Kerb Appeal: The Most Attractive Streets in the UK, According to Science

Estate Agent comparison site GetAgent conducted an eye-tracking technology experiment to reveal which of the world’s most beautiful streets are most aesthetically pleasing to the human eye.

Participants were asked to examine a set of images depicting over 50 of the world’s most picturesque roads, and AI technology was used to analyse their eye movements in order to rank which streets are truly the most eye-catching.

From New Orleans’ iconic Bourbon Street, to the beguiling blue lanes of Moroccan city Chefchaouen; sometimes it’s not the dazzling skyscrapers or fancy facades of a famous building that attract tourists to a specific road, but minute details like street art, flora and old-school architecture that make for an eye-catching stroll.

The Top 10 Most Attractive Streets in the UK

In the UK, Scotland came out on top with Edinburgh’s Circus Lane ranking as the most attractive British street in the study (placing sixth worldwide). The charming street is inundated with hanging baskets, colourful front doors and a cobbled street that meanders through the quaint mews houses; and participants focused on it for almost four full seconds, with the image garnering over 272 views overall within the study.

Following behind in second place is The Circus, a famed ring of townhouses in the Roman city of Bath, Somerset. Viewers spent 3.74 seconds each fixating on an image of the luxury street, with 259 glances at it being taken overall. The beautiful row of houses was designed by John Wood the Elder, an architect that took his inspiration from the Colosseum in Rome, and the houses located within each of its three segments are now all grade-I listed.

Completing the top three most attractive British streets is the infamous Gold Hill, a cobbled street located in Shaftesbury and famous across the country as the filming location for the iconic Hovis ‘Boy on Bike’ advert that it’s synonymous with. Study participants stared at a picture of Gold Hill for 3.4 seconds each, on average, and the image received 348 views overall.