Loft conversion in Temple Fortune

Test the roof space before settling on a layout.

Start with the loft conversion brief

A measured roof survey should establish headroom, structural spans and where a staircase could meet the floor below. Plan the stair, escape route, insulation and building services together before treating the loft as another room.

Compare the proposed roof shape with the address-specific design guidance below. Record chimneys, shared walls and neighbouring rooflines, then ask the appointed designers to identify the structural work and consents the proposal needs.

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.

Temple Fortune’s shops stand on both sides of Finchley Road, the Suburb’s western boundary, but only the eastern side lies in the conservation area, and Barnet notes that the conservation area and the Trust’s Scheme of Management area are not entirely the same. The place name and the NW11 postcode do not decide the council, a boundary, a listing, Trust consent or the consent route. Confirm the council, then check Barnet’s conservation map, the list entry, the Article 4 schedule and map, whether the Trust’s Scheme or a Trust lease applies, the title or lease, and past planning decisions.

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

Scaffold on the footpath, like any building work that uses or infringes on the public highway or footway, needs a Barnet highways licence, and the landowner is ultimately responsible for having one in place. Residents hire a skip through a skip company, which arranges the licence; if a bay suspension is needed, it must be approved before the skip licence is applied for, with at least 7 working days’ notice on Barnet’s highways page and 7 calendar days on its parking page. Barnet cannot suspend bays turned into parklets at 24, 25, 26 and 30 Temple Fortune Parade and 1255 Finchley Road, and asks you to contact customer services first for a suspension nearby; vehicles for the works must park inside any suspended area.

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

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