Caroline Gardens, Asylum Road, Peckham, SE15

A very rare purchase opportunity! A totally charming almshouse within Caroline Gardens Conservation Area (Grade II listed), famed for its utterly beautiful Chapel (now a licensed wedding venue and film/TV location), which largely-survived a WWII bomb. Chain free.

Established in phases 1826-1866, and designed by architect Henry Rose, this is London’s largest complex of almshouses originally known as the Licensed Victuallers’ Benevolent Institution Asylum (LVBI), providing charitable housing (in this case, a sanctuary for retired pub landlords). Almshouses offered impoverished Georgian and Victorian elders the only alternative to destitution or the workhouse.

The scale, form, architecture and materials of the Conservation Area are consistent. The modest scale and simple architectural treatment of the two storey houses is elevated to a grand composition through the careful creation of palace-fronted facades providing a generous scale. The site (which was acquired by Southwark Council in 1960) was considered exceptionally large, with early architectural historian Nicolaus Pevsner labeling the six-acre complex as “the only grand composition among the many almshouses of Camberwell.”

The location is strong and the anticipated Bakerloo line extension will see you even better-connected. For now, you can walk just eight minutes to Queens Road Peckham Station for regular and Overground services, or jump on a bus from Old Kent Road (your closest bus stop is just a few minutes away).

You share a main front door and entrance lobby with one neighbouring almshouse. Your front door is to your right. You open directly into your sash-windowed reception room, which is over 13 feet by nearly 11 feet. On through here and you have a cute kitchen and beyond this a lean-to/storage area with a (brick-built) downstairs w.c. A back door here opens to a small back yard.

Upstairs you have your double bedroom above the reception, with a built-in closet to one corner. From here is a little lobby space then your bathroom, with white suite.

This is a very well-connected spot indeed, with buses running day and night up to Elephant and Castle and Bermondsey from Old Kent Road, nearby, and with fast and frequent trains just an eight minute walk away at Queens Road Peckham Station (Zone 2 and on the Overground network). Just a couple of stops has you at London Bridge.

Newer highlights in the area are AMP Studios (for events, pop-up vintage markets and such) and OKR Sauna and Bermondsey Community Sauna.

The patch around QRP Station is attracting more and more cool businesses. We particularly rate Connie’s Pizzeria, Peckham Cellars, Mamma Dough, Beer Rebellion and Blackbird Bakery. The Meeting House (cafe through to bar) is getting good reviews too, on nearby Meeting House Lane.

For more options, walk/bus/bike to trendy spots on Bellenden Road and Rye Lane. And Camberwell, Dulwich, New Cross, Deptford, Bermondsey and Borough are also easily reached.

Green spaces locally include Brimmington Park with active ‘Friends of’ group, and Burgess Park. The latter has a great parkrun each Saturday at 9am.