House extension in East Sheen

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

Richmond’s Local Plan groups East Sheen with Mortlake in place strategy PBS8 and, echoing the Village Planning Guidance, describes a mainly residential area between the River Thames and Richmond Park. Large houses line attractive tree-lined streets towards the park, while terraced cottages and houses shape the streets north of Upper Richmond Road West. That road bisects East Sheen’s district centre, and the plan says it has a major impact on its appearance and character.

Richmond’s statement describes the Christchurch Road conservation area as centred on the historic core of East Sheen, where the Plough, Percy Lodge and neighbouring cottages form an exceptional 18th-century group, and describes The Mall, built in 1924 by Robert Atkinson, as Neo-Georgian red-brick houses with pantile roofs and timber sliding sashes. On Fife Road, Historic England lists The Halsteads, of 1868 by A W Blomfield, at Grade II as the first known architect-designed concrete house.

The East Sheen name appears on a Local Plan place strategy shared with Mortlake, on the Village Planning Guidance area, on four conservation areas and on an archaeological priority area, while Sheen Lane names two separate conservation areas: Sheen Lane (East Sheen), No. 64, and Sheen Lane (Mortlake), No. 70. Every East Sheen point checked lies in Richmond upon Thames, but a Priory Lane point (SW15) just to the east lies in Wandsworth. Neither these names nor an SW14 postcode settles the council, a conservation boundary, a listing, Article 4 coverage, who owns the freehold or which consents apply. Start with the council for the full address, then look up the conservation map and list entry, read the Article 4 schedule and the lease or title, and search the planning history.

Local design and consent context

Christchurch Road, No. 13, was designated on 14 January 1969 and extended in 1982, 1988 and 2002; its statement names the loss of traditional features and of front gardens and boundaries to car parking as pressures. East Sheen Avenue, No. 52, designated on 14 June 1988 and extended in 2002, keeps unusual gravel verges from Park Avenue northwards. Model Cottages, No. 34, dates from 7 September 1982, and Sheen Lane (East Sheen), No. 64, north of Richmond Park’s East Sheen Gate, from 12 November 2002.

Nearby, Sheen Common Drive, No. 69, an estate of detached houses built from 1925 to 1932, was designated in January 2004 and extended in November 2005, and Holmesdale Avenue, No. 68, laid out from 1909 in an Arts and Crafts style, in December 2003. Sheen Lane (Mortlake), No. 70, is a different area from No. 64: designated on 13 January 2004, it has an appraisal adopted on 30 March 2023, while Christchurch Road, East Sheen Avenue and Model Cottages also have conservation area studies approved in May 2002 and published in May 2007, which cite the old Unitary Development Plan; Sheen Lane (East Sheen), Sheen Common Drive and Holmesdale Avenue have only short, undated statements. The Village Planning Guidance numbers conservation areas its own way, which does not match Richmond’s numbers.

Richmond’s basement rules are aimed mainly at new or extended basements, though its flood table also covers converting an existing basement and Policy 54 covers lightwells; simply refitting an existing lower-ground room is usually a smaller question. Two non-immediate Article 4 directions together cover the whole borough, so basement and subterranean development has needed planning permission from 1 April 2018. For homes, Policy 54 resists more than one storey below existing ground level and limits how much existing garden land a basement may take, and it asks for naturally draining soil with a drainage layer over basements under gardens and a pumped device where there is a waste outlet.

Access and site planning

Plan how materials will reach the room, past any shared entrance or along a narrow route such as the informal path in front of Model Cottages. At the points checked on TfL’s data, Upper Richmond Road West and Clifford Avenue are TfL roads, where TfL issues highway licences and considers a skip only in rare situations where loading directly into a vehicle is impracticable; Sheen Lane, Christchurch Road, Fife Road, Palewell Park and Temple Sheen Road are not. On council roads, only a registered skip company can apply for a skip licence, which lasts up to three weeks and can be renewed, and in a controlled parking zone the council takes two working days to process a skip licence and a further five full calendar days to display suspension signs. Richmond’s suspension page asks for at least 10 working days’ notice, so allow that, and expect a site meeting before a scaffolding or hoarding licence, with no tacit consent.

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

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