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These days, house buyers are searching for properties with pretty patios, walk-in wardrobes, double kitchen sinks and the perfect spot to put their houseplant baby. But how about a blue plaque? Adds something different to the list.
There are 978 azure circles littered across London town commemorating creative, innovative and downright cool people. One of those is Victorian poet and novelist Thomas Hardy; renowned for bashing out some of the greats, with poems such as ‘The Darkling Thrush’ and novels like ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’, ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ and ‘Jude the Obscure’.
Now, the Wandsworth flat that Hardy (not to be confused with ‘Peaky Blinders’ hardman-heartthrob Tom Hardy) lived in is up for sale. He lived there in the nineteenth century, but the house has been brought into the twenty-first by the current owners with a full refurbishment and a few slaps of paint.
Properties like this are appearing on the market after the pandemic kept people at home and out of the office, encouraging some to seek rural abodes and abandon their city digs. But this trend was common too amongst Victorian creatives who made their money in their city before settling comfortably in the country – the original trendsetters. Hardy moved back west to Dorset but commuted by horse and carriage back to London in the summer.
The author moved to this gaff on Trinity Road in 1878 four years after ‘…Madding Crowd’ sent him soaring and gave him the financial freedom to marry his star-crossed lover, Emma.
The three-bed flat is a stone’s throw from Wandsworth Common – your own little slice of the countryside – and, if you have the cash to spare and fancy a bid (the guide price is just under a cool million quid), you should know the locale is full of brilliant brunch spots and intriguing indie shops. It’s also very well connected with quick transport links into central London.
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