The Black House, Stackpool Road

Southville is mostly Victorian terraces, which is what makes this house interesting. It was finished in 2022 on a plot behind the street, dark-clad and quiet from the front, then glazed almost completely across the back so the garden and the old tree on the boundary become the view from the kitchen.

The living space runs the full width at the rear, kitchen and dining and sitting in one volume that opens onto a courtyard. There are four bedrooms over the two floors above, two bathrooms and the kind of storage that period houses never quite manage. It is heated by an air-source pump with solar on the roof, so the running costs sit a long way below the neighbours’.

North Street, with its delis, the Tobacco Factory and the Saturday market, is two minutes away, and the harbour and the centre are a short walk or cycle over the bridge. For a buyer who loves the area but does not want to spend the next five years renovating, it is a rare thing to find here.