Kensington W8 · Houses, flats & bathrooms
Squares, villas, terraces and red-brick mansion flats
Kensington's homes range from houses on Kensington Square, one of London's oldest squares, to flats in mansion blocks, and nearly three quarters of the Royal Borough lies in its 38 conservation areas. Listing is the other early question: the borough has over 3,800 listed buildings, and Article 4 directions mean that small external changes such as replacement windows or front doors need planning permission at the properties they name on streets including Kensington Square, Kensington Court Place and Kensington Church Street.
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01 Mansion flats and apartments
Mansion blocks, often in multiple ownership, have no permitted development rights, the Local Plan notes, and a lease can make an alteration depend on the landlord's agreement even where planning permission exists.
Sources: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Local Plan (adopted July 2024), LEASE: alterations and home improvements
Explore flat renovation02 Terraces, family houses and squares
Policy CD12 resists an extra storey on a complete terrace with an unimpaired roofline, and Policy CD13 resists extensions beyond the general rear building line, so roof and rear plans are tested early.
Source: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Local Plan (adopted July 2024)
Explore house renovation03 Kitchens in period rooms
RBKC's list of changes needing listed building consent includes new openings, recessed lighting and vents, so a kitchen in a listed building is drawn with the list entry to hand.
Source: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: listed buildings explained
Explore kitchen renovation04 Bathrooms and shower rooms
Swapping a bath, WC, basin or sink for a new one is on gov.uk's list of work exempt from building regulations approval; new electrical points or circuit changes beside a bath or shower are not.
Source: GOV.UK: when you don't need building regulations approval
Explore bathroom renovation05 Joinery made to measure
Our joinery team measures each room and designs and makes its wardrobes, bookcases and cabinetry to fit.
Explore bespoke joineryLocal history
RBKC says the Kensington Palace conservation area's development began with two small medieval settlements on the old Roman roads west from London, now Notting Hill Gate and Kensington High Street. The Kensington Court conservation area, it says, shows the change in London's architectural taste in the 1870s and 1880s, and the Edwardes Square, Scarsdale area holds a great variety of residential property, mostly built as family dwellings.
Kensington Square is, in the council's words, one of London's oldest squares, and it was among the first parts of the borough to be designated a conservation area. RBKC lists the Kensington Square appraisal as adopted on 23 November 2017, and the appraisal for the Kensington conservation area on 3 February 2017.
Kensington Palace is one of the borough's two scheduled monuments, the other being the Brick Kiln in Walmer Road, and one of its two Tier 1 archaeological priority areas is focused on the palace.
Sources: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: conservation area maps, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: conservation area appraisals, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Local Plan (adopted July 2024)
Consents
When a building is listed, RBKC says the whole of it is protected, including the inside, its internal features and any later extensions, and works affecting its interest without consent are a criminal offence. Policy CD5 resists alterations that remove features of architectural importance and harm historic fabric, unless clearly and convincingly justified.
Sources: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: listed buildings explained, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Local Plan (adopted July 2024)
RBKC's Article 4 list includes 2–102 (even) and 1–57 (odd) Palace Gardens Terrace from 23 October 1984, and 23–81 (odd) and 2–52 (even) Victoria Road from 13 September 1996. At the properties a direction names, changes such as replacement windows, front doors or roof coverings may need planning permission.
Sources: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Article 4 Directions in conservation areas, RBKC - Article 4 Directions in Conservation Areas (register of directions by street)
Policy CD11 of the Local Plan that RBKC adopted on 24 July 2024 replaced the 2019 plan's Policy CL7. It keeps excavation to under half of the garden, limits depth to a single storey in most cases and allows no digging beneath a listed building, vaults included.
Sources: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Local Plan, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Local Plan (adopted July 2024)
Policy CD12 resists additional storeys on a complete terrace or group with an unimpaired roofline, or where a storey or mansard has already been added, and Policy CD13 resists extensions that go beyond the general rear building line or rise to the original main eaves or parapet.
Source: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Local Plan (adopted July 2024)
Building work
Work that can be heard beyond the site boundary may run from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. Demolition and concrete-breaking are confined to 9am to noon and 2pm to 5.30pm on weekdays, and noisy work on Saturdays, Sundays or bank holidays needs RBKC's written permission in advance.
Source: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: construction site enforcement
The Code of Construction Practice limits deliveries and collections to 9.30am to 4.30pm on weekdays, or 3pm where a school is on the route, and no parking suspension is issued at a weekend or on a bank holiday unless a Construction Traffic Management Plan allows it.
Source: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Code of Construction Practice (April 2019)
Before work starts every site is assessed as Category 1, 2 or 3. Internal refurbishment is Category 3, while basement excavation and full demolition are Category 1, which brings a signed checklist and an approved Site Construction Management Plan before work can begin.
Sources: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Code of Construction Practice, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Code of Construction Practice (April 2019)
A council licence is needed before a skip, scaffolding or hoarding goes on the highway or a mobile crane is operated there.
Source: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Code of Construction Practice (April 2019)
Named streets
In the Kensington appraisal, Campden Hill is one of ten character areas inside the Kensington conservation area, not a conservation area of its own. It covers Campden Hill Square with Aubrey Road, Aubrey Walk, Campden Hill Place, Hillsleigh Road and the south side of Holland Park Avenue. The street called Campden Hill sits in another character area, The Institutions, and the west side of Campden Hill Road appears in the lists for both The Institutions and the Phillimore Estate, so check which part of the appraisal covers your street.
Campden Hill Square, laid out after Joshua Flesher Hanson bought the land in 1823, was among the earliest parts of the conservation area to be developed. Different developers built its plots at different times, so the houses vary: three to five storeys over lower ground floors, in stock brick with channelled stucco, many with six-over-six sashes in plain brick reveals. Gardens front and back are larger than elsewhere in the conservation area. The earliest houses, No. 2 and Nos 50–52, are listed Grade II, as are the railings, gate piers and gates of about 1826 round the communal garden.
Aubrey Walk, at the square’s southern end, is made up of studio conversions of, or successors to, the square’s coach houses, with late nineteenth-century studios on its north side; Nos 15–19 (odd), by Raymond Erith in 1951–2, are listed Grade II. Aubrey House, a mid-eighteenth-century house in spacious grounds behind high brick walls, is Grade II*. On the east side of Aubrey Road, houses built piecemeal on the back gardens of the square’s west side largely date from the twentieth century, and the appraisal says ground-level garages there detract from the conservation area.
Sources: RBKC: Kensington conservation area appraisal, adopted 3 February 2017 · Planning Data: Aubrey House, Grade II*, list entry 1188804
The appraisal says the Phillimore Estate today is the 21-acre site developed by Joseph Gordon Davis of Pimlico between 1855 and 1870, where the terraces first envisaged were replaced by detached or semi-detached houses. They are generally built from a consistent palette of London stock or gault brick, painted stucco and Welsh slate roofs. The appraisal gives the estate as an example of simpler glazing, one pane to each sash or two over two, and finds flank walls facing side streets generally more formal than elsewhere in the conservation area, with architraves, cornices, bays and rusticated stucco.
Rooflines were originally of three kinds, hidden behind parapets, low-pitched, or slate mansards, and many have been altered. Single or paired villas under low-pitched roofs tend to be the least altered, having too little headroom for another floor. Across the conservation area, the appraisal finds modern mansard extensions acceptable where most houses in a terrace or group have them and the design is appropriate. RBKC also lists a direction for 11 Essex Villas whose printed text concerns the roof, approved with modifications in red ink, and a 1975 direction for 16 Phillimore Place; confirm both with the council.
Front boundaries and mature planting in front and back gardens greatly enhance the estate, whose front gardens can support all but the largest trees. The appraisal records harm from hard standings for parking, which break the rhythm of the boundaries, and from garages inserted into house fronts. Duchess of Bedford Walk is split: its south side is in the Phillimore Estate, its north side in The Institutions. On Stafford Terrace, Nos 2–16 and 20–28 (even) are listed Grade II, and Linley Sambourne House, where the appraisal says Linley Sambourne lived at No. 18, is Grade II*.
Sources: RBKC: Kensington conservation area appraisal, adopted 3 February 2017 · RBKC: Article 4 directions in conservation areas · RBKC: Article 4 direction no. 48, 11 Essex Villas, sealed 24 September 1987 · RBKC: Article 4 direction no. 9, 16 Phillimore Place, sealed 29 January 1975 · Planning Data: 2–16 and 20–28 (even) Stafford Terrace, Grade II, list entry 1226797 · Planning Data: Linley Sambourne House, Grade II*, list entry 1409861
Questions before you begin
Yes, depending on the address. Nearly three quarters of the Royal Borough lies in its 38 conservation areas, where proposals must preserve or enhance their character or appearance, and the borough has over 3,800 listed buildings. RBKC also says that living in a conservation area does not prevent changes to a property.
Sources: RBKC - Conservation areas (heritage and conservation overview page), Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: listed buildings explained, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: conservation areas
Not if it is noisy. RBKC's Code of Construction Practice introduced a ban on noisy construction work on Saturdays, and work that can be heard outside the site on Saturdays, Sundays or bank holidays needs the council's written permission in advance.
Sources: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Code of Construction Practice (April 2019), Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: construction site enforcement
Possibly, under Policy CD11 of the Local Plan adopted in July 2024: new basement space may take no more than half of each garden, is limited to a single storey in most cases, and no further floor is allowed where a basement already exists or has permission.
Source: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Local Plan (adopted July 2024)
In a listed building, yes. RBKC lists changes as small as re-plastering, removing floorboards, recessed lighting and secondary glazing among the works that need consent, and both the owner and whoever carried out unauthorised work are liable and can get a criminal record.
Source: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: listed buildings explained
Kensington renovations are priced once the address is known, because controls change street by street. Whether a house sits under an Article 4 direction or on the statutory list, the lease of a mansion flat, any basement proposal, and the council's Code of Construction Practice on hours and parking all alter what the job involves. We cover them at a feasibility visit, agree a scope and specification, and supply a written quotation.
The same team stays with the project from the first visit to handover. Our in-house architects, designers and structural engineers draw and specify the work. Master joiners make the fitted furniture. Building Regulations approval comes from the building control body appointed for the project. Independent surveying is a separate appointment: Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy, our RICS-regulated sister practice, is a separate firm that a homeowner instructs directly. One JCT contract covers the building work. Electrical and gas work is carried out by appropriately registered engineers. Completed structural work carries a 12-month aftercare/defects period. Cover is £5M public liability, £10M employers' liability and contractors' all risks cover. Main office: 250 Finchley Road, Hampstead, London NW3 6DN. Central London client consultation address: 2 Eaton Gate, Belgravia, London SW1W 9BJ. Telephone 020 7101 3168.
Licence to alter · Independent surveying by our sister practice
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