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After nearly two decades living in London, the main reason I pictured myself moving to a new life by the seaside was the house that we found: a red brick Edwardian semi on a street lined with period properties. It was the only house I was interested in out of everything we viewed, because it was five minutes from the station, and crucially, resembled the Victorian streets of the capital I was reluctantly waving goodbye to. At the time, my husband kept making (what I thought were) jokes about looking at bungalows , which were in more ready supply in the quaint coastal town we were heading for.

But any mention of them gave me nightmares about how my husband envisioned our future. We were still in our 30s, so why was he suggesting a retirement property? The town itself was already known as a destination for older residents and I was far from ready to slide into my slippers so chose steep stairs instead of a one-storey home on a large plot. How short-sighted I was.



Today I’d give anything for the generous proportions and mid-century design of many bungalows. The name ‘bungalow’ comes from a Hindi word meaning ‘a house in the Bengali style’, and they were introduced here by the architect John Taylor, who built Britain’s first bungalows in 1869 and 1870 in Westgate-on-Sea, east Kent, just up the coast from me. Read Next I'm a lecturer - universities have been ruined by willy-waving managers No wonder they’re hot property in 2024 – a time when house sales are stagnan.

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