BARKER’S RETREAT
Linda Barker rose to fame during the 1990s when interior design shows like Changing Rooms were prime time TV, making stars of both her and Carol Smillie, Handy Andy and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.
Yorkshire-born Barker is still at it today and makes regular appearances on ITV’s 60 Minute Makeover programme. She has also appeared on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! reality TV show and three years ago competed in the Splash! celebrity diving competition.
For many years now she’s owned two properties – her main home in London and a second property in Yorkshire, which she has now decided to sell.
New homes developments overlooking rivers or canals in city centres are ten-a-penny these days.
A good example of this trend is to be found in Bath, where £600m is being spent transforming a 40-acre parcel of waterside land within its central postcodes into just such a neighbourhood, to be called, you may have guessed, Bath Riverside.
Two of the key buildings on the site are the Royal View and Sovereign Point apartment blocks, both of which overlook the Avon River and have a royal connection. They are built from a local material called Stoke Ground Bath Stone, a very light limestone
Her Yorkshire house is a Victorian property with four bedrooms and three reception rooms which, as you might expect, has been given a thorough going-over by Linda, right, inside. This includes two unusual hanging glass chandeliers in the kitchen, recycled period furniture throughout and a purple theme.
“From the moment you set foot in this house, it is quite apparent that someone with an eye for design has put their stamp on it,” says Ben Pridden of selling agent Savills, York. “Linda and her husband have worked hard to create a beautiful, well thought out home.”
■ Stadbroke Villa, in the village of Ellerton and which Linda has been renting out to holiday makers, is for sale at £475,000 with Savills (01904 617800).
build both Buckingham Palace and St George’s Chapel in Windsor.
Stoke Ground Bath Stone was also used to build Prince Charles’s Cotswolds home, Highgrove House, and to help restore Windsor Castle after its disastrous fire in 1992.
Anyone who likes the honeyed hue these famous buildings sport can buy a little bit of their own royal stone.
Prices at the latest phase of Bath Riverside, which is being built by developer Crest Nicholson, start at £595,000 for a standard two-bedroom apartment and rise to £1.25m for one of the penthouses.
■ More information from crestnicholson.com or call 01225 463517.