The Stamford Love Affair with its 2,800 Terraced Houses

Call me old fashioned, but I do like the terraced house.  In fact, I have done some research that I hope you will find of interest.

In architectural terms, a terraced or townhouse is a style of housing in use since the late 1600’s in the UK, where a row of symmetrical / identical houses share their side walls.

 

 

 

 

 

The first terraced houses were actually built by a French man, Monsieur Barbon around St. Paul’s Cathedral within the rebuilding process after the Great Fire of London in 1666.

In fact, it was the French that invented the terraced house around 1610-15 in the Le Marais district of Paris with its planned squares and properties with identical facades. However, it was the 1730’s in the UK, that the terraced/townhouse came into its own in London and, of course, in Bath with the impressive Royal Crescent.

Although Georgian architecture features in the heart of Stamford, many of the terraced houses on the tributary roads were built in the Victorian era.  Built on the back of the Industrial Revolution, with people flooding into the towns and cities for work in Victorian times, the terraced house offered decent livable accommodation away from the slums.  The majority of Victorian Stamford terraced houses are based on standard design of a ‘posh’ front room, a back room (where the family lived day to day) and scullery off that.  Off the scullery a door opened to a rear yard, whilst upstairs, there were three bedrooms (the third straight off the second).

Interestingly, the law was changed in 1875 with the Public Health Act and each house had to have 108ft of livable space per main room, running water, its’ own outside toilet and rear access to allow the lavatory waste to be collected.

It was the 1960’s and 70’s when inside lavatories and bathrooms were installed (often in that third bedroom or an extension off the scullery), gas central heating in the 1980’s and replacement uPVC double glazing ever since.

Looking at the make up of all the properties in Stamford, some very interesting numbers appear.  Of the 9,386 properties in Stamford …

1,957 are Detached properties (20.8%)

3,291 are Semi Detached properties (35.0%)
2,822 are Terraced / Town House properties (30.0%)
1,314 are Apartment/ Flat’s (14.0%)

And quite noteworthy, there are 2 mobile homes, representing 0.02% of all property in Stamford. 

 

When it comes to values, the average price paid for a Stamford terraced house in 1995 was £45,610 and the latest set of figures released by the Land Registry states that today that figure stands at £277,930, a rise of 509% - not bad when you consider detached properties in Stamford in the same time frame have only risen by 294%.

Some buy-to-let landlords and first time buyers I speak to think that Victorian terraced house is expensive to maintain, but I recently read an English Heritage report that stated maintaining a typical Victorian terraced house over 30 years is around 60% cheaper than building and maintaining a modern house- which is quite fascinating don’t you think?

Don’t dismiss the humble terraced house – especially in Stamford!  For more thoughts on the Stamford Property Market, visit the Stamford Property Market Blog:

www.rutlandandstamfordpropertyblog.co.uk 

 

If you would like advice on an existing property you own, or for guidance on what to buy in Stamford and Rutland (and what to avoid!), please contact David Crooke, managing director, UPP Property Agents on 01780 484 554