Just on the market: large family house in good order with four/five double bedrooms in a beautiful canalside area of peace, tranquility and parkland within 40 minutes commuting distance of Euston.

Price: offers in the region of £135,000. No chain.

The situation of the house

Views are glorious (the best in the city, we think), looking out of the front windows or from the balcony over the Grand Union Canal and through willows and poplars to permanent parkland both wild and tame, mown grass and copses, and horse paddocks. Canal boats and horses pass frequently in front of the house.

On the opposite side of our street, instead of another row of houses - this is what we have to look at: the Grand Union Canal with permanent parkland beyond.

Another view of the canal from Waterside - before the trees are in leaf.

The house

A three storey house. Beautiful, huge kitchen/dining room (21 x 11 ft), giving access to the back garden, recently fenced all round. Large living room (13 x 11 ft) on the first floor with full-width french windows which fold right back to give unrestricted access to the balcony. Four large bedrooms (13 x 11 ft, 11 x 10 ft, 11 x 9 ft and 14 x 8 ft). Excellent prospects of planning permission for further extension (first and second floor above the existing rear extension should pose no problem as there is planning precedent in the row and we complied with regulations in building the ground floor of our extension - foundations one metre deep. Plans for expansion of the rear extension already drawn and available). Rooms much larger than the modern standard. Sun shines on the front of the house in the morning and the rear in the afternoon. The house is in good repair with a brand new central heating boiler still under guarantee, newly redecked balcony, newly paved drive.

Front elevation.

View of the dining room from the kitchen area.

First floor bedroom, showing the view to the rear of the house.

The area - Peartree Bridge

There has been much cultural diversity in the street since we moved here in 1987, and the atmosphere is peaceful and tolerant. Walking distance to lower and middle schools. The Council's Planning Department have a liberal attitude to planning applications, allowing differently designed extensions to be built.

Cross the canal (two bridges within yards of our door) and there are beautiful walks in any direction including:

• A children's playground (slide, swings, etc.) two minutes walk away.
• The Old Swan Inn (through the Green and past the medieval village) or a longer route via parkland, pasture and the river Ousel - beautiful half timbering and very good cookery, for which they are much frequented, but a bit pricey for us so we only eat there on special occasions (though we often have a mid-walk family drink there).
• The Peartree Bridge Inn (four minutes walk along the canal at the Peartree Bridge Marina) is also lovely - you can sit out in good weather looking at the boats, feeding the ducks, geese and swans, and watching the moorhens and herons. They are a hotel and a restaurant as well as a pub, and their carvery is excellent, yet incredibly cheap (£2.99 per adult weekdays lunchtime, £3.99 evenings! and it's had the same prices for several years).
• Large modern hospital and local health centre at end of street - seven minutes walk.
• Springfield Lower and Middle schools are both in easy walking distance.

Communications

Roads:  The M1 is a traffic jamless 5 minutes away, and London 45 miles. When the motorway clogs we use the old A5 route, which few people seem to know about.

Rail:  Railway station 4 minutes away, and trains to London (etc) are frequent (every 10 minutes) and many are fast (38 minutes to Euston, but expected to be faster soon). Parking by the station is £2 per day.

Buses:  Many buses stop at Peartree Bridge.

Cycling:  Must be the best in the UK. Milton Keynes has an enormous cycle network called the redways, which is entirely separate from roads and covers the whole city with many hundreds of kilometres of dedicated tarmac routes which go under or over - never across - major roads and are closed to motor vehicles.

Coaches: There is a major coach station serving many routes 5 minutes away (by M1 junction 14) with a free car park and 24 hour café.

The Grand Union Canal:  forms the other side of the street - the nicest way to travel to London or Birmingham (if you've got the time and a boat). The Woughton Marina is a convenient 4 minutes walk along the canal, by the Peartree Bridge Inn.

The City Centre

Three minutes away with plenty of free parking (if you know where to find it) and frequent buses. Second biggest shopping centre in Europe, with a thriving open market, theatre (thank you, Richard Branson), large indoor real snow ski slope, two cinemas totalling 25 screens, and excellent library.

The Future

We moved in in 1987, and have enjoyed our time here - we are leaving with regret. When houses in the row come up for sale, we have noticed a strong tendency for them to be bought by builders (who know what's what with property values). In the long run Peartree Bridge will become the Hampstead of Milton Keynes because it is near the city centre, yet set in an idylllic natural environment.