It has been interesting to note on the Hanover Community Pages that the debate regarding the Hanover boundaries is as live as ever, and as an estate agency in the area we find it particularly interesting. It seems apparent that these boundaries are often stretched and manipulated by where the person defining them lives. To give one example; we have recently worked for three residents in the Stanley Street/Windmill Street area, two felt they were in Hanover and one considered themselves to be Queens Park. The majority of people would consider it to be Hanover – it meets the brief in so many ways, being narrow streets made up of mid-Victorian terraced workers houses – and yet it is not even part of the Hanover & Elm Grove Council Ward.
One contributor to the Community board has posted a map including the triangle between Pankhurst Avenue, Elm Grove and the General Hospital; not an area I’d ever considered as Hanover, but surely just as valid as Wellington Road which many seem to include, and is home to Hanover Court. Perhaps most interestingly is the conundrum of Hanover Crescent, surely the oldest part and yet somehow seemingly now disconnected from Hanover itself and bearing none of the architectural identity or the parking fiasco played out on the streets above. Interestingly there are plenty who recall when Hanover was only the streets with Hanover in the name (Crescent, Street and Terrace) and the rest was Hilly Laine.
Whatever the boundaries, and for that matter whatever the name, the area looks set to continue its upward trend in popularity and house prices. Demand has never been higher for these quaint and characterful homes close to the centre of the city. But for the record, when marketing a home, we consider Hanover to be the area between The Level to the west, Queens Park Road to the east, Franklin Road to the North and Albion Hill to the South (with an exception made for Stanley Street and Windmill Street)…but we would say that wouldn’t we!
Article originally published in the Hanover Directory. View here