Complete with period features - so complete that a modern, functional kitchen might be a buyer's first move - and with scope for renovation yet with a new roof and well-kept exterior, it is large, elegant but with a manageable garden. Europale are marketing the house for £220,000.Bruno Lemaire, who runs the Europale agency, is confident that the delights of his home town are already starting to become more widely known and says that business is brisk. "We have a number of good properties and there is certainly a lot of positive reaction. More British buyers do seem to be taking an interest in St Omer, particularly because it is so easy to reach the English south coast. If people take that turn off the road, they will see there is much here to admire.". Located where the A316 segues into the M3, Sunbury is sandwiched between pricey neighbours such as Twickenham and Teddington on one side, and more modest communities such as Hanworth and Feltham on the other. A similarly sharp socio-economic divide characterises Sunbury itself.
The train station is in the shadow of the motorway in the more congested and downmarket part of town known variously as Sunbury Common and Upper Sunbury. To the south is Lower Sunbury, with its larger houses, numerous green spaces and, at its border, a large park alongside the Thames. First-timer buyers go for Sunbury Common, primarily for its affordability, and, later, aspire to prettier, posher Lower Sunbury. Although Sunbarie is mentioned in the 11th-century Domesday Book, and despite it having Victorian and even older homes, most properties were built during different periods in the 20th century. An array of purpose-built apartment blocks and starter homes cater for first-timers and young families, and older, larger houses occupy the higher rungs of the ladder.Phillipa Tutt is a Sunbury native: "I lived here for eight years as a child, moved away with my family for 10, and then returned when I was about 20 and engaged to be married." Tutt and her husband, Gordon, a computer systems analyst with British Airways, are still in the Upper Sunbury house they bought 32 years ago, now sharing it with one of their two grown daughters and a grandchild.Tutt admits to occasional bouts of restlessness "Over the years, I've been tempted to move.
Sunbury used to be a quiet backwater, and now it is busy, bustling, noisy. But Gordon works at Heathrow, and he doesn't want to drive too far to get to work." Retirement, however, will remove the commute factor "At heart I'm a country person When we retire, I want something quieter. We will probably move a lot further out."Tutt is conscious of being part of a vanishing breed. "The houses in our part of Upper Sunbury were built after the war, and during the last 10 to 15 years, the last of our group who moved in here when we did have died or moved away," she explains.