Kitchen renovation in North Kensington

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

RBKC’s 2021 designation map shows the Oxford Gardens - St Quintin conservation area designated in 1975 and extended in 2002 and 2021, the latest phase along Latimer Road, where a March 2021 RBKC analysis had assessed the traditional terraces between North Pole Road and the Westway. That analysis says the area was first designated in 1975 for the speculative Victorian and Edwardian suburban housing on the Portobello and St Quintin estates. RBKC lists the adopted appraisal in an entry dated October 2021; the street descriptions here come from its October 2018 consultation draft.

The draft dates the red-brick Edwardian houses to 1905–1914: mainly long two-storey terraces with large original rear outriggers, most with full-height canted bays and one-over-one sashes, and none built with basements. Cottages and flats in cottage form followed in 1919–1926, designed by the LCC architect A. S. Soutar for the Royal Borough of Kensington. Subdivision is older still: the draft records large houses in the area failing to attract wealthy owners and starting to be divided in the 1880s.

The name North Kensington and the W10 and W11 postcodes are only a starting point: on their own they cannot show who the planning authority is, where a conservation area stops, whether a building is listed or under an Article 4 direction, or what consents a job needs. Parts of the borough line with Hammersmith and Fulham were realigned by a 1995 order that took full effect on 1 April 1996: RBKC says that near Latimer Road the line now runs along the railway’s north-eastern edge, and the Neighbourhood Plan records Bracewell Road, Brewster Gardens and the south side of Dalgarno Gardens joining Kensington and Chelsea that year. So settle first which council the full address falls under; then check the address against the national list, RBKC’s Article 4 table and its conservation area map, with the title or lease and the site’s planning history to hand.

Local design and consent context

RBKC lists an Oxford Gardens Conservation Area Appraisal among its adopted appraisals, with the 2021 designation map, in an entry dated October 2021, and keeps the older Oxford Gardens St Quintin proposals statement and a draft appraisal under its old documents. The appraisal descriptions on this page come from the consultation draft that RBKC consulted on from 31 October to 12 December 2018, so read the adopted appraisal for the wording that applies now.

On roofs, the 2018 draft describes valley roofs behind continuous parapets on Chesterton Road, Latimer Road, Calderon Place and the streets east of Ladbroke Grove, and, in most Edwardian streets, modern dormers on the main roofs, some oversized, while the outrigger roofs have remained undeveloped and are often clearly seen across gardens from the street. It finds the west side of the conservation area leafy and suburban, and the part east of St Mark’s Road more heavily built up and urban.

RBKC adopted its Colville appraisal on 17 February 2015, for an area designated on 7 December 2004, and its Avondale and Avondale Park Gardens appraisal on 14 December 2015, which records that in the Avondale conservation area the vast majority of dwellings form terraces, with only a small number built as flats in the latter part of the 20th century. Kensal Green Cemetery’s appraisal was published as a draft in May 2017, and the cemetery itself appears on the register of parks and gardens at Grade I.

Access and site planning

RBKC’s Code of Construction Practice keeps building work to weekdays between 8am and 6pm, never at weekends or on public holidays, and allows demolition and concrete-breaking only in two weekday windows, 9am to noon and 2pm to 5.30pm. Sequence the work within those hours, let the neighbours on both sides know before the noisy stages, check whether the lease or the building’s regulations restrict hours further, and work out early whether you will live at home while the bathroom or kitchen is out of action.

Continue planning

The North Kensington area guide · Kitchen renovation across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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