There have been some seriously impressive properties sold across our region in 2021, from multi-million pound modern mansions to converted barns in the countryside.
We’ve pulled together the most expensive homes to be sold in each one of Greater Manchester’s boroughs in the last 12 months, according to Land Registry data.
As tends to be the case, the borough that dominates the more expensive end of the data is Trafford, where wealthy suburbs like Hale and Bowden are stuffed with giant luxury homes.
Stockport also has a lot of homes in the top end of the list, with Bramhall’s prestigious property market seeing homes averaging around half a million pounds.
The list across all 10 boroughs ranges from a £690,000 house with amazing views to a mansion owned by a very famous resident indeed.
Which one would you fancy living in? Let us know in the comments on Facebook.
Manchester
Bloomesbury Avenue, Didsbury – £1,850,000
Credit: PJ Livesey
Of course it’s a Didsbury home that tops the list for Manchester’s most expensive home sold in 2021.
The Land Registry has reported that this pad on Bloomesbury Road sold for £1.85m back at the start of the year.
It’s on the land that used to be home to the University of Manchester Didsbury campus, now turned into a neighbourhood of converted properties and ‘superhomes’.
Stockport
Manor Road, Bramhall – £1,895,000
Credit: Rightmove
This four-bedroom pile is the most expensive home sold in Stockport in 2021, fetching just shy of £1.9m.
Its south-facing garden looks over the golf course and comes with a huge patio and sunken seating area, as well as its own games room.
The whole thing was renovated in 2017, so it’s bang up to date.
Trafford
Hill Top, Hale – £5,000,000
Hill Top in Hale. Credit: Calderpeel
What a pad this is.
This 10,000 sq ft home in leafy Hale, right on the Cheshire border, sold for £5m back in April.
Spread out over four floors, it has six bedrooms, an indoor pool, a gym, and a media room – you can see more photos at calderpeel.com.
Salford
Chatsworth Road, Worsley – £2,700,000
Chatsworth Road in Worsley. Credit: Rightmove
This Salford mansion had a very famous owner, former Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs, reports The Mirror.
It was originally listed at £3.5m but eventually sold for £2.7m in July.
The massive house has its own cinema and gym, as well as five enormous bedrooms.
Bolton
Regent Road, Lostock – £1,475,000
Credit: Google Maps
This house in Bolton is once again right on the edge of a golf course.
It’s got five bedrooms, six reception rooms, a cinema room and a swim/spa.
This home in Hawkshaw, a village on the outskirts of Bury, is packed with character.
It’s got five bedrooms and four reception rooms and sold for £1.3m this year.
The big selling point has to be the surroundings though – it’s surrounded on all sides by rolling hills. Lovely.
Wigan
Sennicar Lane, Wigan – £1,170,000
Credit: Rightmove
You definitely get a lot of house for your money over in Wigan.
This home is set in eight acres of land, with panoramic country views, four double bedrooms, and three reception rooms.
The massive converted barn fetched £1.17m when it was sold in 2021.
Rochdale
Norden Road, Bamford – £1,150,000
Credit: Adamsons
This sprawling property is in the village of Bamford, in Rochdale.
With four bedrooms, four reception rooms, and a three-car garage, it’s absolutely massive.
It sold for £1.15m this year – last time it was on the market, back in 2006, it fetched £910,000.
Oldham
Oaklands Road, Grasscroft – £960,000
This house was only built in 2007, but its value has skyrocketed since, selling this year for almost £1m.
It’s spread out over three floors and comes with SIX bedrooms.
Tameside
Mottram Old Road, Stalybridge – £690,000
Credit: Rightmove
Of all the pricey properties on this list, Tameside had the cheapest – but at a cool £690,000, it’s not exactly cheap.
It’s the views again that sell it, with bi-fold doors on the ground floor and balconies upstairs that look over the rolling hills that surround Stalybridge.
This house sold for £500,000 just two years ago – quite a jump in price.
Featured image: Calderpeel
Property
Much-maligned derelict Stockport site to be turned into town’s latest tower block
Danny Jones
A derelict site in the centre of Stockport is finally set to be bulldozed and turned into a brand new tower block worth a reported £70 million.
The regularly reviled Victoria House on Wellington Street, situated close to the large, grey Stopford House and opposite a local branch of Grosvenor Casinos, was built back in the 1960s – as its old metropolitan exterior makes evident – and has been tipped for redevelopment over the last decade.
Sitting on the corner of the Greek Street roundabout, it has remained mainly empty since 2019, with various developers looking to transform it into various residential reboots.
Now, nearly 10 years later, the building looks to be finally ready for the next chapter and a new lease of life, with property firm Progressive Living (PL) hoping to turn it into two main eight and 20-storey tower blocks, with tiered levels, different room capacities and rooftop spaces.
The former office building was once part of the nearby Jobcentre Plus branch, just down the road, not to mention one of several similar abandoned and underutilised spaces with untapped potential in the area.
Along with the demolition of the structure itself, the adjacent Fletcher Street car park that sits between Victoria House and the aforementioned casino will also make way for the apartments.
With the planning permission application submitted earlier this year and officially greenlit by Stockport Council on Thursday, 3 July,
Promising a mix of one, two and three-bed properties, the company are planning to build a total of 245 homes, though there has been some criticism regarding affordability – a significant increase on the initial idea to turn the 13,000 sq ft office unit into 21 flats some years ago.
Speaking on the project, PL director David Fairclough said: “We’re delighted to have secured planning for what will be a flagship scheme for Stockport.”
“This approval represents a major milestone for a project that’s been six years in the making, and we’re proud to play our part in shaping the next chapter of the town centre’s transformation.
“With demolition due to start later this year, we’re looking forward to delivering much-needed new homes in a sustainable, future-focused way.”
A CGI of what the new residential tower block in Stockport town centre will look like. (Credit: PL)
Construction is slated to start next spring, and they’re hoping to complete the project by summer 2028.
Developers hope to start demolition works this year, with construction expected to start in spring 2026, and completion targeted for Summer 2028.
Local councillor Micheala Meikle, who serves as the town’s cabinet member for regeneration, said: “This is another important step in transforming Stockport as part of the UK’s biggest town centre regeneration.
“These high-quality new homes will bring more people into the heart of the town, supporting local businesses and making the most of our new transport links.
“With the Mayoral Development Corporation delivering 8,000 new homes and Metrolink on the horizon, we’re building a town that works for the future – somewhere people choose to live, work and put down roots.
“This is exactly the kind of accessible, sustainable scheme we want to see in the town centre — creating homes for all ages as part of a thriving, low-carbon community.”
A preview of a promising philanthropic project as Embassy Village makes progress
Danny Jones
Embassy Village, the upcoming homeless village that is set to open in Manchester, is making quick progress, and we recently got to preview the project with an early tour of the site.
Located just outside the city centre proper in Castlefield and near the border into Salford, the humanitarian housing project is looking to provide not just shelter but food and drink, employment, education and all manner of support to local rough sleepers.
Starting out as a controversial shipping container concept, which would have seen repurposed bits of old freight cargo turned into ‘pods’, the idea has grown since then and now
In fact, they’re not far from being done, with the team currently predicting a November finish date. Here’s how it’s looking so far.
Credit: The Manc Group
Situated along a slice of the Bridgewater Canal, running along the length of the recognisable railway arches – 22 of them, to be precise – Embassy Village is set to become the first privately-funded homeless community not just in the UK but anywhere in Europe.
As far as the group behind this inspiring bit of philanthropy can tell in researching for this development, they haven’t found anything like this anywhere on the continent, certainly not on this scale.
Starting out as a repurposed luxury tour bus turned mobile rough sleeping shelter, they have since gone on to run three male and two women’s shelters, helping more than 175 individuals get back on their feet, from being rehomed to getting back into work and, ultimately, living independently.
Created by co-founder and director Sid Williams back in 2018, who has already helped countless vulnerable adults in and around Greater Manchester, there is a lot of faith behind this initiative, quite literally, in fact.
Sid and his wife Tess, who has also been helping spearhead Embassy‘s work here in the UK, are passionate Christians, but there’s no dogmatic or preachy vibes to be detected – at least as far as we could tell, anyway.
The ‘Village Hall’, where work, education and general life skills will be developed.Outdoor spaces are being carved out, including areas to relax, sports courtsand more.Suitable candidates in the shelter system will be selected in order to identify those who could manage resettlement. (Credit: The Manc)
Besides a nice ‘tithing’ idea, which sees 10% of all unrestricted funds from the village donated to relevant charities in the region and further afield, the only real Christian value being promoted here is ‘love thy neighbour’, and that’s the kind of ethos we can get behind regardless of creed.
You can see some of the old fashioned values in aspects such as the public hall seen above, where people will not only be encouraged to gather but learn, create, socialise and once again start to reintegrate into a proper community.
There’ll even be parts of the Embassy’s ‘resettlement team’ living on-site to help get people back on their feet, with at least one dedicated staff member assigned to every six residents.
As Sid put it in a spin on the well-trodden old proverb, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, he believes that sometimes, “it takes a city to raise a village.”
Those staying here will not be given a leg up back into the working world, providing inroads to full-time contracts and a proper wage, but they will also be encouraged to take up wellbeing activities, taken on trips and away days beyond the city limits and Greater Manchester full stop.
An example of the on-site staff’s living quarters.Each unit will have it own front door and all essential amenities.They have an approximate 92% success rate when it comes to rehoming and reintegrating residents, with many ultimately coming back to work for the organisation. Think of it as a ‘pay it forward’ spirit,
With dozens of local businesses contributing to the construction of Embassy Village, they’ve now managed to raise more than £5.2 million in funding.
As well as backing from developers Capital & Centric (led by Salford-born Tim Heatley) and the likes of regeneration specialist Peel L&P, who made the land available, there are several other organisations chipping in to help house upwards of 40 different individuals.
That being said, they are still roughly £400,000 short of their desired target, which will help them build every aspect of Embassy Village they’re hoping to make come to fruition, so further partnerships are obviously welcome.
Following an official update from Manchester City Council, we can also now confirm that the space will link up to the soon-to-be expanded Castlefield Viaduct, where three of four currently out-of-use tram lines will be turned into one long sky garden, similar to New York’s famous High Line.
The National Trust has announced that the @NTCastleDuct 'sky park' has received a whopping £2.75m funding towards a major extension. 🌿🏙
Following our tour of Embassy Village so far, there was one salient takeaway: there are a lot of people who really care about this cause working on this project.
Is it perfect? Maybe not? Would it be great if we could simply end Greater Manchester’s rough sleeping crisis by housing every rough sleeper in a traditional home, or one of the many new build properties in 0161? Of course it would, but we sadly all know it isn’t as simple as that.
Nevertheless, this current option is damn sight better than the alternative: allowing more and more people to end up on the streets, bouncing in and out of shelters, struggling with addiction, mental health and so on. They’re trying and they already have a proven track record spanning more than half a decade.
You can get a better idea of what it will look like when completed down below.
Daisy Jackson -
27th December 2021 
