London is ringed with golf courses offering calm, green acres, but few courses can boast such an impressive architectural legacy as Sundridge Park in the Bromley suburbs.
Here you will find a splendid listed John Nash mansion amid grounds laid out by Humphry Repton, the eminent 19th century landscape designer. Edward VII and Napoleon III attended shooting parties at the estate before a private golf course was cut out of the valley. The mansion later became a successful hotel and conference centre, while a crescent-shaped stable block has been converted into homes.
Now, a Sixties-built lecture hall and accommodation block tucked away on the site has been bulldozed to make way for 24 apartments, 14 townhouses and a pair of mansions, all Georgian-style architecture, set in meticulously landscaped gardens. The homes are reached through the main golf course entrance, with its guarded lodge house, and via a half-mile-long road running beside the course. Prices start at £695,000 and rise to more than £3 million. Call Savills on 01689 869630.
Sundridge Park, the place, is less impressive, but the local railway station provides 30-minute trains to the City and central London, 10 miles away, while Canary Wharf is a convenient hop in the car for early-rising bankers.
