Tracey Cox, sex and relationship expert on C4’s ‘The Sex Inspectors’ lives in a spacious ground floor flat with a garden in leafy Richmond
he flat definitely matches my personality and what I do – I am a sex and relationships expert – but I don’t agree that everything in this flat, even the glass vase from the Conran shop, has a sexual connotation – as some people suggest.
When I moved in here two years ago and gutted the place, I lived in the bedroom (now the office) on one of those blow-up beds It was a pit. It manages to combine the down-to-earth appeal of an old mining community with a thriving local arts scene and, thanks to recent fluctuations in the market, is now also providing prospective buyers with an incredible selection of interesting period properties at highly competitive prices.”Fact boxCost of living: one-bedroom cottage from £80,000; two-bedroom terrace house from £115,000; three-bedroom semi-detached house from £160,000; four-bedroom detached from £230,000; five-bedroom from £250,000; six-bedroom period town house from £350,000.Attractions: thriving arts and crafts scene; good selection of independent shops; twice-weekly outdoor market; beautiful ancient church dating back to 653AD with some Saxon fragments still intact; fishing, yachting and water-sports at nearby Carsington Water; great hiking and climbing opportunities in the Peaks, including the famous High Peak Trail; the Ecclesbourne steam railway line; good selection of traditional real ale pubs.Downside: the town is a little on the quiet side and still suffers from quite a few local quarry trucks passing through it.How to get there: there are regular, direct trains from London’s Saint Pancras to Derby (12 miles away) which take about two hours.. This approach seems to be paying off, and the market is rallying. “Wirksworth has always had a great deal to recommend it,” says Taylor. “It’s in a lovely rural setting and within easy access of Derby.
“Houses in Wirksworth were simply being overpriced and that’s why they weren’t selling.”However, local vendors now appear to be becoming more realistic in their expectations and many of them have begun slashing their original asking prices by as much as 15 per cent. “Local aspirations have been outstripping what properties are worth,” says Anthony Taylor, a valuer with rival firm Scargill Mann & Company. In nearby Matlock, and Bakewell, a popular residential satellite of Sheffield, houses still typically fetch up to 50 per cent more than they do in Wirksworth.Then suddenly, about a year ago, prices started levelling out. “Those were both mini boom periods.” During the latter period prices more than doubled within the space of five years. It was the same story in pretty little outlying villages such as Brassington, perched on a high limestone escarpment and at Carsington with its splendid 13th century architecture and giant man-made reservoir devoted to water-sports and sailing.Price hikes were even more extreme in towns to the north of the county.
“It was dead as a dodo for many months,” recalls Bishop’s Paul Rogerson – who says that he has been handling a record number of properties in recent months that he has been unable to sell.Other agents in town have experienced similar difficulties. Local shops and services likewise reflected these demographic changes and became noticeably more sophisticated.It couldn’t last, though, and as word of Wirksworth’s many advantages spread, property prices began to spiral. “It happened first in the late 1980s and then again in the late 1990s,” says Paul Rogerson of Bishop Estate Agents. The town became particularly popular among bohemians – poets, painters, musicians, potters and the like – who went on to establish a flourishing arts and crafts scene there. When many of the former pit-workers and quarrymen moved out, a lot of their homes were bought up by newcomers who were attracted to the town by its unique combination of glorious surrounding countryside, fine architecture and low property prices.
