From the outside, this Victorian terraced house in Islington appears to be a shop — complete with a vintage hand-painted sign above the door.
Barnsbury Stores on Hemingford Road still has all the setup from its previous incarnation as a purveyor of wine, beers, and spirits, but it hides a secret entrance.
To enter the home, you walk through the wooden door and past the built-in shop counter and shelves to reach a spacious five-bedroom house.
On the market for £1.8 million with Drivers & Norris, the four-storey home includes a private back garden.
Below the house is an extensive basement with multiple storage rooms, along with a separate bedroom and bathroom and access to the garden.
The shop is on the ground floor, with a dining room and kitchen to the rear. The building is a period property dating from the Victorian era, and includes original features such as a cast iron fireplace.
Upstairs there is a living room and the principal bedroom, which has a balcony leading down to the courtyard garden. There are three more bedrooms on the second floor.
"The buildings is thought to offer an opportunity for development and modernisation opportunity, subject to the necessary consents," said the agents.
Planning documents from 2020 suggest the current owners have lived at the property for over 30 years, running the shop until they decided to close in 2018 after it no longer became commercially viable, citing Brexit as one of the reasons.
The house is in the Barnsbury Conservation Area, which has been protected due to its high concentration of late Georgian and early Victorian homes, and the shopfront has been identified as a structure to be retained to preserve the character of the street.
The property on Hemingford Road is registered as a mixed use residential and retail building, and buyers would need to note that converting a shop into residential use is trickier in a conservation area.
Fully converting a shop into a residence in Islington may require a contribution to the council's affordable housing fund, but this is decided on a case-by-case basis.
It does have the benefit of being sold freehold, so the buyer would own the land it's built on outright — so no need to fret about the years left on the lease.
For inspiration, this former shop in Shoreditch once run by artists Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas was converted into a four bedroom home by its current owner, who has just put it on the market for £1.5 million.
