali, Chris Martin, Michael McIntyre and my wife. That’s a good mix, isn’t it?

I understand you like bonfires?

Yeah, I’m a bit of a pyromaniac. After Christmas, I burn the tree and anything else I can throw on there. I like fire bowls as well. I have a Kadai. It’s nice to just sit around the fire. Any type of fire is good.

What’s your guilty pleasure at home?

Probably wine. How much do I drink?

That’s a bit like when your doctor asks — “Oh, just a glass a night, doctor.” My wife likes wine as well. It’s safe to say that if you come round to our house after 6pm, there’ll be a bottle open.

Interview by Hugh Graham Tim Henman is an ambassador for the Hideaways Club; thehideawaysclub.com