In the Spring of 1929 the Cole's returned to London, living in West Hampstead for six years until buying a "rambling Victorian" house called "Freeland" in Hendon where he lived for most of the last three decades of his life. In early 1957 he and his wife moved to a flat in Holland Park, Kensington. He died after going into a diabetic coma in the early hours of 14 January 1959 in hospital in Hampstead. In lieu of religious rites his brother-in-law, Raymond Postgate, read two passages from the works of William Morris at his funeral in Golders Green Crematorium. His estate was offered for probate at £46,617 (equivalent to £1,097,364 in 2020).