Would you want to live here?

This is The Stone House. It was built in the late 18th century, and was reputedly made from stones from the old London Bridge (not the one Arizona bought thinking it was Tower Bridge, but the older one that survived the Great Fire of London).

My parents lived two doors away from it for more than 20 years (ten of which I lived with them) and we none of us ever set foot even inside the front drive. My aunt went in a couple of times, but the old couple who lived there were very nervous of visitors, having been burgled and tied up on at least two occasions.

You can't see the enormous and well-tended garden behind it (we could see it from the kitchen window) or the huge wall running along the front of it. Nor is there any sense of the horrendously busy road that runs past that wall, and the local college building across that road.

Then there are the three Tudor houses near Eltham Palace. They are on a narrow, quiet road, with a public footpath path running along the side of the end one.

The selection of burglar alarm boxes shows that the inhabitants of this house have to be very security conscious. In addition to the gate you see here, there is one part-way along the garden to give the inhabitants of the other two houses external access to their gardens.

There are visitors to the Palace passing the side and front of this house several days a week for most of the year. But at least the car park is now nowhere near this little street (called Tilt Yard, the place where the jousting tournaments and practices would have taken place in Henry VIII's time).

Despite all these negative factors, I'd live in either one of them. If I could afford it!