BARKING is within sight of the Gherkin, with the cheapest property in London, making it popular Bedat & Co. Replica with first-time buyers on a shoe-string budget.
Barking and its neighbour, Dagenham, have an industrial past. Head east out of the capital, past Canary Wharf, and you are confronted by a forbidding landscape of derelict factories, power stations and refineries, many clinging to the banks of the Thames. This is the raw end of the Thames Gateway.
But being so close to London's centre, regeneration is bound to, and indeed is, flowering -- especially in Barking, which is on the District line (in Zone 4) and has 20-minute rail services to Fenchurch Street in the City.
The town centre is getting a facelift and a giant 10,800-home district is being built on the riverbank. New homes are coming to Barking's leafier suburban fringe, too. A few bullish locals are even calling Barking the "next Stratford" -- audacious, perhaps, but proof that something is in the air.
Mayesbrook Manor, set back from the road, with black and gold glossy posh railings is a handsome Art Deco former college. Originally a technical school, then part of University of East London, it is being turned into 106 apartments. The building is the centrepiece and the only retained element of a much bigger development called The Academy, which will eventually have more than 800 newly built homes.
With its grand gated entrance and driveway, robust brick facade with clocktower and decorative stone motifs, the building provides a sense of arrival, which is carried through to the central reception lobby, a marbled hall with stone columns and Art Deco paintings. Wide communal corridors continue through the building.
Bulgari WatchIt has set tongues wagging locally. It looks impressive and expensive but the refurbishment proves that buying an affordable home does not have to involve making a compromise. Apartments have high spec, high ceilings and are bigger than average -- ranging from 525sq ft to 2,200sq ft, with a typical two-bedroom flat close to 1,000sq ft. Internal finishes include stone-effect walls in bathrooms, extra large shower trays, laminated timber floors and fitted wardrobes. Buyers can choose from some expensive interior finishes -- either oak, cherry or walnut for doors, architraves and skirtings plus there are tile and colour options.
Two elongated "wings" flank each side of the main entrance. The building has been gutted, windows replaced and apartments are being created in the old classrooms, assembly hall and lecture theatre. The largest apartment extends into the roof space of the building, incorporates four terraces and has a private lift, and is still under Pounds 325,000.
Prices start at Pounds 139,995 and rise to Pounds 325,000. Show flats are open for viewing.
Call Weston Homes on 0845 638 5013. Completions are due between winter 2010 and spring 2011, though construction at The Academy site surrounding Mayesbrook Manor will be ongoing for several years.
The scheme backs onto a park and it is a short bus ride along Longbridge Road, a pleasant-enough avenue-like road, to Barking town centre, where improvements are also under way.
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ADDING SOME FIZZ
Barking Central is a colourful and contemporary showpiece development forming part of a new town hall square. The main building has a colonnaded entrance and 200-plus flats above a library, gallery spac
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