Living in Twickenham

Twickenham is best known as the home of English rugby. Twickenham Stadium, one of the largest stadiums in Britain, hosts England internationals and major events, and on match days the town fills with tens of thousands of fans, busy pubs, road closures and crowded trains. On other days, Twickenham is a quiet riverside town.

The Thames is its most attractive feature. Church Street, a narrow lane of independent shops and restaurants near the river, leads down to the riverside, where Eel Pie Island, a small island once famous for its 1960s music club, is home to artists' studios and boatyards reached by a footbridge. Marble Hill House and Park, York House Gardens and Radnor Gardens line the river, and Strawberry Hill House, Horace Walpole's eighteenth-century Gothic villa, is a short walk south.

Housing includes Victorian and Edwardian terraces, interwar semi-detached houses, riverside homes and newer flats, generally offering more space for the money than neighbouring Richmond. The area is popular with families, commuters and staff and students at St Mary's University. Local schools and parks make it family-friendly.

Twickenham's trains run via Richmond and Clapham Junction into Waterloo, taking around twenty-five to thirty minutes to Waterloo. There is no tube, and the District line and Overground are reached by changing at Richmond. Journeys to east London, the City and Canary Wharf are long. Heathrow's flight paths affect parts of the area. Twickenham suits families and people who want a riverside town with good schools and value compared with Richmond, and whose work is in central or south-west London rather than the east.