Five gorgeous developments that give a new lease of life to centuries-old landmarks

(Image credit: Knight Frank)

published 24 April 2018

Bristol, from £325,000 – Redcliffe Parade

A pleasingly multi-coloured Bristol landmark has been converted into individually-designed one- and two-bedroom flats. Redcliffe Parade West is the much-loved Georgian terrace that overlooks the Floating Harbour.

The façade of the townhouses has been retained, along with many original features, which complement handmade Neptune kitchens and integrated Neff appliances.

The Redcliffe Parade apartments are for sale via Knight Frank and Ocean Homes, starting at £325,000 – the listing for this one-bed has more details and pictures, while here is a listing for a £460,000 two-bed equivalent.

Central London, from £4.35m – Oceanic House

At the north-west corner of Trafalgar Square, WC2, is beautiful, Grade II-listed Oceanic House – the former London headquarters of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, more commonly known as the ticket office for the White Star Line of Titanic fame. You’ve probably walked past it a hundred times and not realised that it was in this very building’s boardroom that company chairman Bruce Ismay famously boasted of his ‘unsinkable’ ship.

Over the years, the landmark building has seen much better luck than the ship it’s associated with and has now been given a new lease of life, as an exclusive development of six luxury residences and a two-storey penthouse. As part of the transformation, the uppermost façade of the building, removed in the 1960s, has been reinstated.

The six two- and three-bedroom residences, which vary between 1,679 sq ft and 5,447 sq ft and of which five are available, start at £4.35 million via agents Strutt & Parker.

This two-bed flat comes in at £5.75m, while here’s a three-bedroom at £12m.

The four-bedroom penthouse, with interiors by Morpheus London, is a cool £19.5 million. You can see pictures of that one here:

Southwark, £3.5m – A former bear pit frequented by Samuel Pepys

Mere heckling distance from Shakespeare’s Globe, huge care has gone into creating a contemporary living space with historic character at Grade II-listed Pepys House – a former bear pit on London's South Bank, once frequented by the great diarist himself.

With high, vaulted ceilings exposing the original timber trusses, triple-aspect arched windows and plenty of open space, this four-bedroom maisonette is bathed in natural light.

Pepys House is on the market with Jackson-Stops at £3.5 million – see more details here.

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Annunciata grew up in the wilds of Lancashire and now lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and an awful pug called Parsley. She’s been floating round the Country Life office for more than a decade, her work winning the Property Magazine of the Year Award in 2022 (Property Press Awards). Before that, she had a two-year stint writing ‘all kinds of fiction’ for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, worked in internal comms for Country Life’s publisher (which has had many names in recent years but was then called IPC Media), and spent another year researching for a historical biographer, whose then primary focus was Graham Greene and John Henry Newman and whose filing system was a collection of wardrobes and chests of drawers filled with torn scraps of paper. During this time, she regularly gave tours of 17th-century Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, which may or may not have been designed by Inigo Jones, and co-founded a literary, art and music festival, at which Johnny Flynn headlined. When not writing and editing for Country Life, Annunciata is also a director of TIN MAN ART, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by her husband, James Elwes.