Which way does it face, and why it's the first thing we tell you
Aspect is the one thing about a house you cannot change and cannot fake. Here's how we read it, and why it's on every listing we write.
Everything else about a house can be undone. You can rip out the kitchen, move a wall, re-render the front. You cannot turn it to face a different way. Aspect is fixed the day the foundations go in, and it decides how the house feels at four o’clock in December more than any amount of decorating ever will.
What “south-facing” actually buys you
A room takes direct sun only while the sun is above the horizon and its bearing is within about sixty degrees of the window’s. South-facing rooms catch the sun at its highest and longest; north-facing ones never catch it directly at all and live on diffuse skylight, which is even, cool, and — this matters — never warm.
Which way does the room I’ll spend the evening in face? A west aspect gives you the low afternoon and evening light; an east one is bright at breakfast and quiet after.
Why our photographs look different
Most estate-agent photography pushes every room to the same bright, blue-white “clean” look. It photographs well and tells you nothing. We grade each plate to the compass bearing of the room it shows — warm where the sun actually reaches, cool where it doesn’t — so the picture matches the room you’ll stand in.
On our listings, scroll and the gallery opens each room over the hours it is genuinely in sun on the shortest day. A room that opens slowly is lit for most of the day; one that opens in a snap gets a short window. The order is the house’s, not ours.
A north-facing room is not a bad room. It holds a steady, even light that a painter or a screen will thank you for. It is simply not a sunny one — and if you want sun in the evening, you should know before you fall for the kitchen.
Want the aspect of every room before you visit?
Every Wardenby listing carries the bearing of its principal rooms. No surprises on the doorstep.