Map your house hunting future: new homes hotspots along the Metropolitan line

Average property values along the Metropolitan line range from £350,000 to £500,000 bracket beyond Finchley Road station in Zone 2. We find the new homes hotspots along this north-west to east London route.

Huge debt is owed by today’s developers and transport strategists to  the Metropolitan line entrepreneurs who in 1863 launched the world’s first underground train service, initially between  Paddington and Farringdon.

These canny Victorians also pioneered commuter suburbs, by building  housing estates on land they owned along the route. The line was first extended north-west to Harrow and later to Verney in Buckinghamshire, more than 50 miles from Baker Street.

And so “Metro-Land” was born, with the railway company’s marketeers  promoting the dream of a modern  family home in the countryside with a  fast railway service to central London - a rustic Eden, remote yet remaining touchable.

This idyll, famously celebrated by Poet Laureate John Betjeman, is still a magnet for property hunters searching for that elusive combination of an affordable home and a manageable commute.

Though the line westward was cut back to Amersham following nationalisation of the Underground in 1933 along with all London regional public transport except for the railways, it goes further into the home counties than any other, reaching Zone 9.

Indeed four of the five Tube stations  outside the M25 are those at the end of the Metropolitan line - the fifth is Epping in Essex, on the Central line. Amersham to Baker Street takes 44 minutes. Transport for London is undertaking improvements that will boost the capacity of the Metropolitan line by 27 per cent by 2018, enabling trains to carry 9,500 more people per hour at peak times.