The Sunday Times - UK (2022-02-13

Stoke D’Abernon.

“These are

popular with young

families,” Ashwell

says. “They want

great schools and a

fast commute.”

Outstanding local

state schools

include Esher

Church School,

Hinchley Wood School

and Cleves in Weybridge,

and there are a lot of private

schools. “But people really

move out here for the leisure

facilities. You’ve got rugby

clubs, football clubs, horse

riding... Aesthetically we

could be in Fulham, couldn’t

we?” he purrs. “Only here

there is space to park your

expensive car on a nice drive.”

Esher is 21 minutes to

Waterloo on the fast train —

that’s faster than the Tube

from Clapham Junction —

and therein lies its broad

appeal. Elmbridge borders

Greater London, which is

important to its city émigrés,

but has none of the

inconveniences Londoners

must live with: cramped

streets, pollution and school-

run traffic jams as armies of

Land Rovers crawl through

Fulham and Chelsea towards

stuffed pre-preps.

From Broom Cottage, a

3,500 sq ft Arts and Crafts

house with a stepped, one-

acre garden, sitting in a gated

close (a doer-upper on the

market for £2.45 million with

Savills), I can actually see the

Shard. Yet all around feels

semi-rural. Each of the

Elmbridge towns has its own

neat village green where

cricket is played in the

summer. A cottage bordering

Esher Common with its

adorable tin church and

nursery school costs about

£900,000. “The commons are

all interlinked,” Ashwell

explains. “So you can walk

from here to Oxshott Heath to

Bookham Common to the

South Downs and on to the

coast (an hour’s drive away)

almost without interruption.”

Weybridge, popular with

family-centric first-time buyers

for its fantastic state schools,

is a little more urban and

affordable, with a two-up, two-

down Victorian cottage within

walking distance of the high

street for sale at about

£550,000. The Tilt, on the

outskirts of Cobham, filled

with three-bedroom Victorian

cottages (starting at £900,000)

is sweet and picturesque, and

feels a million miles from

central London, yet the train

takes 38 minutes.

Back to the billionaires.

Brilliantly, despite the

perimeter gates and security

guards, membership of the

world-renowned golf and

tennis clubs on the exclusive

St George’s Hill, with their

restaurants, gyms, swimming

pools, health spas and

crèches, is open to all for

about the same cost as

membership of David Lloyd.

Think of it as Elmbridge’s

own version of levelling up.

COBHAM

£5.5M

This grand five-

bedroom country

manor is

approached by

an equally grand

tree-lined

driveway and

surrounded by

gardens, a

swimming pool

and a tennis court.

house

partnership.co.uk

WEYBRIDGE

£2.95M

Situated in the St

George’s Hill

estate, this four-

bedroom blinged-

up pad includes a

media room, study

and playroom.

The extensive

gardens include

a sun deck, a pool

and a patio.

johndwood.co.uk

ESHER

£3.995M

Set in 14 acres less

than a mile from

Esher high street,

Arbourne has

space and

connections. The

10,000 sq ft 1920s

home includes an

indoor pool, a

music room,

games room and

a galleried gym

area. savills.com

One in three homes in Elmbridge is worth £1m.

Caroline Scott visits Surrey’s seven-figure hotspot

MILLIONAIRES’ROW

Cobham’s

high street

GREG BALFOUR EVANS/ALAMY; MIROSLAV CIK; NICK AYLIFFE/SKYSHOT GLOBAL LTD

8 February 13, 2022The Sunday Times

Home £1 MILLION BRITAIN

y

£

T

here are 430

homes on the

exclusive St

George’s Hill estate

in Elmbridge, just

outside Weybridge, Surrey —

they sell for up to £20 million.

Images on Rightmove reveal

acres of glass and chrome,

polished marble and crushed-

velvet upholstery, and several

tiers of electronic gates. Some

look like out-of-town Asdas,

others are achingly beautiful

Arts and Crafts mansions. All

occupy extensive grounds.

Dubbed Britain’s Beverly

Hills, the estate is popular with

bankers and chief executives

of FTSE-listed companies. One

of the last two houses sold on

the Hill was bought by a female

hedge fund manager, the other

by “one of the most influential

women in the City”. According

to Savills estate agency there

are a lot of powerful women

here who love the security, the

proximity to London and

Heathrow, the expensive

schools and the leisure

facilities, including the

exclusive St George’s Hill Lawn

Tennis Club and golf clubs.

Elmbridge is bordered by the

M3, the A3 and the M25, but

the “Surrey hum” is a small

price to pay if it means you can

zap to London for a meeting,

catch a flight in under an hour

— and fit in your Pilates class.

Sales of £1 million-plus

properties have risen 61 per

cent in the past year to a

record 689,189 homes.

Although London remains by

far the largest £1 million

market, the South East had

the biggest increase in seven-

figure sales in absolute terms.

In Elmbridge, covering an area

of about 96 sq km, one in three

homes is worth more than

£1 million, and sales are up

5,443 year-on-year to 21,487.

The restaurants in Esher, a

central Elmbridge town,

thrive, one resident observes,

because the rich, despite their

gleaming kitchens, don’t eat at

home. In Cobham, too, it feels

as though everything the well-

to-do need to survive has been

airlifted in. There’s a Pilates

studio on the high street, a

Gail’s bakery for post-workout

coffee, the Ivy for lunch, as

well as an independent wine

shop when the cellar runs dry.

There isn’t a single Elmbridge

town without its own Waitrose.

“Most people here have

come from London and

they’ve had the fear of losing

their London postcode. They

worry it’s going to be all gin

and Jags and everyone in

velour tracksuits,” says Simon

Ashwell, who oversees the

Savills office covering

Weybridge and north Surrey.

“Then they arrive and find

everyone they meet has also

moved from Fulham. It’s

basically London with wide-

open green spaces. The

difference is there are schools

and clubs you can’t join in

London because waiting lists

are so long. Everything is

more accessible here.”

Well, not quite everything.

There is nothing Elmbridge

loves more than a gated

development. “Homes on the

Claremont Estate will market

for between £3 million and

£5 million,” Ashwell tells me as

we whizz by where George

Harrison used to live. Other

past and present celebrity

residents include Elton John,

Shilpa Shetty and Kate

Winslet. The Crown Estate in

Oxshott (prices £3 million to

£10 million) — another gated

community comprising

cookie-cutter modern

mansions with Doric columns

— is home to Andy Murray and

a lot of city traders.

You don’t have to be filthy

rich to appreciate Elmbridge’s

charms, though; there’s a

ripple effect that touches the

principal towns — Weybridge,

Walton-on-Thames, Oxshott,

Esher, Claygate, Cobham,

Thames Ditton and Molesey.

There are older Victorian

cottages in Thames Ditton and

Cobham from £500,000 to

£900,00, flats in Weybridge

from £300,000 attracting first-

time buyers, with more period

semis in Esher, Claygate and

Oxshott

Cobham

St George's Hill

Weybridge

Walton-on-Thames

Thames

Ditton

ELMBRIDGE Esher

Claremont Estate Claygate

1 mile

‘There

isn’t a single

Elmbridge

town without

its own

Waitrose’