Basement conversion in De Beauvoir Town

Start with the basement conversion brief

Distinguish an existing cellar conversion from excavation for a new basement. Record levels, drainage, access and the adjoining structures, and obtain project-specific ground and structural investigations before relying on a design or budget.

Plan temporary works, waterproofing, ventilation, escape and spoil removal as part of the same brief. Ask Hampstead Chartered Surveyors to assess party-wall matters and Hampstead Architecture & Planning to coordinate the design requirements. An area name alone does not establish ground conditions.

The local building context

Hackney declared the central and southern conservation areas in 1971 and 1977 and extended them north in 1998, when some parts moved into the new Kingsland Conservation Area and the Lockner Estate was added. The appraisal of May 2008, which replaced every earlier document, calls De Beauvoir a cohesive estate, planned in the late Georgian period and built in the early Victorian one: planned from 1821, it went up mainly from 1835 into the 1850s, with De Beauvoir Square at the centre of Richard Benyon De Beauvoir’s ‘new town’.

Most of the houses are Italianate. Many are villas, some semi-detached, with entrances set back to the side and designed to look like separate blocks, as on De Beauvoir Road, Buckingham Road and Northchurch Terrace. Northchurch Road is almost entirely detached villas or semi-detached houses. The other recurring design is the short ‘bookend’ terrace of four or six houses with projecting end bays, seen on Southgate Grove, Lawford Road, Culford Road and Ufton Road. In Hertford Road, the semi-detached Benyon Cottages of 1839 apply the Italianate style to modest houses.

De Beauvoir Square is the exception. Its Tudor-Jacobean pairs, from 1838, are two storeys over basements with attics under sharp gables, and the council notes their shaped gables, sculptured chimneys and lozenge-pattern leaded lights; the central garden is a protected London Square, ringed by Grade II listed railings. On Southgate Road, the listed terraces at Nos. 110 to 116 and 126 to 130 are three storeys of stock brick with stuccoed ground floors and Ionic porches, and houses on Downham Road have front steps and porches with free-standing columns.

• De Beauvoir conservation area appraisal Part 1 of 2 (May 2008), linked from the council’s De Beauvoir conservation area page
• Hackney Council: registered parks and gardens and London Squares
• Planning Data: railings around De Beauvoir Square garden, Grade II, list entry 1226602
• Planning Data: 110-116 Southgate Road N1, Grade II, list entry 1235413

Local design and consent context

The council’s De Beauvoir page links the May 2008 appraisal in two parts; it replaced all earlier documents. Other Hackney conservation areas neighbour it: Kingsland, designated in 1998 and centred on Kingsland Road, lies immediately to the east; Regent’s Canal, designated on 26 November 2007 and extended in 2011, to the south; and Dalston Lane (West) to the north-east. South of Downham Road, outside the conservation area, stands the high-rise 1960s De Beauvoir New Town Estate.

Among its threats the appraisal lists inappropriate alterations such as large side extensions and painted brickwork, and among its weaknesses side extensions that are out of keeping, too high or poorly detailed. On Northchurch Road it records villas whose two-storey flank extensions have cost them some of their original symmetry, and at Nos. 31 and 33 a flank extension turned a semi-detached pair into a terrace; it calls single-storey flank extensions more sympathetic. It also notes front gardens lost to parking on Englefield Road and Southgate Road.

An Article 4 direction does not forbid development, Hackney explains; it means planning permission must be obtained first. The council placed one in the De Beauvoir conservation area to protect features such as front garden walls, railings, door cases, original windows and decorative ridge tiles. Made on 7 July 2008 and approved by the Secretary of State on 27 November 2008, it requires permission, for a house it covers, to alter windows, front doors, railings and other metalwork, plasterwork or doorcases; to add to or alter the roof, including chimneys and pots; to paint the exterior; to build, maintain or alter a gate, fence or wall; and to add a porch or a hard surface.

• Hackney Council: De Beauvoir conservation area and its Article 4 direction
• Hackney Council: Kingsland conservation area
• Hackney Council: Regent’s Canal conservation area
• Hackney Council: Article 4 directions, including the district centres and local shopping centres direction
• Planning Data: De Beauvoir Conservation Area (article 4 direction area), London Borough of Hackney

Access and site planning

Settle the street side before the scaffold goes up. Hackney issues skip licences for no more than four weeks, and only approved skip companies may apply. Within a controlled parking zone, council approval for the skip must come at least 7 working days ahead of the licence start date. Where the skip must sit in a parking bay, the bay suspension comes first, applied for online no less than 7 working days ahead, and the skip licence second. A highways licence covers scaffolding, hoarding, building materials or containers on the highway; apply no later than 10 working days before it is needed and include your public liability insurance details. On red routes, TfL deals with both.

• Hackney Council: skip licences
• Hackney Council: parking bay suspensions
• Hackney Council: highways licences for scaffolding, hoarding and materials

Continue planning

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