Looking for a shorter working day? With Billericay Railway Station just a 10-minute walk away via the footpath at the top of the road, and London Liverpool Street Station around 35 minutes by train, this three-bedroom semi-detached house could be just the ticket for the London commuter.
Gordon Close is something of a hidden gem a peaceful little spot, yet wonderfully convenient for everyday life. Sainsbury's Local is just a 3 4 minute stroll away, while 'The Inn on the Green' is even closer at around two minutes on foot. Lake Meadows Park, with its lake, café, tennis courts and extensive open spaces, is also only around six minutes away.
Queens Park Shopping Centre, with its newly opened Aldi, is approximately a 10-minute walk or two-minute drive, while Billericay High Street is around 0.7 mile away - roughly 15 minutes on foot - offering a great mix of independent and well-known shops, cafés, restaurants and Waitrose.
Inside, the accommodation offers three genuinely good-sized bedrooms, the two original reception rooms and a particularly useful rear extension creating a 15ft x 10ft Dining Room (4.7m x 3m), together with a surprisingly spacious 13ft x 10ft Loft Room (4m x 3.15m).
Plus there's the Hall with adjacent ground floor loo, 'Whie Oak' effect kitchen, and the Bathroom.
There is certainly scope to modernise, with the existing galley kitchen and adjoining reception space offering an obvious opportunity to create a much larger contemporary Kitchen/Diner.
Outside, the approximately 73ft garden (22.25m) adds another string to its bow, with two substantial powered outbuildings offering exciting potential for a home office, studio, gym, workshop, garden room or hobbies space.
In short, this is a home with plenty of scope to put your own stamp on it and some surprisingly useful space already waiting to be unlocked.
The Accommodation in more detail:
HALL
A welcoming entrance with a very handy cupboard and plenty of space for coats and shoes, together with a door leading through to the ground floor WC and another on to the lounge.
GROUND FLOOR WC 7ft 2' x 2ft 2' (2.18m x 0.66m)
Fitted with a two-piece 'cloakroom' suite and a small window providing natural light.
LOUNGE 17ft 7' maximum x 13ft 5' (5.36m x 4.09m)
A particularly generous main reception room with a wide front-facing window maximising natural light, together with a feature exposed-brick open fireplace.
A broad 6ft wide (1.83m) archway leads through to the family room.
FAMILY ROOM 11ft 1' x 10ft (3.38m x 3.05m)
Formerly the dining room, this is now a versatile central reception space with a doorway through to the kitchen and a further, almost 6ft (1.83m) wide archway leading through to the impressive rear extension.
DINING ROOM 15ft 4' x 10ft (4.67m x 3.05m)
A really good-sized rear extension with its own loft above. The room is particularly well lit thanks to the rear-facing window and a set of fully glazed French doors opening directly onto the garden.
KITCHEN 11ft 1' x 7ft 4' (3.38m x 2.24m)
Currently arranged as a galley-style kitchen with white oak-effect units, two windows providing plenty of natural light, a built-in double oven and grill, and space for a washing machine and under-counter fridge and freezer.
The adjoining family room provides an obvious opportunity for someone to create a much larger contemporary kitchen/dining space.
Stairs from Hall to 1st Floor Landing
FIRST FLOOR LANDING 8ft 6' x 6ft 5' maximum (2.59m x 1.96m)
A surprisingly spacious landing with a side-facing window bringing in plenty of natural light.
A pull-down loft hatch with ladder provides easy access to the converted loft room.
LOFT SPACE 13ft 4' x 10ft 4' (4.06m x 3.15m)
A very pleasant surprise!
Essentially a proper little room, albeit without windows and a low ceiling (6ft 6' -1.98m) , but with lighting, power and full boarding throughout.
Looking at the panelling we suspect it probably dates back to the early 1970s and with some imagination, it could make a really useful day-time access home office, hobbies room or occasional guest space, and we have seen similar rooms fitted with sturdy folding wooden ladders to make the access even easier.
MASTER BEDROOM 11ft 2' x 10ft 10' (3.40m x 3.30m)
A lovely-sized rear double bedroom with full-height fitted storage running along one wall, providing excellent built-in storage.
BEDROOM TWO 11ft 6' x 8ft (3.51m x 2.44m)
Another excellent-sized double bedroom, with the measurements excluding the door recess.
The Potterton 'Gold Combi HE' Boiler is installed in a corner cupboard.
BEDROOM THREE 9ft 3' x 8ft 5' (2.82m x 2.57m)
A very good size third bedroom which, despite being the smallest, is still a proper double room!
BATHROOM 6ft 3' x 5ft 5' (1.91m x 1.65m)
Fitted with a modern bathroom suite incorporating a bath with Triton T80 electric shower over.
A sizeable rear-facing window provides plenty of natural light.
GARDEN 73ft (22.25m)
A notably good-sized rear garden offering a mixture of entertaining space, parking and useful outbuildings.
Immediately to the rear of the house is a herringbone-design block-paved patio, leading onto a large crazy-paved area which has been designed for dual use as an additional patio and parking area. Beyond this is a shingled area currently housing a polytunnel, which will be removed.
On the back wall of the house an external double power socket and under-soffit lighting are useful practical additions.
At the far end of the garden are two substantial outbuildings positioned at right angles to one another. Although currently separate, there is scope for them to be opened up to create one particularly impressive space.
SHED ONE 14ft x 8ft (4.27m x 2.44m)
Much more than your average garden shed!
This substantial timber-framed building has a proper flat roof and thus we thought it could potentially be insulated between the roof joists and wall uprights, then lined and finished to create an excellent home office, studio, gym or hobbies room. There is already lighting and power, together with plenty of natural light from twin windows and a part-glazed stable door.
SHED TWO 16ft x 8ft 9' maximum narrowing to 6ft (4.88m x 2.67m > 1.83m)
A substantial workshop/store with lighting and power already connected, including a garage-style consumer unit mounted high on the wall.
Together with Shed One, this provides an unusually versatile amount of additional space at the end of the garden.
Council Tax
Basildon Council, Band D
Notice
Please note we have not tested any apparatus, fixtures, fittings, or services. Interested parties must undertake their own investigation into the working order of these items. All measurements are approximate and photographs provided for guidance only.
Billericay is a popular, historic market town just 30 miles from London.
The market at the top of Crown Road disappeared years ago and Billericay nowadays is more well-known as an excellent commuter town, with excellent rail links to the City (35 minutes by train), very good schools and a charming High Street, part of which is a conservation area.
It also has great access to the key main roads of the M25, A12 and A127.
The town lies on the edge of rural Essex, which makes it a very desirable place to live. This coupled with the City access goes some way to explain the high levels of Londoners we see looking to move here every year.
Since I moved here in 1973 and started as an estate agent in the mid 1990's, I have seen the town grow to where it is now, with some 14,000-15,000 homes and a population of over 40,000.
The Billericay you see today is economically and physically a thriving and attractive place to live and work. There are many open green spaces including the 40 acre Lake Meadows Park, a must in summer, and they throw a pretty impressive Fireworks Night too.
Norsey Woods is a great place for a walk or to exercise your dogs...or the kids! It dates back to the Bronze Age and covers about 165 acres with a visitor centre for the educational visits it has too.
I remember camping there as a cub scout back in the day and both Nick and myself have enjoyed many a afternoon there over the years with our families.
The High Street must be one of the prettiest in the county and dates back to Roman times. The shape we see now certainly hasn't changed much for over 500 years, our office itself is part of one of the 25 old coaching inns the town has seen over the years!
With well over 100 shops including some well known names and some boutique locally owned ones, the High Street also has some great pubs, bars and restaurants. The Chequers is probably the most popular, most people we know rate it as the best pub in town, with newer bars like Harrys Bar, Bar Zero and the Blue Boar, also very sought after, growing venues on friday and saturday nights.
There are too many great restaurants to name, suffice to say you don't need to travel out of Billericay to have a fantastic night out and there's a taxi rank by the station to get you home if you want to leave the car on the drive.
Waitrose is our local main supermarket with there also a very good Co-op over on Queens Park. Smaller supermarkets over in South Green, Sunnymede and along Stock Road also provide a super local service in their areas.
Billericay Christmas Market is a very popular annual event which sees the High Street completely shut to traffic for the day and then filled with stalls selling anything and everything Christmasy!
All the local schools, both Primary and Secondary have good OFSTED reports and there is a good choice of both State and Private. Please feel free to contact our office for more details although the OFSTED website is the ideal first port of call of course.
A BIT OF HISTORY
Billericay has an facinating history, much of which can be researched in our local museum, the Cater Museum on the High Street.
Billericay was first recorded as Byllerica in 1291 with notable events including a Peasants Revolt ending up in Norsey Woods in 1381 and some of Billericay residents, including Christopher Martin, the ship's victualler, sailing with the Pilgrim Fathers to the 'New World' of America on the Mayflower in 1620 - hence the many representartions of the Mayflower ship in numerous local businesses and the Mayflower High School.
In 1916 Billericay became famous as a result of a Zeppelin airship crashing in flames on the outskirts of the town, down what is now Greens Farm Lane.
A union workhouse was built in 1840 which later, together with additional later built buildings, became St. Andrew's Hospital in the 1930s. The regional plastic surgery and rehabilitation unit was opened here the same year I moved to Billericay, 1973. Many a local will still refer the estate there now to me, as 'one of the houses on the old Burns Unit', although it is in fact Stockfield Manor now.
Only the original workhouse building, including the chapel, and the main gatehouse, now survive, converted now into Grey Lady Place, a residential development of luxury apartments.
The railway came in 1889 and opened up opportunities for landowners to sell plots to Londoners looking to move out of 'The Smoke' into a cleaner rural environment. Both myself and Nick have sold many an old 'plot land' home over the years for redevelopment. A few still remain on the edge of Norsey Woods down Break Egg Hill.
With the housing shortage created by the war time bombing of London, pressure to build was great and the new town of Basildon was given the green light. The 'Green Belt' stopped expansion and the blurring of Basildon and Billericay, hence why lot of the Billericay housing estates were built on abandoned farmland around the town centre and Great Burstead/South Green, where permission was more easily granted.
