Just a few minutes from Hampstead High Street, a buzzy thoroughfare lined with designer boutiques, chichi shops, and chic cafés and restaurants, you will find Cloth Hill. Step into the verdant front garden of this handsome Grade II* listed property, with its mature shrubs and trees, and the noise of the north London village fades away. Inside, Queen Anne and Georgian features such as wood-panelled walls and hand-carved staircases transport you still further.
The house exudes a sense of warmth, and this is what attracted its owners, American couple Tom and Barbara, when they first saw it 30 years ago. Having been on the hunt for the perfect home for eight long years, they knew they had found it in Cloth Hill, Barbara recalls. “There’s something about the house that lives and breathes, and everyone who visits feels that welcoming vibe,” she says. “Despite it needing renovation, we could imagine living here with our family and being happy.”
“It’s like a country house in London,” says Tom, a retired lawyer. “There is all the activity of the village close by, but when we step through the gate, it’s like being in our own little oasis. The views accentuate this feeling – we look out to a conservation area of Georgian houses on one side, with views of a 19th-century Gothic church on the other, as well as our garden.”
Cloth Hill is thought to be the second-oldest residence in Hampstead after Fenton House, now owned by the National Trust.
