SHOWCASING THE WORLD’S FINEST PROPERTIES AND THE STORIES BEHIND THEM
St John’s Wood High Street, London, showing it can still twist convention. (Alamy)
It’s moneyed alright, but without the filmic grab and the Michelin stars of Notting Hill or the glossy shops and gothic museums of Kensington. Better call it London’s bohemian bolthole. St John’s Wood is still scented with the history and the greenery that made it Groove Central in the Swinging Sixties.
Blame The Beatles. Two weeks after their final album, Abbey Road, was released in 1969, someone phoned a local radio station in Dearborn, Michigan to confirm for the world that Paul McCartney was dead – not just that, but in fact he’d been killed three years earlier in a car crash and been replaced ever since by a lookalike. The clues were clear to see on the album cover: McCartney was barefoot and out of step on the crosswalk. Well, if proof were ever needed…
By way of redress, a few facts. No.3 Abbey Road was the first purpose-built (in 1929) recording studio in the world. The Beatles cut 190 of their 210 tracks there. McCartney still lives nearby in the house on Cavendish Avenue he bought for £40,000 in 1966. The zebra crossing, as such things are called in the UK, has Grade II Listed status and its own webcam. Every day it still attracts hundreds of fans and the fury of idling motorists.
Leaving their mark, until the next fan comes along. It’s been this way since 1969. (Shutterstock)
Besides traffic control, what else does St John’s Wood offer? “A real English village atmosphere,” says marketing consultant for prestige brands and long-time local Niki Gifford. “It’s all very intimate, without being cliquey.” If London’s rightly a series of villages stitched together, NW8 is the capital’s back garden. It manages to exude a quiet ambience and a bucolic balm just 15 minutes from Bond Street on the Jubilee line. Lush, clean, tree-lined streets front glorious white stucco villas, offering what Gifford describes as “a delightful blend of elegance and tranquillity”.
Green space is another great draw. The Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill, one of the capital’s 10 Royal Parks, edges into the NW8 postcode. The park is a Victorian vision of baize lawns and landscaped gardens, a boating lake, an open-air theatre for summer concerts and plays. Since 1828 it’s housed London Zoo, the oldest scientific zoo in the world, home to over 750 species. Up on Primrose Hill, panoramic views across London provide front row seats to The Shard, St Paul’s Cathedral and beyond.
Landmark spotters, grass squatters, picnic lovers, pram-pushing mothers… Every man and his dog is drawn to Primrose Hill on sunny London days. (Shutterstock)
Back along St John’s Wood Road sits the fulsome embodiment of the English atmosphere that Gifford mentioned. This is Lord’s – not the House of Lords, the nation’s secondary debating chamber, but an institution of far great gravitas – Lord’s Cricket Ground, founded 1814. Here, as the thwack of leather on willow resounds on warm summer afternoons, one may applaud, slowly. The ground is home to the Marylebone Cricket Club (the MCC), which governs the rules of cricket worldwide, as well as the dress code for members and visitors to the hallowed history of the Long Room. The colored club tie is referred to, obviously, as “the egg and bacon”.
Two of the most important things in life to every Englishman: club loyalty and queueing. Here a gentleman waits patiently outside Lord’s to take his seat for five consecutive days of warm beer and falling asleep while watching the national game. (Alamy)
Blue plaques abound. Representing health, wealth and wax, Victorian London’s Chief Engineer Joseph Bazalgette helped eradicate cholera in the city by redesigning its sewerage system, exiled emperor Napoleon III sojourned with his mistress secretly in Circus Road, and Mme Tussaud retired here after opening her museum of mannequins to raging success in Baker Street.
As portered blocks of flats sprang up in the 1920s and 1930s, artists flocked in. Sculptor Barbara Hepworth staged her first exhibition in the basement flat at 24 St Ann’s Terrace in 1927. A few decades later, that tragi-poetic couple Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes caused a quiet stir.
No telling why, in this Tussaud rendition of the Abbey Road album cover, the neighborhood’s most famous fab four have swapped positions, or why Paul is wearing sandals now, or who has replaced George. (Shutterstock/ALL YOU Grzegorz Wasowicz)
In the 1990s, the star wattage barely dimmed as the bacchanalian Britpop set partied it up at the homes of locals Kate Moss, Noel Gallagher and Jude Law. Robbie Williams’s 2009 song Idlewild sums it up: “Then I moved into her big old house / I never been to St John’s Wood / There were movie stars and media types /We were all up to no good.”
These days are more sedate. Back up on Primrose Hill at last year’s annual dog show, you might have spotted two well-known humans among the pooches: actors Daniel Craig and Brian Cox. It may seem incongruous to spy 007 and Succession’s short-fused media mogul at a village fête, but this is that kind of place.
Guess what. Urban nirvanas don’t come cheap. People willing to brave the property bunfight to live here come equipped with lined pockets. In 2021, homes on the area’s super-prime Avenue Road averaged £30.5m ($39m). Nor is sourcing easy in what is a relatively small house market. A significant level of heritage family occupation means new purchasers face a competitive scramble.
Nor is renting a steal. Rihanna recently took an eight-bedroom white stucco villa here for £18,000 a week ($23,000) and showcased it on her Instagram feed, before it was sold for £27.5m ($35m) to a Chinese buyer in late 2023. Scaled-down alternatives are available.
Regency stucco terraces like these by architect John Nash (1752-1835) near the southern border of St John’s Wood with Regent’s Park. (Alamy)
The demi-monde might be fond of St John’s Wood, but other communities contribute to the flavour. London’s Central Mosque is located here. The area also has a long association with British Jews, mezuzahs adorn the doorways of many homes. The UK’s first Jewish deli, Panzer’s (est. 1944) is the go-to for bagels and smoked salmon. “It’s truly cosmopolitan here,” says Gifford. “There’s the most beautiful church round this corner – where I got married! So many nationalities live here.”
Jayne Alexander agrees. As founder of a media company specializing in mobile advertising for the networks of London’s black cabs, her inside track on the capital’s movements is pretty much on the money. “Many American families come here on two- or three-year work contracts and fall in love with St John’s Wood.” Partly that’s due to the American School in London located in the heart of NW8. “And for so many people from overseas, it gives them a taste of English ‘country life’ yet close enough to their offices in the City.”
It’s not all warm beer in London these days, and pubs even offer food beyond pickled eggs. The Duke of York, on the corner of St John’s Wood and St. Ann’s Terraces, dates from 1826, its steak and kidney pies a little closer to home. (Alamy)
St John’s Wood’s high street is small but vibrant, lined with small boutiques, bookshops, art galleries and dining spots. “Shop-owners get to know your name here,” says Alexander, “Everyone seems to connect.”
And of course if you’re looking for somewhere typically English, that’ll be down the pub. Locals like The Clifton, The Duke of York and The Ordnance Arms fit everybody’s notion of a neighborhood British boozer.
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