Kitchen renovation in East Sheen

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

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.

The East Sheen Village Planning Guidance, adopted on 8 January 2016, describes the area street group by street group. Around Palewell Park, on land the Gilpin family sold in 1896, Edwardian houses are generally bow-fronted with gables; Church Avenue and Vernon Road mix red brick, roughcast render and clay tiles; Alexandra Road, Lewin Road and King’s Road have small yellow-brick terraced cottages, probably of about 1900; and Deanhill Court is a post-war estate with large red-brick blocks of flats.

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.

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 lists Article 4 directions for East Sheen Avenue, including Park Avenue, for Model Cottages and for The Mall, and no conservation-area direction for Sheen Lane (East Sheen), Sheen Common Drive, Holmesdale Avenue or Sheen Lane (Mortlake), although the borough-wide basement directions apply there too. The 2002 direction covers 1–38 and 39–59 (odd) East Sheen Avenue and 1–26 Model Cottages. The direction dated 19 May 2015 covers 52–108 (even) and 63–121 (odd) East Sheen Avenue, with 2–16 (even) and 1–11 (odd) Park Avenue.

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.

Continue planning

The East Sheen area guide · Kitchen renovation across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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