Basement conversion in Temple Fortune

Investigate the structure and ground before design.

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

Finchley Road became the main shopping centre for Hampstead Garden Suburb, and the London Plan 2021 lists Temple Fortune as a District centre in Barnet. Only the road’s eastern side lies in the Suburb conservation area, though most shops are on the western side. On the east, Arcade House and Temple Fortune House, which the Finchley Road appraisal says were completed in 1912, are listed at Grade II and have shops below and flats above. The 1930s blocks that followed include Belmont Court and The Pantiles, a listed block of 40 flats.

Behind the parade, the Artisans’ Quarter takes its main influence from the Arts and Crafts movement, with cottages grouped in terraces and linked pairs and most homes built between 1909 and 1912. Lower Temple Fortune Hill has white roughcast cottages in symmetrical groups, and brick half quadrangles face each other midway up. The appraisal names roughcast rendered walls, red brick plinths, London stock and red brick, shingle tiles and decorative tiled elements as traditional materials, and says most houses are nationally or locally listed; 5–11 Temple Fortune Hill are Grade II.

The Temple Fortune Lane and Willifield Way area has larger houses than the Artisans’ Quarter, built for middle-class families with large gardens and unified by white roughcast or render, tiles and brick decorative features; Temple Fortune Lane, built in 1907, was the Suburb’s first road. House types run from small three-bedroom properties to four- and five-bedroom houses, in formal squares, semi-detached and detached forms. On Temple Fortune Lane, Historic England lists the Palser Square houses of 1908–10, Arnold Mitchell’s pair at 34 and 36 and the flats of Temple Fortune Court at Grade II.

Local design and consent context

The Hampstead Garden Suburb Conservation Area was designated in 1968 and later extended to take in Golders Green Crematorium; to the west it reaches the east side of Finchley Road. The Trust says the character appraisal was formally adopted in October 2010 and divides the conservation area into 22 character areas. For Temple Fortune, read the chapters for the Artisans’ Quarter (Area 2), Temple Fortune Lane and Willifield Way (Area 3) and Finchley Road (Area 16).

Barnet lists sixteen conservation areas, and none is named Temple Fortune. The western side of Finchley Road, where most of the shops are and where Barnet’s local history links housebuilding to the 1910 tramline, lies outside the Suburb conservation area, so check Barnet’s maps for the address rather than assuming that any designation does or does not apply.

Barnet’s Hampstead Garden Suburb Article 4 page lists the rights withdrawn in Area 1, including enlarging, improving or otherwise altering a house, other roof alterations, porches, hard surfaces, gates, fences and walls, means of access to a highway, exterior painting and microgeneration equipment such as solar panels and ground or water source heat pumps; for that equipment the withdrawal covers blocks of flats as well as houses. Barnet notes that its scanned direction file may hold historical classes and maps, and that it has translated the old classes into modern ones.

Access and site planning

Barnet’s published construction working hours for noisy work are Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, and Saturday, 8am to 1pm, with none on a Sunday or bank holiday; check whether the lease or building rules are stricter. Where you share a building, whether above a shop or in a block, agree delivery times, protection of stairs and common parts and any water shut-offs with whoever manages the building, and tell neighbours what to expect. If you stay at home, decide which rooms remain usable and how you will manage while a bathroom is out of use.

Continue planning

The Temple Fortune area guide · Basement conversion across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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