Kitchen renovation in Brook Green

Plan the kitchen around movement, storage and services.

Start with the kitchen renovation brief

Map preparation, cooking, washing and storage before choosing cabinet fronts. Measure clearances with doors and drawers open, and decide which existing walls, floors and details belong in the finished room.

Coordinate the cabinetry with water, drainage, extraction, electrics and lighting. Confirm appliance dimensions and access for installation before the layout is signed off; structural alterations need their own design and approval checks.

The local building context

Hammersmith and Fulham’s character profile, approved on 8 March 2004 and updated in 2006 and 2007, centres the Brook Green Conservation Area on the Green, once the core of a separate hamlet and now a 1.80-hectare open space that the Local Plan marks as common land. Most buildings facing it went up between 1860 and 1916; Holy Trinity, Grade II*, dates from 1851. South of the Green, the original 1971 area holds Grade II villas at 3 to 11 (odd) Bute Gardens and 8 to 46 (even) Rowan Road and locally listed cottages at 1 to 6 Rowan Terrace.

Dunsany, Haarlem, Augustine, Souldern, Caithness, Applegarth, Aynhoe and Girdlers Roads, north of the Green, were added in 1981; along them the 2004 profile found cottages, large town houses and a few mansion blocks. It describes uniform red-brick terraces on Dunsany, Haarlem, Augustine and Souldern Roads and part of Caithness Road, painted stucco villas at 1 to 12 Caithness Road and four-storey mansion blocks on Haarlem Road, with roof slopes generally unaltered except for front roof extensions on one Caithness Road terrace. The 2017 Lakeside / Sinclair / Blythe Road profile also describes parts of Dunsany and Augustine Roads.

Addison Gardens, Lakeside Road and Bolingbroke Road are described in the Lakeside / Sinclair / Blythe Road profile of July 2017. Lakeside Road is mostly imposing three-storey terraces with semi-basements, with modern four-storey blocks of flats towards its northern end, and 67 to 97 (odd) and 70 to 148 (even) Addison Gardens are matching three-storey red-brick terraces with Dutch gables. On Bolingbroke Road, 1 to 21 (odd) and 2 to 24 (even) are stock-brick houses of three storeys plus basement, with canted bays, heavy stucco and a few added mansards; the rest of the road is red brick.

Local design and consent context

The profile records a first designation in March 1971, additions in April 1974, August 1981 and February 1988, and an extension on 7 March 2006 taking in King’s House, Latymer Court, EMI House and Vineyard House on the north side of Hammersmith Road. The council has since moved some properties to the Lakeside / Sinclair / Blythe Road Conservation Area, from 18 July 2017, and added 50F Brook Green, from 13 November 2018. It notes that boundaries have moved on since its 2018 Policies Map, and keeps the up-to-date maps on its conservation area pages.

This neighbouring area was designated on 17 January 1990 and extended on 18 November 1991. In July 2017 a further extension and the transfer in of some Brook Green and Melrose properties were approved, and Cabinet adopted its character profile the same month. The profile splits the area into six sub-areas, among them Lakeside Road – Minford Gardens and Addison Gardens – Bolingbroke Road. It records an important view from Lakeside Road to the Grade II listed St Simon’s Church, and notes that most of its protected trees stand in the private courtyard enclosed by Richmond Way, Addison Gardens and Sinclair Gardens.

Hammersmith and Fulham adopted its Local Plan on 28 February 2018, superseding its Core Strategy (2011) and Development Management Local Plan (2013), and its Table 5 names Brook Green and Lakeside / Sinclair / Blythe Road among the borough’s conservation areas. Under policy DC4 an extension should be subservient and never dominate its parent building in bulk, scale, materials or design. Policy DC8 protects conservation areas and listed buildings among other heritage assets: an application affecting a designated heritage asset, alterations and extensions included, is permitted only if the asset’s significance is conserved or enhanced.

Access and site planning

Work out the delivery route and a holding place for waste before work starts. On a Hammersmith and Fulham road, only the skip company can apply for a skip licence, for 14 days at least; no part of a skip may sit on the footpath or a pedestrianised area, and a parking bay must be suspended before a skip goes in it. The scaffolding company applies for a scaffold licence, and the building contractor, never the resident, for a hoarding licence, each for a month or more. Bay suspensions need notice: eight days at least where up to six bays are suspended for no more than three days, and longer for bigger suspensions. Brook Green, Shepherd’s Bush Road and Hammersmith Road are not among the roads whose pavements Transport for London looks after.

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The Brook Green area guide · Kitchen renovation across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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