Camden Town Renovations & Design-Build — NW1

Camden designated the Camden Town Conservation Area on 11 November 1986; a 1997 extension brought in the triangle behind the Underground station and streets east of the High Street such as Pratt Street and Bayham Street.

Parkway and Inverness Street form its northern edge and the Euston main line its western one. Camden's appraisal adds that it almost meets the Regent's Canal and Primrose Hill areas, while the railway parts it from the Regent's Park area.

Across Camden Road, Camden Square's conservation area takes the shape of a blunt triangle framed by Camden Road, York Way and Agar Grove.

Jeffrey's Street's area, first designated in 1985 and enlarged in 2002, sits just north of Camden Town between Camden Street and Kentish Town Road on one side and Royal College Street and St Pancras Way on the other.

Rochester, east of Kentish Town Road, was designated on 12 December 2001, and Gloucester Crescent is a detached pocket of the Primrose Hill area lying on the Camden Town side of the tracks.

An NW1 postcode settles none of this, so for every address we start from Camden's map and the list entry.

Sources: Camden Council, Camden Town Conservation Area appraisal and management strategy (adopted 4 October 2007), Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007), Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011), Camden: Jeffrey's Street Conservation Area Statement (agreed 19 November 2002), Camden: Rochester Conservation Area Statement (agreed 12 December 2001), Camden: Primrose Hill Conservation Area Statement, Gloucester Crescent sub-area

Mornington Crescent is early 19th century town planning: three curving terraces round shared gardens, the houses four storeys above basements with mansards and dormers on top.

Camden blames the large number of houses there in multiple occupation for a decline in the terraces' appearance.

East of Hampstead Road, the streets once called Bedford New Town went up from 1834 with taller terraces than any others in the conservation area.

Harrington Square keeps part of an 1834 terrace on its east side, and its gardens are picked out as the area's main green space; Oakley Square lost all but its west side to war damage, where porticoed entrances survive.

Source: Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007)

Parkway's houses of the 1820s and 1830s are plain yellow stock brick boxes under continuous eaves parapets; on the north side only Nos 98 and 100 escaped conversion to shops at street level.

The south side between Arlington Road and Albert Street is the best kept, its houses still at their first height with no roof extensions.

Delancey Street climbs gently west towards Parkway between 1840s terraces on basements, a few of them with mansards.

The land itself tilts from the Regent's Park edge of the conservation area down towards the High Street.

Source: Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007)

Agar Grove began as semi-detached houses giving way to terraces near York Way, and the appraisal finds many in poor repair with detail to reinstate.

York Way's terrace between Camden Park Road and Agar Grove is plain brick, its ground floors barely raised above the road.

Murray Street's parade has seen shops turned into homes on the ground and basement floors, with dug lightwells, cut fascias and blocked windows listed as damage.

Where detail has gone, our scope keeps repairs to the surviving building apart from the replacement of what has been lost, so each can be priced and approved on its own.

Source: Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)

Jeffrey's Street and Nos 46 to 64 Kentish Town Road are listed terraces of the late 1790s and early 1800s, mostly three floors on a basement with plain brick over a stucco base.

Ivor Street's south side, two storeys over lightwells, is noted as unaltered; opposite, the houses rise to three floors and have no lightwells.

Prowse Place is a cobbled lane that dives through an arched brick tunnel beneath the North London line's viaduct.

Source: Camden: Jeffrey's Street Conservation Area Statement (agreed 19 November 2002)

Camden's 2007 strategy counts the area's mixed historic rooflines as something to preserve and rules out wholesale changes, poor materials and intrusive dormers.

Arlington Road's houses north of Mornington Street have a slate top storey formed from a valley roof hipped to the back, and most are intact in view of Mornington Street.

Albert Street has just one historic mansard terrace, Nos 22 to 46, and the appraisal lists later mansards and dormers along the street as inappropriate.

At Camden Square the 2011 strategy calls for Welsh slate, not artificial, and keeps dormers and inset terraces to the back slope.

Sources: Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007), Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)

Camden reads the first pattern of rear walls in each street as part of the Camden Town area's character, and will refuse a rear extension that undermines it.

Openings at terrace ends show gardens over tall walls, a relief the appraisal values highly in such a built-up place.

Near Camden Square, filling the space between pairs of villas, or building in a back garden people can see, will be resisted.

Before anything is drawn we photograph the terrace from its gardens, which is how Camden will look at an addition.

Sources: Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007), Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)

The appraisal's palette is yellow stock brick, rusticated ground floors, stucco around windows and along cornices, natural slate roofs and painted timber box sashes.

Cast-iron railings run along most streets, and first floors carry patterned balcony screens, some spanning several windows.

Railing finials vary by street: spearheads with foliage on Albert Street, acorns, fir cones or fleurs-de-lys on Delancey Street, and urns at Mornington Crescent.

For Camden Square, Camden asks that stucco gets permeable paint, bare brick stays bare and repointing uses lime instead of cement.

Sources: Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007), Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)

Camden's noise rule for building sites lets loud work start at 8 each weekday morning and run until 6, with Saturday working ending at 1pm; Sunday and bank holiday work needs the council's agreement.

Skips and parking bays need booking ahead: Camden accepts a skip licence application only from the skip firm, five working days or more in advance, and bay suspensions are reserved online 17 days or more before they start.

Old York paving, cast iron bollards and coal-hole covers remain in the Camden Town area's streets, and the east side of Camden Square keeps an unbroken run of historic York stone.

We record the pavement outside the house before work starts and keep skips and props off any historic paving.

Sources: Camden Council: noisy building works, Camden Council: skip licence, Camden Council: parking bay suspensions, Camden: Camden Town Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 4 October 2007), Camden: Camden Square Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy (adopted 11 March 2011)