Mayfair, £27.5 million

Lurot Brand’s James Robinson has identified a group of Londoners he calls ‘mewsophiles’. ‘People collect them,’ he laughs. ‘Families that move to the country from London because they’ve got kids and want horses inevitably want to keep something in town. You can just lock up and leave a mews house.’

Despite considerable uptake by developers, basement building is infra dig in the mews community. John Rushton has lived in Bathurst Mews, near Paddington, for 40 years and there are currently eight basements being dug on this 80-house mews. They’re unpopular, ‘not least because of the huge trucks delivering building materials all the time and ripping BT wires off the walls’.

Mr Rushton believes the street is ‘more international now, with younger couples—those who aspire to senior management in the City. As soon as they have children, they disappear. When I first moved here, the residents were British and people had proper jobs’.

The one thing that hasn’t changed on Bathurst Mews is its equine Knight Frank (020–7647 6608) Elegant but large, this property on Balfour Mews has eight bedrooms, a west-facing courtyard garden and an adjoining mews house with garaged parking for two cars