Attfield Close, Whetstone, N20

Attfield Close sits within Oakleigh Green, a 1970s development of around a hundred homes between Oakleigh Road North and Whetstone High Road. This end-of-terrace house stands at the very end of the close, and that position shapes much of what it is like to live here. There is no through traffic, and on a summer evening the sounds you are most likely to hear are a lawnmower or children playing a few gardens away.

The house offers around 1,241 sq ft over three floors. The current owners converted the loft in 2019, with building regulations approval, so they could grow their family and both work from home without moving. They describe it as the best decision they made here, and it is easy to see why.

Mornings happen in the kitchen-diner. With the table and the cooking in one room, breakfast, the dishwasher and the inevitable request for another piece of toast can all be handled at once. The living room is separate, which matters more than it might sound. After school, the children play there, and on a cold winter evening, everyone ends up there. The windows throughout are generously sized, so every room gets plenty of natural light.

The first floor has two bedrooms and a bathroom, including the principal bedroom with room for a desk as well as the bed. The top floor holds two more rooms and a second bathroom, and one of those rooms is currently set up as an office. The owners work up here because it is the quietest part of the house once the children are home, and the view across the rooftops is a welcome thing to look up to between calls. The water pressure holds up well even at the top of the house, so both showers can run at the same time. Anyone who has shared a bathroom on a school morning will understand why that matters.

As an end-of-terrace house, it holds its warmth well and is easy to heat with gas central heating. In summer, the ground floor stays noticeably cooler than it is outside. The house is a comfortable size to run day-to-day: easy to keep clean and tidy, with a proper place for most things.

The south-west-facing garden takes the sun for most of the afternoon and into the evening, and the neighbouring houses cast very little shade. It is not overlooked, and because the house sits at the far end of the rear access path, nobody walks past. This is where the family sits out on warm evenings and where the children play after school. The owners are the first to admit neither of them has green fingers, so a new owner with planting or landscaping ideas will find a good, open space to work with.

An allocated parking space sits directly outside the front door, with room for a second car behind it. Several neighbours already charge electric cars by running a cable out to their space, and with the space this close, it would be simple here too.

The owners chose this part of Whetstone for two reasons: the tube and the sense of community. Totteridge & Whetstone station on the Northern line is around half a mile away, and Oakleigh Park station, with Thameslink services into town, is also close by. Several local state primary schools are nearby, including Queenswell Infant and Sacred Heart Primary School, and buses along the High Road serve the secondary schools. The close sits far enough back that school run traffic does not park on the development.

Four small parks are tucked away around the development itself, and for longer outings there is the Dollis Valley Green Walk, Totteridge Common, Friary Park and Swan Lane Open Space. Weekends often involve a coffee from Oak Cafe and a croissant from the French market, with Carpe Diem, Tootoomoo, and a good choice of other restaurants on the High Road, plus The Griffin or The Orange Tree for a pub lunch or an evening out.

What stands out most, though, is the people. The owners know around half of the families across the development. In the past two months alone, neighbours have cat-sat for one another, carried heavy furniture for a neighbour who could not manage it, done the shopping for someone unable to get out, and lent the missing ingredient for a recipe. There is nearly always someone familiar out walking a dog, pushing a buggy or heading home, ready to stop and say hello.