Ann Street

The weather being significantly better, enabled Kryptomart and I to get some exercise by having a walk around Stockbridge. Here is the gorgeous Ann Street.

When Scottish painter Sir Henry Raeburn drew the designs for Ann Street in 1817, along with architect James Milne, he decided to name the row of houses after his wife, Ann Edgar.

The A-listed properties were originally sold for between 200 and 1200 pounds and were some of the first to have front gardens.

The street was described by Sir John Betjeman as the most attractive in the whole of Britain, while author JM Barrie, pictured, creator of Peter Pan, was so charmed by the setting that he based his 1902 novel Quality Street on it.

But Ann Street's literary legacy doesn't end there. It was once home to author Christopher North, the pen name of John Wilson, one of whose published volumes was an idealised portrait of the "Ettrick Shepherd", James Hogg.

North's regular house guest was Thomas de Quincey, the infamous "Opium Eater". Addicted to an ounce of laudanum a day, he would entertain the writer's other guests with his impressive wit until the drugs took their toll.

In 2008, in a national survey, Ann Street was noted as being one of the most desirable street in live in, in the UK.