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, my Warrington Property Market Blog reading friends!
The History of the Terraced House
In architectural
terms, a terraced house or townhouse is a style in use since the late
1600s 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. Interestingly, it was the French that
invented the terraced house around 1610-15, but it was the 1730s in the UK,
that the terraced/townhouse came into its own in London – and of course in Bath
with the impressive Royal Crescent.
However, we are in Warrington, not Bath, so the majority of our
Warrington terraced houses 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. An interesting fact is that the majority of
Victorian Warrington terraced houses are based on a standard design:
·
a ‘posh’ front room
·
a back room where the
family lived day to day
·
a scullery off the back
room
·
off the scullery, a door to
a rear yard
·
upstairs, 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, and its own
outside toilet and rear access to allow the toilet waste to be collected – they
didn’t have public sewers in those days in Warrington. At least, not where
these ‘workers’ terraced houses were built.
It was
the 1960s and 70s where inside toilets and bathrooms were installed, often in
that third bedroom or an extension off the scullery. Gas central heating was
added in the 1980s and replacement UPVC double glazing ever since.
Looking
at the makeup of all the properties in Warrington, some very interesting
numbers appear.
Of the 283,660 properties
in Warrington:
·
68,525 are detached properties (24.16%)
·
108,182 are semi-detached properties (38.14%)
·
85,754 are terraced/townhouse properties (30.23%)
·
21,199 are apartments/flats (7.47%)
And, quite noteworthy, there are 798
mobile homes which represent 0.28% of all property in Warrington.
House Prices in Warrington
When it
comes to values, the average price paid for a Warrington terraced house in 1995
was £24,810 and the latest set of figures released by the land Registry states
that today that figure stands at £114,390. That’s a rise of 130%. Not bad when you consider apartments in Warrington in the same time
frame have only risen by 93%.
But then
a lot of buy to let landlords and first time buyers I speak to think the
Victorian terraced house is expensive to maintain. I recently read a
report from English Heritage that stated maintaining a typical Victorian
terraced house over thirty years is around sixty percent cheaper than building
and maintaining a modern house – quite fascinating, don’t you think?
Don’t dismiss the humble terraced house – especially in
Warrington! For more thoughts on the Warrington Property Market – visit
the Warrington
Property Market Blog. www.warringtonpropertyblog.co.uk
As always, if you are an investor in the Warrington property market and would like a second opinion on a property you have seen then send the URL of the properties you have seen online over to me or you would like to pop in and have a chat, then you can either email me on manoj@hamletwarrington.co.uk or call on 01925 235 338. Our address is 6 Bankside, Crosfield Street (opposite Iceland and Aldi – so plenty of parking available). The kettle is always on and we will even pull out the posh biscuits!
Don't forget to visit the links below to view back
dated deals and Warrington Property News.
Twitter, https://twitter.com/HHWarrington
Website, http://www.hamlethomeswarrington.co.uk/
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