Twickenham is a good place to live and a hard place to change your windows. Six in ten own their homes. Two-thirds hold a degree. Hundreds of buildings are listed. The neighbours are excellent company, and every one of them has read the conservation guidance.
Close to half of Twickenham's homes are flats: 49% of the dwellings on the council-tax valuation list. Terraces make up 27%, semis 16% and detached houses 5%. Bungalows barely register at under 1%. More than half the stock, 54%, was built before 1930, and the energy certificates reflect that. Of the homes certificated, 43% rate A to C, 42% are in band D and 15% are E or worse. Most homes, 77%, heat with mains gas, while 10% run on electric heating alone. In a converted Edwardian flat, that is the first question to put to the seller.
The Land Registry recorded 291 sales in the twelve months to May 2026, at a median of about £765,000. That middle figure hides two markets. Flats sold for around £475,000, terraced houses for about £1,100,000 and semis for about £1,335,000, and the 12 detached sales came in near £1,945,000. The house price index has the area's average down about 3% over the same year. Council tax is mostly band D, and only 5% of homes are in bands A or B. In 1818 the enclosure award laid out new roads west of the town centre, one of them called Workhouse Road, and those roads are now First to Fifth Cross Roads. Renaming that one has aged well at a million pounds a terrace.
Renting is no escape hatch. The Office for National Statistics puts typical private rent across Richmond upon Thames at about £2,310 a month as of April 2026, a borough-wide mean that is up about 6% on a year earlier. In that same borough index a one-bedroom home runs at about £1,710 a month and a two-bedroom at about £2,200.
Crime is where Twickenham is merely ordinary. Police figures for the year to May 2026 put the published rate at about 83 crimes per 1,000 residents, roughly 12% above the Richmond upon Thames average of about 74. The mix leans toward property. Vehicle crime is 10% of recorded incidents against 5% nationally, and criminal damage 13% against 7%, while violence and sexual offences make up about 22% against 35% across England and Wales. The Metropolitan Police charged in 10% of cases over that year, below the 12% national rate, though that figure covers the whole force and all of London. In Twickenham, the thing most likely to get hurt is the car.
Schools are where the money visibly earns its keep. All 25 nearby settings with a published Ofsted grade are rated good or better, and 10 of them are outstanding. Pupils at the five primary schools counted here average about 110 in the Key Stage 2 maths test. The two secondaries, Orleans Park School and St Richard Reynolds Catholic High School, average an Attainment 8 score of about 63. Orleans Primary School and St Mary's Church of England Primary School are among the primaries, and the Department for Transport's 2019 model puts the nearest primary about seven minutes' walk from the average home. Places are allocated under Richmond upon Thames council's admissions rules, so check last year's allocation distances with the council before assuming a short walk buys a place.
Twickenham station is the main stop, and St Margarets and Strawberry Hill stations are also inside the area. At the 2021 census only 5% of working residents went by train, 13% drove, 4% cycled and 64% worked from home, a count taken while the pandemic was still emptying the carriages. There are 127 bus stops in and around the area. The stops with timetable data average 347 departures each on a weekday, about 19 an hour at the peak, and every one of them has a weekend service. Gigabit broadband reaches 91% of premises, and every mobile operator covers the area with 4G or 5G.
The river is the main attraction and the main flood question. On the Environment Agency's river-and-sea mapping, about 13% of the area is in flood zone 3 and 11% in flood zone 2, and 36% falls inside the zone that allows for climate change. On a broader measure, 9% of postcodes rate high on at least one flood indicator, surface water included. The agency's record holds one flood event, in December 1965, when the main river ran over its banks with no raised defences in place. Green space is roughly 140 metres from the average home, with about 30 green spaces within a kilometre, among them Marble Hill, Radnor Gardens and Crane Park. The blast embankments of the old gunpowder mills can still be seen in Crane Park. The mills closed in 1927 after a long career of exploding, and the park is a calmer use of the land.
This is the weak spot. The area counts 353 listed buildings, 12 of them Grade I and 50 Grade II*, and 32 conservation areas fall in and around it, including Twickenham Riverside and Strawberry Hill Road. Seven listed buildings are on Historic England's Heritage at Risk register. Strawberry Hill, Marble Hill House, York House and Pope's Grotto make the place handsome to walk through and slow to alter. A rear extension or new windows on a listed house, or on a house inside a conservation area, goes through the council's consent process first. In 1772 Horace Walpole complained after three gunpowder mills blew the painted glass out of his windows at Strawberry Hill. His successors aim the same indignation at a neighbour's dormer.
About six in ten households own their homes and the median resident is 40. The Office for National Statistics models gross household income at about £103,000 for the financial year to March 2023, averaged across the area. Two-thirds of adults hold a degree and 91% report good or very good health. St Margarets shares the postcode and the profile, and it is home to Twickenham Studios. The films are made there, though the residents' own lives would struggle to supply the conflict.
Twickenham suits households who work from home a few days a week and want a good primary school and the Thames both within walking distance. It also suits buyers who would rather live with an old house than rebuild one, and who can find around £475,000 for a flat or over a million for a terrace.
It suits people planning a glass box on the back of a Victorian semi much less well. The same goes for renters hoping a borough-wide £2,310 a month leaves room to save, and for anyone who wants a town centre built around shopping.
Twickenham earns its above-average standing honestly. Its real strength is the community: educated, healthy and comfortable enough to keep the place exactly as it is. The weak spot is the freedom to alter a home, because that same community, backed by 353 listed buildings, would also like your house kept exactly as it is. Buy the one you are happy to leave alone.