Is this the most expensive ex-council house in England? Two-bedroom north London home on the market for £1.1million

The house is now Grade II-listed, but is on a development that attracted criticism and protest before it was even built
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A concrete Seventies two-bedroom former council house in north London is on the market for £1.1million.

The house was one of 42 built in 1978 to a design by Gordon Benson and Alan Forsyth in a secluded spot in the heart of Hampstead as part of a controversial scheme derided as “the most expensive council houses in England” when under construction.

Today, however, the homes on the estate, around half of which are still in lived in by council tenants, are Grade II-listed and are popular with buyers on the rare occasions when they come up for sale, thanks to their prime location on a wooded private estate on the edge of Hampstead Heath and their clever modern design.

The semi-detached houses are cut into the hillside and feature smooth white concrete walls and dark-stained joinery, with spiral staircases leading into private courtyards and gardens on the roof of each building.

On the lower level of this house, the two bedrooms, which can be divided by a sliding partition, open on to the south west-facing patio garden through double stable doors.

Upstairs is an L-shaped kitchen and dining area at entrance level, and a bright top floor reception room, which is fully glazed at one end. There is a bespoke pull-down bed for guests in this room and a sliding partition that can separate the bed from the living area.

There is an 111-year lease and a service charge of £2,800 per year.

Branch Hill estate – now known as Spedan Close – was one of Camden council’s flagship low-rise housing estates, built in response to the post-war housing crisis by a staunchly Labour council and its radical in-house architects department.

Camden council purchased an Edwardian mansion and its grounds in 1964 for £464,000 – £8.6 million in today’s money – with plans to turn the house into a care home and the land into council housing.

Problems with contractors, bad foundations and political wranglings caused the project to be delayed by over a decade and costs to mount, until eventually the homes each cost significantly more than equivalent private sector properties.

By the time the first tenants moved in in 1978, the homes were attracting severe criticism from the local press and architecture writers.

“It is financially irresponsible, a slap in the eye to the affluent neighbours whose view has been transformed; it is either a brave or bigoted attempt at social mixing, social justice, giving the underprivileged a share in a privileged sanctuary; it will be another place of pilgrimage to all the starry-eyed students and ex-students still hanging onto their illusions,” said The Architect's Journal in 1979.

The article was correct in one respect at least – architecture students study the scheme to this day.

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