Greenway

Upstairs, three bedrooms are arranged around the landing. The principal bedroom overlooks the garden and retains exposed timber floorboards and its original fireplace. The second double bedroom faces the front and has another surviving fireplace, while the third bedroom looks south across the garden.

Here, a particularly intriguing fragment of the house’s past remains in place: part of an original gas-light fitting, dating from a time when rooms such as these were illuminated by gas rather than electricity. Modest details of this kind are easily lost as houses evolve, but here they contribute to the sense of a home that has been altered remarkably gently.

The bathroom sits at the front of the plan and completes the first floor accommodation.

Behind the house, the garden has the wonderful maturity that only time can really create. Extending to approximately 80ft and facing south, it has been cultivated over many years as a succession of loosely connected spaces rather than a single expanse of lawn.

Close to the house, climbers spill across timber structures and established planting gathers around small terraces and places to sit. Paths lead between densely planted borders towards the lawn beyond, while a pergola creates another sheltered corner among the greenery. A summer house, greenhouse and garden shed sit further into the plot, with the planting becoming increasingly established towards its boundaries.

There is something pleasingly informal about it all. Pots sit among perennial planting, climbers have been allowed to find their way across trellis and mature shrubs provide enclosure between the different parts of the garden. It feels less landscaped than accumulated – the product of many seasons rather than a single scheme.

The depth of the plot also gives the house considerable scope to evolve. A number of neighbouring homes along Greenway have been extended, demonstrating the possibilities for enlarging the original footprint, while there is ample space within the garden for a studio or home office. Any such works would, of course, be subject to the necessary planning consents.

To the front, a generous driveway provides off-road parking, with gated access continuing alongside the house to the rear garden.

Situated within the Conservation Area, the western stretch of Greenway is also particularly well placed for everyday life in Berkhamsted. Greenway and St Thomas More schools are both just a few minutes away on foot, while the town centre, railway station and sports facilities are also within walking distance.

After more than four decades in the same hands, there is an appealing sense of continuity here. The fireplaces remain, the pine has acquired the patina of use and outside, trees and planting have matured around the house. There is plenty of opportunity for a new generation to add space and make their own mark, but perhaps the best starting point is what has been preserved: the simple proportions of a 1930s house and a garden that has spent years quietly growing into itself.