Downshire darling: a £5.75 million Hampstead hillside home on a particularly historic street

Downshire Hill is on the market with Chestertons at a guide price of �5.75M (Image: goldlens.co.uk)

Downshire Hill has quite a history of past residents. The ghosts of famous faces haunt the street with eerie nostalgia for the place they once called home. The poetic heart of Dante Gabriel Rossetti wanders wistfully up the pavement, his heart singing romantic tales of folklore from medieval loves of days past. Listen closely and you’ll hear the lingering notes of the theme to I, Claudius, Swallows and Amazons and Cider With Rosie, playing out from the piano keys of composer Wilfred Josephs.

Here, there be pioneers. The spirit of X-ray innovator and molecular biologist come physicist John Desmond Bernal lives on at number 35. Until Andy Murray pipped him to the post of reaching the final of the gentlemen’s singles at Wimbledon in 2012, resident Henry Wilfred ‘Bunny’ Austin was the only Briton to do so for 74 years. Creator of The Muppets Jim Henson and actress Flora Robson also made Downshire Hill their creative home.

Downshire Hill has many famous ex-residents including the creator of The Muppetts, Jim Henson (Image: goldlens.co.uk)

Now Downshire Hill has a vacancy; and you could fill it. A five bedroom Grade II listed house is on the market on the famous street address which runs on from Rosslyn Hill. The rare home is set back and has both an immaculate front and well maintained rear garden. The period home has three bathrooms and four reception rooms.

Located in leafy Hampstead, the house boasts stunning views from many of its windows, especially from the dressing room of the self-contained master suite which also has both a dressing room and balcony. The first floor Italian-style balcony offers charming views of St John’s Church.

Downshire Hill can also be rented for �3,250 per week (Image: goldlens.co.uk)

Inside, the kitchen has been recently refurbished and leads out onto a patio at the rear, whilst the reception areas benefit from furnished wood floors and period features such as high ceilings, fireplaces and large bay windows.

Like something so sublime it could have lined the pavements of Pleasantville, Downshire Hill feels like a Venetian townhouse set amongst the trivialities of an English country village. It’s as if you’d walk out of the front door and into a Midsomer Murders-esque picture-perfect village fayre on the square. Surrounded by tranquillity amongst the leafy enclaves of what was once a quiet Victorian hamlet, it’s no wonder Rossetti was such a romantic.

The property on Downshire Hill is on the market freehold for sale at £5.75 million, or rental at £3,250 a week with Chestertons