For Ian Hart, the co-founder of Sacred Spirits Company, which operates out of a north London house in the well-heeled suburb of Highgate, gin-making came about almost by accident.

ECONOMIST: Start-ups are shaking up an old and staid industry

Cecil Valance stays only three days at Two Acres, the Sawle family house on the edge of North London, but the house party becomes a piece of literary history, because it is here that Cecil writes a poem for Daphne, which memorializes the house and its garden.

NEWYORKER: Sons and Lovers

Originally it may have been part of an orchard but as the city spread north it became part of a large London garden, the one behind Mr Kossoff's house, and he can see the tree from his studio window.

ECONOMIST: Leon Kossoff

The Land Registry said today that house prices in London are at a new high, while prices across the north of England continue to fall.

BBC: London house prices race ahead of the rest