House refurbishment in Dulwich

Bring the whole-house scope together.

Start with the house refurbishment brief

Survey the rooms, structure and building services before separating repairs from alterations. Identify the features to keep and the rooms that must remain usable, then coordinate heating, electrics, bathrooms, kitchens and finishes in one written scope.

Record allowances and exclusions against the drawings. Plan inspections before work is covered, agree how changes will be priced and keep a clear handover list for certificates, commissioning and snagging.

The local building context

Street by street the appraisal finds real variety. The tight grain of Pickwick, Aysgarth and Boxall Roads contrasts with the spacious Edwardian and Arts and Crafts houses of Burbage Road, and many of the houses fronting College Road are listed and set well back in large private gardens. Between Court Lane, Woodwarde Road and Lordship Lane stand mostly turn-of-the-century terraces or substantial semi-detached pairs, chiefly brick, often with bay windows and barge-boarded gables. Dekker Road has small cottages and two-level maisonettes, and 1 to 12 Roseway with 157 to 175 Turney Road form a small 1920s garden estate.

West Dulwich is split. On the Southwark side, West Dulwich Station and 136, 138 and 140 Thurlow Park Road fall inside the Dulwich Village Conservation Area. On the Lambeth side, the Park Hall Road Conservation Area is a row of mid-19th-century villas at 33 to 61 Park Hall Road, with semi-basements, stock brick walls, slate roofs and stucco only on the fronts. East Dulwich, in the 2013 SPD’s words, is mostly residential with lots of Victorian terraced housing; none of the five conservation areas that SPD names carries the East Dulwich name.

An SE21 or SE22 postcode, or the word Dulwich in an address, settles nothing about which council decides, which conservation area applies, whether a building is listed or what consent is needed. Dulwich Library at 368 Lordship Lane has an SE22 address yet sits inside the Dulwich Village Conservation Area. Southwark’s SPD describes a West Dulwich shopping frontage on Park Hall Road, a road whose Nos 33 to 61 form a Lambeth conservation area, and Lambeth has its own West Dulwich ward. The Dulwich Estate’s Scheme covers land in Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham. So start from the house number. Establish which council it falls under, then search that council’s map of conservation areas, the statutory list of listed buildings and the council’s Article 4 pages for it, and, last, the deeds or lease and whatever has been approved at the address before.

Local design and consent context

No direction on Southwark’s Article 4 page is named for the Dulwich Village Conservation Area. The list does include the Great North Wood, where the council says you must apply for planning permission to develop; it takes in Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Woods and streets including Grange Lane, Woodhall Drive, Great Brownings, Crescent Wood Avenue and part of College Road. The page does not say which rights it removes, so ask the council first. The Croxted Road and Norwood Road direction concerns communications equipment, not house alterations.

In Lambeth, every building in the Park Hall Road Conservation Area, Nos 33 to 61 (odd), is covered by a direction made on 27 December 1984 and confirmed on 26 February 1985. Appendix 1 of Lambeth’s 2016 statement lists what it covers: enlargement, improvement or other alteration of the house, including window and roof alterations and porches, and painting the exterior. The 2016 statement judged that level of control adequate, and Lambeth’s conservation guidance is plain that work named in a direction needs planning permission.

The Southwark Plan 2022 was adopted on 23 February 2022 and covers 2019 to 2036. The Householder Development SPD, adopted by cabinet on 7 July 2025, applies to houses and flats, including listed buildings and homes in conservation areas, and guides the use of the plan’s policies without adding new ones. It encourages rear extensions to stay single storey, requires a Basement Impact Assessment with any basement application, limits basements to one storey below ground and permits lightwells only where they are already a common feature of the street or area.

Access and site planning

Weekday hours match on both sides of the boundary, 8am to 6pm, but Saturdays differ: Southwark permits noisy works from 9am to 2pm and Lambeth building work from 8am to 1pm, and neither allows Sunday or bank holiday working. Southwark also wants excessively noisy work done in two-hour spells with two-hour breaks, and, for noisy demolition or construction, Section 61 consent applied for at least 28 days before work begins. Put the dates of the loudest stages in a letter to the neighbours and any managing agent, and think early about whether the household stays in.

Continue planning

The Dulwich area guide · House refurbishment across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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