It’s sales from the riverbank: Homes along the Thames in high demand

Walk along the Thames towpath in Berkshire and Oxfordshire and you may see some of the most desirable homes in the country, many owned by A-listers.

George and Amal Clooney live on an island near Sonning; Russell Brand (for all his wild-child attitude) lives in a quintessential £3 million English cottage on the shores of Henley; while George Michael ended his days in 2016 at his riverside home in Goring.

Now on the market is the house that has a place in the hearts of all heavy rock music lovers: the boathouse overlooking the Thames at Pangbourne, where guitarist Jimmy Page lived between 1967 and 1973.

Page bought this house, which seems to float above the river, for £6,000 – money he had earned from his years with The Yardbirds. According to rock music legend, on July 20, 1968, he traveled to see Robert Plant, 19, who was performing at a training school in Walsall.

Page, then 24, was so impressed that he invited him back to Pangbourne. And so Led Zeppelin was born.

Plant, who lived in the guest room above a pub at the time, must have been impressed. The house was a three-story boathouse complete with a ground floor dry dock.

Inside, a large stained glass window looked out over the river, and the interior was decorated with Art Deco artifacts, paintings, books, and model trains.

Now, 50 years later, the home’s owner is Oscar-winning film producer Gareth Ellis-Unwin, 51, best known for The King’s Speech.

“When I bought the house, the owners had tastelessly divided it into two halves,” he says, entering the airy eat-in kitchen with floor-to-ceiling windows that open onto a balcony. “I wanted to put the building back together, emphasizing the river view that attracted Jimmy.”

Gareth and his artist wife, Rosie, have made significant additions to the property in the eight years since they moved in.

They installed double glazing, put in a steam room and hot tub, and renovated the pool, which replaces the dry dock.

Rosie has her own studio, but the most impressive thing is the miniature cinema. It has ten leather chairs, movie posters on the walls and a professional cinema projector. It cost over £55,000 and is the ideal place for Gareth and friends to enjoy one of his collection of 10,000 films.

“When I told my career teacher that I wanted to work in film, he said I wasn’t intelligent enough,” he says wryly.

“The next time I met him, I was giving a speech at school after winning an Oscar and seven Baftas.” The house is for sale for £1.65 million (singletonanddaughter.co.uk).

Houses overlooking the river are not cheap. “A water view adds about 20 percent to the price,” says Nick Wooldridge of Stacks Property Finders.

‘Henley and Shiplake are extremely expensive. You’ll find smaller houses in The Warren, west of Reading, but they don’t often come on the market.’

Location, as always, is important. Some buyers prefer to sit on a bend in the river to enjoy the view upstream and downstream. Others prefer to sit a little further from the shore to avoid the prying eyes of day trippers.

The connections from this part of the Thames are excellent. The train to London takes just 55 minutes and Heathrow is 35 minutes away by road.

However, flooding can be a problem. Just a few years ago there were photos of the gardens of Russell Brand, Debbie McGee and Ricky Gervais being flooded. Wooldridge says, “Sellers have a duty of care to inform you if the house is flooded and insurance companies are checking.”

What makes a house on the river so precious? “It’s that view,” says Gareth, pointing across the river to the beautiful meadow opposite his house.

‘No one can build on that land because it is a flood plain. You are guaranteed that vision for life.’