House refurbishment in Kingston upon Thames

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

Coombe has three conservation areas, which the council’s pages date to January 1990 for Coombe Wood, January 1996 for Coombe Hill and February 1997 for Coombe House. Coombe Hill is largely 20th-century houses within the grounds of two 19th-century mansions, with several mid-19th-century buildings by George Devey. Coombe Wood has large Victorian, Edwardian and 20th-century houses in the triangle of Kingston Hill, George Road and Warren Road. Coombe House is the core of a demolished 16th-century manorial estate, whose high brick walls survive on Warren Rise and Fitzgeorge Avenue.

Kingston Hill Conservation Area, designated in November 2004, is a group of early Victorian to early 20th-century large houses in a woodland setting, notable for its relationship with Richmond Park and the park’s listed boundary wall. The council’s 2004 report describes mature, dense landscaping, low-key boundaries and buildings set well within their plots. The Liverpool Road area has individually designed detached and semi-detached houses from the 1850s on the edge of Richmond Park, and the Park Road appraisal of July 2008 picks out Nos. 9–29 Kingston Hill as a high-quality group on long plots.

In North Kingston, the Richmond Road conservation area occupies land between Albany Park Road and Richmond Road that once formed part of the Bank Grove Estate. Most of the houses on those two roads went up between 1891 and 1898, detached on Albany Park Road and semi-detached along Richmond Road, with gabled fronts, bay windows, tile hanging and decorative brickwork. It lies close to Riverside North, designated in November 2004, a linear area shaped by the Thames, where the 2002 appraisal records four substantial houses of about 1895 on Lower Ham Road and three eight-storey blocks of flats.

Local design and consent context

The council explains that an Article 4 direction leaves development possible but means planning permission must be sought for the type of work it covers. It lists three directions: one for the Seething Wells filter beds in Surbiton, one on changing commercial premises to homes, and one for North Lodge and South Lodge in the Kingsnympton Park estate off Kingston Hill. The Coombe Hill, Coombe Wood, Coombe House, Kingston Hill, Kingston Vale, Liverpool Road, Park Road, Richmond Road and Riverside North pages each record no Article 4 direction.

The lodges direction, made on 29 August 2023 and confirmed by the Place Committee on 8 February 2024, removes the right to demolish buildings on those two plots without planning permission; both lodges are locally listed. The commercial direction, in its modified form in force from 14 June 2023, covers local centres including Kingston Hill and Park Road, Richmond Road, Coombe Road and Kingston Vale. It concerns turning commercial premises into homes, not alterations to an existing house or flat.

Locally listed buildings, once called Buildings of Townscape Merit, are those the council finds of enough historic, architectural, townscape and environmental interest to be of local value. Its conservation area pages name Tudor Cottage, The Wall Cottage and Soames House on Coombe Hill Road, the Dorincourt group, Holmwood and Kingston Hill Place on Kingston Hill, several houses on Liverpool Road and Crescent Road, and the Albany Boathouse at 92 Lower Ham Road.

Access and site planning

Kingston’s noise pages say the council can act on building-site noise outside specified working hours, but they do not set those hours out, so confirm them with the council before planning early, late or weekend work. Its advice is to talk to neighbours first and agree the least intrusive times for noisy work, and it names construction as the most common cause of dust complaints. Give any managing agent or freeholder the start date and the loud stages in writing, and decide whether the household moves out for the noisiest part.

Continue planning

The Kingston upon Thames area guide · House refurbishment across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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