Here's an extraordinary house with an extraordinary address. A modern townhouse with an off-centre porthole in its barrel roof, perched atop the upper storey like a green bowler hat. And a house number with an X in it when none of the nearby houses have letters, plus that letter was until recently something else. Hurrah, it's another alphanumeric oddity with a backstory.
We're in Hampstead amid the leafy avenues on the slopes to the west of the village centre. Locals might call this area Frognal, there being a lane with that exact name meandering up the hill close by, hence the name of the Overground station down on Finchley Road. Most of the villas hereabouts are substantial and have been here since Victorian times, and if you can afford a whole one you're doing well. 2X's story plays out at the corner of Redington Road and Chesterford Gardens, where this copper house has achieved the unique distinction of moving from one to the other.
After WW2 a 3-storey house was built in the back garden of 27 Redington Road, a 3-bedroom affair of limited architectural value which they numbered 27a. Roll forward to 2003 and the new owners proposed to knock it all down apart from the lower ground floor. On top they would instead build a contemporary confection with all mod cons, but still within the original footprint so as not to annoy the planning authority. The roof would be made of patinated copper shingle panels and curved to permit a master bedroom to be built inside the loft space, lit through a circular dormer window. The chief interior feature was a helical staircase, dramatically positioned beside a full-height window so it could be ogled from the street. And they called it The Copper House.
It certainly stands out amongst the brick of the surrounding villas, and would have looked even more unusual before the trees out front grew to part-shield it. For a better view hurrah, this is again a house with its innards displayed online because the architects show it off on their website as an example of their best work. Sit and watch as the slideshow plays through and you'll likely think 'ooh that's nice' or 'I'd love to live there'. The blurb underneath confirms that the external walls are insulated with sheep wool, that the rooms have underfloor heating and that the project won a Commendation in the Copper in Architecture Awards. It's also appeared in Grand Designs magazine, because of course it has. But it doesn't explain why Camden Council abruptly told the owners to change the number of the house.
It makes sense because The Copper House is very clearly the first house on Chesterford Gardens and has no egress onto Redington Road. It's also official because if you delve into Companies House, the Registered Office at this address was changed from 27a Redington Road to 2X Chesterford Gardens in February 2023. But it must have been annoying for the owners because their bespoke front gate had 27a carved into it, and now they've had to augment that with a small plaque saying 2X Copper House. The postman was delivering mail to 2 Chesterford Gardens when I arrived so I thought of asking him, but chickened out so I remain none the wiser. Whatever, this is to the best of my knowledge the highest-lettered house in London, so a properly desirable address all round.
And finally to Stratford and an entire almost-alphabet of flats from 60A to 60Z. They're very close to the town centre, just a short way along Romford Road about 200m past the Ibis hotel. And you won't spot them from the street because they've been shoehorned into a particularly large back garden, that of the three-storey Georgian villa at number 60, because where else are you going to shove social housing these days? The exact spot is alongside Airedale Walk, the alleyway leading to Maiden Road, where a compact block of flats has replaced part of the wall. To find the entrance cross a scrappy forecourt where multiple residents park their cars and continue past the letterboxes.
There are 20 flats altogether, one for every letter of the alphabet except I, J, L, O, U and V. They're all called Flat 'Something' on the boxes, rather than 60'Something', but rest assured the alphanumeric version appears on their front doors. You shouldn't be getting that far because all the flats are beyond an intercommed gate labelled Please Ensure This Gate Is Closed At All Times, except I found it wide open so proceeded to take a quick look. Most of the flats are in the long block flanking the alleyway, but they only go up to 60t so are of no interest to us here. The dregs of the Scrabble bag are in an entirely separate block at the end of the garden; four one-bedroom maisonettes, each house number written in lower case as if to emphasise their lowly status.
60w and 60x are on the ground floor (that's 60x with the circular wreath on the door) while the remaining two flats can only be accessed via a narrow external staircase. 60y is on the left, and I mention it specifically because it's the only Y address my pan-London search has uncovered. But top of the shop is 60z, the one-bed flat on the right, which to the best of my knowledge is the highest lettered property anywhere in the capital. Unlike the millionaire pads at 18U, 55V and 2X it can't be bought, only rented, and only by Newham residents with an annual income between
£36,500 and £60,000. Apply to One Housing if you think you qualify and then you could look down on everyone else in London, alphabetically speaking.
n.b. Yesterday's properties actually appear on the official national address database as Yelverton, Knole Hurst and Flat 51, not 18U, 55V and 51W. But today's properties are properly 2X Chesterford Gardens and 60Z Romford Road so they truly are the ultimate alphanumerics in London, respectively the highest-lettered house and the highest-lettered flat.
(unless there are any more out there nobody's spotted yet)
