Sitting on Barnes green, looking at the leaves from the weeping willows dip in and out of the pond, it's hard to believe that Central London is just on the doorstep. Perhaps most well-known as the one of the best places to watch the annual Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, Barnes is a small but perfectly formed Thames-side village, with its own cricket green and rugby club.

The village has a handful of small boutiques, as well as a local grocer's, delis, a bookshop and some very fine restaurants. It's also where you'll find some of London's most expensive streets full, most notably The Terrace, where the famous British composer, Gustav Holst lived. Today it is home to many high-profile broadcasters, politicians and actors.

Barnes is also the unlikely setting to one of London's most famous music studios. The Olympic Sound Studios have recorded tracks for the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Oasis, the Kaiser Chiefs and The Arctic Monkeys. Barnes is also where the T-Rex singer Marc Bolan died in a car crash – the exact spot of the accident, on Queen's Ride, is marked by Bolan's Rock Shrine, where fans young and old daily pay their respects.