Surrey Homes | SH24 | October 2016 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

1 Sondes Place Drive Dorking, Surrey
HOUSE OF THE MONTH by John Graham-Hart
1.
Get ahead, Get a shed
John Graham-Hart celebrates the small wooden hut
which holds such a special place in the British heart
As 11,000 athletes from more than 200 nations battled for glory beneath
the appreciative gaze of Rio’s Christ the Redeemer this summer,
another equally intense contest was reaching its climax under the
beady and critical eyes of an army of gnomes at the bottom of suburban gardens
all over the UK.
Cuprinol’s annual Shed of the Year competition had attracted a record-breaking
2,800 entries and the most magnificent 32 had made it onto the shortlist.
Themes ranged from nuclear bunkers to Viking boltholes, duck hotels to
Hobbit hideouts, crocodile homes to Hans Solo’s Millennium Falcon. The
excitement of sheddies throughout the country was making the Brazilian home
football crowds look positively apathetic.
The shed is a peculiarly and pleasingly British obsession. It began as a little
workshop where a man might tie flies or tinker with small unidentifiable pieces of
metal which he would one day unveil in triumph as a single, larger, unidentifiable
piece of metal. It was in short, somewhere to which he could escape for an hour
or two and slip his mind comfortably and comfortingly into neutral.
Sheds varied in size and shape but tended to share this essential
purposelessness. Today, however, they have evolved into valuable additional
family spaces - offices, summerhouses, gyms, studios, playhouses or, of course,
just somewhere downright weird.
There are regulations governing sheds and their placement but, generally,
planning permission isn’t required so you can build pretty well what you want.
However, whatever its guise, a shed rarely adds significant value to the
sale price of a house but it can be an attractive extra – which means all these
properties come with a useful little freebee…
1. Sondes Place Drive
Where? No. 1 Sondes Place Drive is
located in a popular no through road on the
western side of Dorking and within level
walking distance of the town centre. (Google
Maps RH4 3ED).
Where? An attractive detached
family house built during the 1930s and
offering well-proportioned and spacious
accommodation, the property has recently
been modernised to a high standard. On the
ground floor is a triple‐aspect drawing room
with French doors to the garden, dining
room, study a re-fitted kitchen and large
breakfast room.
On the first floor, there are five bedrooms,
one with en suite bathroom, and separate
family bath/shower room. The gardens
are a particularly fine feature of the
property consisting of well tended lawns,
established shrubs, flower beds and borders
and a cleverly placed decking area and a
summerhouse which sits on top an old
wartime air raid shelter.
How much? No. 1 Sondes Place Drive
is priced at £1,195,000 and is with Jackson-
Stops in Dorking. Call 01306 887560 or
visit jackson-stops.co.uk
wealdentimes.co.uk
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