AceShowbiz - Helena Bonham Carter has praised her ex Tim Burton for his generosity after allowing the actress to keep their two London homes following their split.

The stars famously purchased houses next door to one another and linked them via a walkway, with Bonham Carter living in one property, and the filmmaker staying in the other pad with their two children.

The couple parted ways in 2014 after 13 years together, and the "Alice in Wonderland" actress reveals Burton was gracious enough to move out and leave the adjoined homes for her and their kids, 16-year-old Billy and 11-year-old Nell.

"It's very sensible - and luckily I've kept both houses now. He was very generous," Bonham Carter told The Sunday Times Magazine.

Explaining why she needed the extra space, she said, "The double house is not really two houses, it's two small houses that have been put together. I did not have room to house children (in my property), put it that way. I lived in a cottage..."

"So what was Tim's house is basically the family house and I kept my bedroom and my kitchen (separate)."

Bonham Carter admits the two-home set-up is a little unusual, but it works for her family: "It feels like I'm an alien person because I live next door to my children...," she shared. "(But) the more mystique the better. It's a really magical place, everyone gets lost."

The 53-year-old has since found love with 32-year-old writer Rye Dag Holmboe, and she admits the timing of the romance is rather "strange", as she is now portraying Britain's Princess Margaret in hit royal drama series "The Crown", which chronicles the breakdown of her marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones and her subsequent romance with toyboy Roddy Llewellyn, who was 17 years her junior.

"It was odd timing that I seem to have a similar age gap as her (Princess Margaret)," Bonham Carter mused, "but I think it would have happened whether I was playing her or not."