Somewhere in every search an agent says "and of course it's south-facing" in the tone of someone playing a trump card. Or you're on the portal filters and there's a tick box for it, sitting next to garage and off-street parking as though it were the same kind of thing.
It isn't nothing. It also isn't what it's sold as. A north-facing garden is a genuine trade with a genuine price attached, and the price is usually the good part.
What "north-facing" actually describes
The direction is taken from the back of the house looking out. Stand with your back to the rear wall, and whichever way you're facing is what the garden is called. So a north-facing garden means the front of the house points south.
Two things follow from that, and both get lost in the shorthand.
It's a fact about the whole plot, not just the lawn. The house sits between the sun and the garden for most of the day. That's the entire mechanism. It also means the rooms at the front, which in most terraces and semis include at least one main reception room, are the ones getting the light.
Nobody checks it. A compass reading in a listing isn't verified by anyone and isn't covered by any of the disclosure rules. Plenty of listings round "north-east" to "east" because east sounds better, and some just guess. It belongs in the same category as the rest of the vocabulary in a listing: written to be helpful, written by someone selling. Open the property on a satellite map and read the north arrow yourself. It takes ten seconds and it's the only version you can trust.
The number that governs all of this is how high the sun gets
Orientation matters because of solar altitude, and British solar altitude is worse than people assume.
At midday the sun's height above the horizon is roughly 90 degrees minus your latitude, plus or minus the earth's 23.5 degree tilt depending on the season. Durham University's astronomy department sets out that same calculation for its own latitude. Run it for London, at 51.5 degrees north, and you get about 62 degrees at midsummer noon and about 15 degrees at midwinter noon. Further north it's worse: work from central Scotland at 56 degrees and Strathclyde's engineering courseware gives a maximum altitude of 58 degrees in June and 11 degrees in December.
Fifteen degrees is very low. Low enough that shadow lengths stop being an abstraction:
| Object | Shadow at midday, midsummer | Shadow at midday, midwinter |
|---|---|---|
| A 1.8m fence | about 1m | about 6.7m |
| A 4m single-storey extension | about 2m | about 15m |
| An 8m two-storey house | about 4m | about 30m |
That midwinter column is why north-facing gardens have a reputation. A standard two-storey house throws its own shadow across roughly thirty metres of ground in December, which is longer than most gardens in the country. The garden isn't dim because of the compass. It's dim because the house is in the way and the sun is too low to get over it.
The same table is also why the reputation is overstated. In June the shadow is four metres. Everything past that is in full sun, in a garden that isn't baking, at the hours you'd actually be out in it.
Where the sun rises matters more than where it peaks
This is the part almost every article on the subject skips, and it's the one that decides how a north-facing garden actually feels.
The sun doesn't rise due east. In London on the longest day it comes up at an azimuth of 49 degrees, well round into the north-east, and sets at 311 degrees, well round into the north-west. Its whole path across the sky is about 270 degrees wide. For a couple of hours after sunrise and a couple before sunset, the sun is in the northern half of the sky, which means it's shining straight into a north-facing garden over the side of the house rather than through it.
So in summer a north-facing garden gets early morning sun and, more usefully, proper evening sun. Which is when most people sit outside.
In midwinter the geometry collapses. The sun's path narrows to about 90 degrees wide: it rises in the south-east, crawls along at 15 degrees, and sets in the south-west. It never reaches the northern half of the sky at all. A due-north garden behind a two-storey house gets no direct sun whatsoever from roughly November to February. Not less sun. None.
That's the honest downside, and it's sharper than "a bit shadier". It's also seasonal, and it's a season when the garden is largely a view from a window anyway. Whether that's a deal-breaker depends entirely on what you use a garden for.
What it does to the house
A north-facing garden usually means south-facing front rooms, and that's a real compensation rather than a consolation prize. Winter sun at 15 degrees comes in almost horizontally through a south-facing window and lands deep into the room. The garden loses in December and the living room wins.
It cuts the other way in July, when a south-facing front elevation with big windows and no shading will overheat. Newer flats with full-height glazing are the worst offenders. Which side of that trade you want depends on the house, and it's worth asking at the viewing which rooms are the warm ones in summer.
What the price gap is actually measuring
Rightmove has attributed a premium to south-facing gardens: £22,695, or about 7%. Everyone quotes it. Almost nobody quotes what it's a measurement of.
It compares asking prices, not sold prices, across 396,158 listings of three and four bedroom homes in Great Britain, from July 2019 to June 2020. And it compares homes described in the listing as south-facing against homes that aren't. That's a premium attached to the description, which agents write when it's a selling point and leave out when it isn't. Rightmove's own commentary said at the time that it's an average and won't transfer to any individual house.
The regional spread makes the same point louder. The premium ran from 2% in the South East and East of England to 14% in Yorkshire and the Humber. A single national number sitting on a range that wide isn't telling you much about your street.
None of which means the preference isn't real. It plainly is, and it's the reason a north-facing garden is usually the cheaper way to buy the same house. But treat it as evidence that other buyers filter on the tick box, not as a valuation.
How to work out whether this particular garden is a problem
Compass direction is a starting assumption. These are the checks that settle it.
- Look at what's south of the boundary, not at the boundary. A south-facing garden with a five-storey block behind it is worse than a north-facing one with open fields. On a satellite map, trace due south from the garden and see what's standing there. Trees, a taller neighbour, a rising slope, a block of flats. That's what's actually casting the shadow.
- Apply the planners' own test. BRE's Site Layout Planning for Daylight and Sunlight (BR 209, 2022 edition) uses a working benchmark that at least half of a garden should get at least two hours of sunlight on 21 March. Planning officers use it to judge whether a new development would overshadow an existing garden. It isn't law and it isn't binding, but it's a far better yardstick than a compass point, and it uses the equinox rather than either extreme.
- Visit at the hour you'd use it. Not at 11am on a Saturday because that's when the agent had a slot. If you want to eat outside in the evening, go at six. Ask for a second viewing at a different time and treat reluctance as information.
- Ask how far up the garden the house shadow reaches in winter. The current owner knows precisely. It's a question with a specific answer, which makes it a good question.
- Check the slope. A garden that rises away from the house claws back a lot of the loss, because the far end climbs out of the shadow. One that falls away loses more than the compass suggests.
- Work out which rooms benefit. If the garden faces north, the front rooms face south. Go and stand in them. That light is part of what you're buying and it doesn't show up in any filter.
The honest summary
North-facing isn't a defect, it's a trade: you lose direct sun in the garden from November to February and gain it back on summer evenings, in the front rooms all year, and on the price. The thing that actually determines whether a garden is gloomy is what's standing to the south of it, not which way the compass points, and that you can check on a map in under a minute.
The premium everyone quotes is a premium on the phrase "south-facing" in an advert, measured on asking prices six years ago, ranging from 2% to 14% depending on where you are. Which is worth knowing mostly because it's the reason the identical house facing the other way costs less.
This is general information, not legal or planning advice. BRE 209 is guidance rather than law, and satisfying it gives you no legal right to light. If overshadowing from a neighbouring development is a live concern, take advice from a surveyor. Sun figures are for London at 51.5°N and are lower further north. Rightmove's premium figure covers Great Britain, July 2019 to June 2020, and is based on asking prices.