House extension in Finchley

Connect the added space to the existing home.

Start with the house extension brief

Begin with how the new space will meet the old rooms, garden and circulation. A measured brief should record boundaries, levels, existing drains, neighbouring windows and the parts of the building you intend to keep.

Develop daylight, structure and services alongside the floor plan. Agree which openings and finishes are included, how the existing home will be protected during construction and which decisions need surveys or approval before a quotation.

The local building context

Barnet’s appraisal of the Finchley Church End Conservation Area, dated 31 August 2011, describes Edwardian shopping parades at the junction of Regents Park Road and Hendon Lane and modest Victorian cottages on Gravel Hill, Hendon Lane and College Terrace, where terraces such as College Terrace have slate roofs, canted bays, recessed doorways and white-painted sashes. It also records two Italianate villas in stucco and slate, Avenue House of 1859 and Hertford Lodge, which was restored and converted to apartments after a fire, and modern flats and small houses at Rectory Close and Spencer Close.

Finchley Garden Village, centred on Village Road, is described in its 2013 appraisal as entirely residential, with 51 properties on about 3.6 hectares. Frank E. Stratton was the principal architect, the first 13 houses were occupied by the end of 1909 and the rest were completed by 1914, apart from Nos. 39 and 40. The houses are in the Arts and Crafts style, mostly roughcast render under tiled roofs, with front gables, leaded-light timber casements and hooded entrance canopies, generally behind picket fences, and the appraisal notes that many have lost their original leaded lights.

The name Finchley covers many streets and several conservation areas, so it cannot tell you which rules apply to one home. Use the official lookup to confirm the council, then work through that council’s conservation-area maps, the listed-building records, the Article 4 orders, the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust’s area, the title or lease and any past planning decisions for that property. An N3 or N12 postcode, like the name itself, decides none of these questions.

Local design and consent context

Barnet’s conservation areas in and around Finchley include Moss Hall Crescent, designated on 19 July 1974; Finchley Garden Village, on 22 November 1978; Finchley Church End, in 1979; and Glenhill Close, on 27 March 2001. Barnet’s open data calls its appraisals and boundary maps the authoritative source, so read the map for the address.

The character appraisals are dated 31 August 2011 for Finchley Church End, 26 September 2013 for Finchley Garden Village (after a 21-day consultation in July 2013, with Design Guidance of the same date) and 26 August 2015 for Moss Hall Crescent; Glenhill Close has an undated appraisal statement. Each describes its area as it was then, and the Finchley Church End boundary map was last amended on 31 August 2011.

Barnet’s October 2010 appraisal introduction for Hampstead Garden Suburb puts the Suburb’s northern limit at East End Road and says the conservation area and the Trust’s Scheme of Management area do not share exactly the same boundary. Check the Trust’s area for the address itself rather than relying on the area name or postcode.

Access and site planning

Work out where deliveries will stop, where waste will wait for collection and how any shared hall or stair will be protected. The appraisals note very heavy traffic and parking on Regents Park Road, residents-only bays on one side of the narrow Moss Hall Crescent and, in Finchley Garden Village, where most houses have no private parking, a narrow Village Road that is often heavily parked where it crosses the green. Before scaffolding, a skip or materials occupy the road or pavement, confirm with the council which licence or bay suspension the job needs and the notice it requires; for a Barnet address, use Barnet’s highways licence and parking suspension pages.

Continue planning

The Finchley area guide · House extension across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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