Inspiration of the Week: the beaming brilliance of a Victorian beauty in Battersea

Eyes may be the window to a soul, but what about windows themselves? We believe that, when it comes to houses, casements and sashes similarly act as conduits to spirit. Take this house on Westbridge Road in south-west London, a sublime stock-brick semi-detached delight. Now for sale, its defining features are, really, those wondrous windows, which lend the place a romantic luminosity of a sort rarely seen.

For starters, there are those sash windows in the double reception room, still with their original shutters and now fitted with handsome roman blinds. Not only do they usher hazy filtered light into the grand space (which bounces off the glossy pine floorboards), they also offer gorgeous green views of the planting at the front of the house, which surrounds its off-street parking. From out here, the windows’ curved arch is visible too, making a pretty point of difference on the rhythmic façade.

As well as the fairy-tale dormers in the loft, we’re utterly enchanted by the classic French windows that open on to a raised terrace overlooking the lush lawn, well-planted beds and a another paved area. It’s down in the basement – often dark and dreary spaces – that you can access this secondary patio, through not one but two pairs of glazed doors. As well as subverting the norm and filling this downstairs zone with borrowed light, they make the veil between inside and out feel fabulously thin when thrown wide in the summer months.

Saving the best till last, we’ll leave you with the lantern, its semi-domed design illuminating the lowest level’s open-plan dining room and kitchen and flowing around the central staircase. With its Soaneian air of classical grandeur, it’s an extraordinarily elegant addition to an already gleaming gem. Put simply: we’re dazzled.