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Ravenscourt Park W6 · Houses, flats & bathrooms

Renovations in Ravenscourt Park

Listed stuccoed pairs, stock-brick terraces and flats

Around the park, the council’s character profile describes listed stuccoed pairs in Ravenscourt Gardens, a three-storey terrace with basements at 41–93 Ravenscourt Road, an early Victorian Gothic cottage at 17 Ravenscourt Square and Stamford Court, an apartment block of considerable scale. Whatever your home, plan the work, or a single bathroom, around the fabric that is there, from roof slopes and sashes to drains, and the rules for its exact address.

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Serving Ravenscourt Park from our Hampstead studio · NW3 6DN
020 7101 3168

Hampstead Renovations design and build studio on Finchley Road
Our Hampstead studio · Finchley Road, NW3 6DN

Start with your project

Choose the work your Ravenscourt Park home needs

Choose a focused room renovation or a coordinated refurbishment. Each service page explains the scope in more detail and gives you a direct route to discuss the work.

01 Listed pairs and stock-brick villas

House refurbishment in Ravenscourt Park

A house near the park might be one of the listed stuccoed pairs in Ravenscourt Gardens, a three-storey house with a basement in the 41–93 Ravenscourt Road terrace or one of Paddenswick Road’s stock-brick terraces and paired villas of 1830–1860. Decide which original features stay, such as sashes, chimney stacks, roof details and front walls, before the services are designed, and look the house number up in the Article 4 schedules and the list before outside work is priced.

  • House number checked against Directions No. 1 to 5
  • Roof, chimneys, sashes and stucco surveyed
  • Rear elevations seen from the park considered
Read about house refurbishment in Ravenscourt Park

02 Apartment blocks and conversions

Flat renovation in Ravenscourt Park

Most dwellings in Ravenscourt ward are flats or maisonettes, the council’s ward profile records. Near the park, Stamford Court is an apartment block of considerable scale north of Ravenscourt Gardens, and the profile describes 3A, 5 and 7 Ravenscourt Square as mid-19th-century houses since altered and divided. Read the lease’s alterations clause before a layout is drawn, because the landlord’s permission may be required on top of planning permission, and flats sit outside the householder permitted development regime.

  • Landlord’s consent terms identified
  • Control of the shared stack established
  • Sound separation and floor depth confirmed
Read about flat refurbishment in Ravenscourt Park

03 Bathrooms by the park

Bathroom renovation in Ravenscourt Park

You can bring us a bathroom as a standalone renovation, with nothing else attached, whether the room serves a Ravenscourt Road terrace house, sits off a bedroom in a Paddenswick Road villa or is a flat’s single shower room. Before choosing tiles, settle the waste run to the stack and the extract’s exit from the building: the conservation area profile wants vents as inconspicuous as possible and gas flue positions carefully considered, and it discourages PVC when soil pipes are replaced.

  • Floor void deep enough for the waste checked
  • Outside vent and flue positions settled
  • Floor joists opened up and checked
Read about bathroom renovation in Ravenscourt Park

Real projects, clearly located

Ideas for your Ravenscourt Park refurbishment

Photographs of our work elsewhere in London

Explore a whole house in Belsize Park, an apartment on Chesterfield Street in Mayfair and a bathroom in Pimlico. Use these examples to discuss the scale of work and finishes you have in mind for your own home.

Completed exterior at Belsize Park Gardens after refurbishment

Whole-house refurbishment · Belsize Park, NW3

Belsize Park Gardens, NW3

Full-house refurbishment in Belsize Park with basement, extension and loft works.

Conservation Area · 5 Storeys · Documented programme: 12 months

Documentary programme, not verified elapsed construction time or a timetable for another project.

View the project

More London project records: Carlton Lodge, Belgravia · King’s Road, Chelsea.

103+
Completed Projects
RIBA
In-House Chartered Architects
Structural
Engineering Calculations
Planning
Applications & Consents
Building Control
Compliance Support
Leasehold
Licence for Alteration
£5M · £10M
Public · employers' liability
Independent
Surveying via Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

Local knowledge with a purpose

Understand the building before changing it

Ravenscourt Park is the heart of the Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area, which our Hammersmith page also describes and whose profile divides it into three sub-areas. This page concentrates on sub-area A, the park and its surrounding streets; the other two are Victorian housing north of Goldhawk Road and Edwardian housing and Wendell Park.

The council’s profile, approved on 2 July 1997, calls the park a remnant of the former grounds of the manor of Palingswick, surrounded by a street layout that has evolved from the 18th century, and the council’s park page says the lake at its centre, fed by Stamford Brook, was part of the manor’s moat. George Scott, owner of Ravenscourt House and Park, encouraged house building on the park’s sides while keeping strong control over their style: a plan of 1830 shows 78 houses within the park, and by 1845 there were 330.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, approved 2 July 1997 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, designation and character · LBHF: Ravenscourt Park, Paddenswick Road, W6 0UA

On the east side, Ravenscourt Road is a relatively wide street of terraces and semi-detached villas, and the rear of its western side is highly visible from the park. Nos. 41–93 form a three-storey terrace with basements whose stucco detailing, frontage walls and piers the profile singles out, while Nos. 86–98 (even) and 95–101 (odd) are mid-Victorian two-storey pairs in stock brick with Doric-columned porches. Paddenswick Road has terraces and paired villas of 1830–1860 in stock brick with stucco detailing, and the profile calls their front gardens particularly important to their mature and relaxed character.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, designation and character · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, printed pages 8 to 12

The profile describes the listed houses of Ravenscourt Gardens as two-storey stuccoed semi-detached houses of the mid to late 18th century whose original front railings have been removed, and Stamford Court as dominating the corner of the site north of Ravenscourt Gardens. On the park’s west side, Ravenscourt Square is built on three sides and opens east into the park; most of its houses are stock brick, and No. 17 is a Gothic cottage of about 1840. Ravenscourt ward, which contains the park, had 3,077 dwellings in 2021, most of them flats or maisonettes.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, printed pages 8 to 12 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, designation and character · LBHF: Ravenscourt ward profile 2024 · LBHF: Ravenscourt ward profile 2024, how we live

The first local check

Check the house number, not the park’s name

Ravenscourt Park is the name of a park, a station and a road, and none of those labels, any more than a W6 postcode, shows which council handles applications, where a conservation boundary falls, whether a building is listed or which consents a job needs. The conservation area reaches west to the borough boundary, the council’s register files the conservation area’s Buildings of Merit under W6 and W12 street headings, and the Westcroft Square Conservation Area’s eastern boundary follows the rear of the properties on the road called Ravenscourt Park. Start from the house number instead: find it on the council’s conservation area map, in the direction schedules and on the statutory list, then check the title or lease and the building’s planning history.

LBHF: Ravenscourt Park, Paddenswick Road, W6 0UA · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, designation and character · LBHF: Local Register of Buildings of Merit, as at August 2015 · LBHF: Westcroft Square Conservation Area character profile, designation · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area · LBHF: statutory listed buildings · LBHF: properties affected by Article 4 directions, list last amended 1 October 2011 · LEASE: alterations and home improvements

Separate checks, one coordinated brief

Planning, listed buildings, building control and leases

One approval does not settle every requirement. Identify the applicable routes before ordering work, and record who will prepare submissions, arrange inspections and provide the relevant completion information.

Planning permission and permitted development

Which works near the park need a planning application?

GOV.UK lists interior alterations among the works that do not amount to development, so a refit confined to the rooms of a house or flat rarely calls for a planning application; work that alters the outside is another matter. Householder permitted development is not available to flats, and inside a conservation area even a house has no permitted right to a roof extension. Around the park, the Ravenscourt and Starch Green directions take away further rights at the house numbers they list, so test each job against the householder limits and conditions, the direction schedules and any earlier permission before relying on a right.

When planning permission is required · Householder permitted development technical guidance · LBHF: properties affected by Article 4 directions · LBHF: properties affected by Article 4 directions, list last amended 1 October 2011

Listing and the conservation area

Is listed building consent needed for work inside?

If the building is listed, it can be. Grade II entries include 11 Ravenscourt Square and 27, 29, 35–49 (odd) and 44–64 (even) Ravenscourt Gardens, and the former Royal Masonic Hospital is Grade II* together with its boundary walls, gates, railings and planters. The council’s listed buildings page treats unconsented alteration of a listed building, whether internal or external, as a criminal offence, and says a boundary wall attached to or around a listed building is listed along with it. Being inside the conservation area is not the same as being listed and does not by itself call for listed building consent. Local Plan Policy DC8 names listed buildings and conservation areas among designated heritage assets, and alterations or extensions affecting such an asset have to conserve or enhance its significance to be permitted.

Planning Data: 11 Ravenscourt Square, Grade II, list entry 1358589 · Planning Data: 27 and 29 Ravenscourt Gardens, Grade II, list entry 1192670 · Planning Data: 35 and 37 Ravenscourt Gardens, Grade II, list entry 1079806 · Planning Data: 39 and 41 Ravenscourt Gardens, Grade II, list entry 1286471 · Planning Data: 43 and 45 Ravenscourt Gardens, Grade II, list entry 1079764 · Planning Data: 47 and 49 Ravenscourt Gardens, Grade II, list entry 1079765 · Planning Data: 44 Ravenscourt Gardens, Grade II, list entry 1358585 · Planning Data: 46 and 48 Ravenscourt Gardens, Grade II, list entry 1079766 · Planning Data: 50 and 52 Ravenscourt Gardens, Grade II, list entry 1079767 · Planning Data: 54 and 56 Ravenscourt Gardens, Grade II, list entry 1358586 · Planning Data: 58 and 60 Ravenscourt Gardens, Grade II, list entry 1079768 · Planning Data: 62 and 64 Ravenscourt Gardens, Grade II, list entry 1358587 · Planning Data: former Royal Masonic Hospital, with boundary walls, gates, railings and planters, Grade II*, list entry 1192740 · LBHF: statutory listed buildings · LBHF Local Plan 2018: policy document

Building Regulations

Who checks that the building work meets the regulations?

Planning permission, listed building consent and a landlord’s agreement do not include Building Regulations approval, which has to be dealt with on its own. In a house or flat by the park, the refit items GOV.UK names as possibly needing that approval include new bathroom plumbing, electrical changes near a bath or shower, replacing windows or doors, and installing or replacing the heating system. Hammersmith and Fulham’s building control service issues decisions on Full Plans applications, so before work starts, agree which party makes the application, which one calls the inspector out at each stage and how the completion certificate reaches you.

When Building Regulations approval is needed · LBHF: make a building control application · LEASE: alterations and home improvements

Lease terms, freeholders and party walls

When does a landlord or a neighbour have a say?

For a leasehold flat or house, the alterations terms of the lease come first: they may require the landlord’s or freeholder’s permission, and LEASE points out that obtaining planning permission or Building Regulations approval does not remove that need. Party Wall notice is a separate duty that arises only for notifiable work, for instance work on an existing party wall between houses of a terrace such as 41–93 Ravenscourt Road, or digging below and near the level of a neighbour’s foundations; plastering, new wiring or sockets and drilling for shelves are minor changes that need no notice.

LEASE: alterations and home improvements · Party-wall work requiring notice

Local facts that affect the brief

Apply the controls to the work you actually need

Designated 1974; profile 1997

The conservation area and its character profile

First designated on 20 February 1974, the Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area was enlarged in September 1982, January 1990 and March 1991, and it appears as number 8 in the Local Plan’s table of conservation areas; the boundary changes that took effect on 13 November 2018 did not include it. The council’s Planning Applications and Transport Sub-Committee approved its character profile on 2 July 1997 as supplementary planning guidance, and the printed copy carries the date December 1999. The council publishes it in eight parts with a boundary map and warns that the profile’s lists of Article 4 directions and Buildings of Merit are not complete.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, designation and character · LBHF Local Plan 2018: policy document · LBHF: public notice of conservation area changes, November 2018 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, approved 2 July 1997 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area

Its design guidelines cover roofs, chimneys, walls, windows, pipework, front boundaries and trees. A front roof extension is generally considered unacceptable and will only be considered within a terrace already significantly impaired by front roof extensions; in some cases a highly visible rear roof may prohibit a roof extension; consent should not be granted to demolish original chimney stacks visible from the street or public spaces; and views in and out of the park are of particular importance. The profile predates the 2018 Local Plan, so ask the council how it applies these guidelines now.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, design guidelines, printed pages 20 to 24 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, printed pages 25 to 28 · LBHF: Local Plan, adopted 28 February 2018

Directions 1979–1999; list 2011

Article 4 directions around the park

The council lists five Ravenscourt and Starch Green directions, numbered 1 to 5, and where a direction restricts permitted development rights, the restricted classes of work need planning permission. Its address list of affected properties, last amended on 1 October 2011, gives 8 May 1979 for No. 1, which covers alterations to the roof, gables and dormers at the front, coverings included, changes to the rear roof covering and painting brickwork that is still unpainted at named houses in Ravenscourt Gardens, Ravenscourt Square, the road called Ravenscourt Park and Ravenscourt Road; at 15–19 (odd) and 41–105 (odd) Ravenscourt Road it also covers rear extensions, including the rear roof.

LBHF: properties affected by Article 4 directions · LBHF: properties affected by Article 4 directions, list last amended 1 October 2011 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 1) Article 4 direction summary

No. 3 removes rights including enlarging, improving or otherwise altering the house and putting up a porch at 27, 29, 35–49 (odd) and 44–64 (even) Ravenscourt Gardens and 11 Ravenscourt Square; for those Ravenscourt Gardens houses the 2011 list gives 21 November 1984. No. 4 controls front-elevation changes at 1–5 Ravenscourt Place and named houses in Ravenscourt Square, front boundaries at 20–23 on the road called Ravenscourt Park, where the list gives 2 January 1985, and both at 41–103 (odd) Ravenscourt Road. No. 5, dated 22 December 1999, removes the right to lay a hard surface within the curtilage of the same Ravenscourt Gardens houses. These outlines are taken from the summary that opens each direction file, which the council states does not form part of the legal documentation, so the direction’s own wording is the text to rely on.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 3) Article 4 direction summary · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 4) Article 4 direction summary · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 5) Article 4 direction summary · LBHF: properties affected by Article 4 directions, list last amended 1 October 2011

Separately, borough-wide Article 4 directions in place since April 2018 restrict permitted development rights for basement excavation, and the council says any basement excavation now needs planning permission.

LBHF: urban design and conservation

Local Plan and SPD, February 2018

The Local Plan and the Planning Guidance SPD

Planning decisions rest on the Local Plan adopted on 28 February 2018. It classes the park as a District Park of 13.60 hectares, 8.55 hectares of it a nature conservation area of borough-wide importance. Policy DC4 expects an alteration or extension to be subservient, never dominating the parent building in bulk, scale, materials or design, and Policy DC11 limits a new or extended basement to one storey except on large sites. The council has also consulted on a draft replacement plan, but a draft is not adopted policy, so ask the council what stage it has reached.

LBHF: Local Plan, adopted 28 February 2018 · LBHF Local Plan 2018: policy document

In the Planning Guidance SPD of February 2018, key principle BM2 says development will not be permitted if it would result in the demolition, loss or harmful alteration of buildings on the council’s Register of Buildings of Merit, unless stated exceptions apply. The SPD also describes two archaeological priority areas within the conservation area: the site of a leper hospital in use from about 1500 to the mid-17th century, now south of Ravenscourt Park station, and Ravenscourt Manor House (Palingswick), first recorded in the 12th century.

LBHF Planning Guidance SPD, adopted 28 February 2018

Register as at August 2015

Buildings of Merit and listed buildings by the park

The council’s Local Register of Buildings of Merit, as at August 2015, includes 3, 3A, 4, 5, 5A, 6, 7, 7A, 9, 15 and 17 Ravenscourt Square; 16 Ravenscourt Avenue, which the profile credits to George Saunders, 1869; 1, 3, 5, 95 and 97 Ravenscourt Road; and 248–258 (even) King Street, a Victorian terrace with stucco detailing above projecting shopfronts, with Willoughby House, No. 260, of about 1840. The memorial gates put up in 1933 at the corner of King Street and the road called Ravenscourt Park are on the register too.

LBHF: Local Register of Buildings of Merit, as at August 2015 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, printed pages 8 to 12 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, designation and character

Inside the park, the walls and wrought-iron gates of the walled garden, the White Lodge at the Paddenswick Road gate and the refreshment room in the former stable block are each listed Grade II, and the Church of the Holy Innocents on Paddenswick Road is Grade II*. The park itself is not among the four registered parks and gardens the council names in the borough.

Planning Data: walls and wrought-iron gates to the Ravenscourt Park walled garden, Grade II, list entry 1079769 · Planning Data: White Lodge at Paddenswick Road Gate, Grade II, list entry 1079770 · Planning Data: refreshment room in the former stable block, Grade II, list entry 1358588 · Planning Data: Church of the Holy Innocents, Grade II*, list entry 1192523 · LBHF: urban design and conservation

Windows, roof work and excavation are hard to undo once ordered or begun, so confirm the consent route for the exact house number first and keep each regime distinct: planning permission, including any needed because an Article 4 direction removes a right; listed building consent; the conservation area’s own guidance; Building Regulations approval; the landlord’s consent under the lease; and Party Wall notice for notifiable work only. The council says any basement excavation now needs planning permission.

When planning permission is required · LBHF: properties affected by Article 4 directions · LBHF: statutory listed buildings · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area · When Building Regulations approval is needed · LEASE: alterations and home improvements · Party-wall work requiring notice · LBHF: urban design and conservation

Local guidance checked . The linked sources help you prepare a brief; requirements depend on the address, building and complete proposal.

From retained details to shared services

Sashes, drains, floors, front walls and roofs

Timber sashes, panelled doors and door cases

Survey each sash and door before deciding whether it is repaired or replaced. The profile wants original timber sash windows, panelled doors, moulded window surrounds and door cases maintained and repaired wherever possible, and says owners of poor replacement windows should be encouraged to change them for a more appropriate design when an opportunity arises. Direction No. 4 controls front-elevation alterations at 1–5 Ravenscourt Place, 41–103 (odd) Ravenscourt Road and named Ravenscourt Square houses, a listed house can need listed building consent, and replacement windows and doors can need Building Regulations approval.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, design guidelines, printed pages 20 to 24 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 4) Article 4 direction summary · LBHF: statutory listed buildings · When Building Regulations approval is needed

Bathroom wastes, soil pipes and vents

Start a bathroom plan at the drains: measure the run from each new waste to the soil stack and check that the floor depth allows enough fall. In a divided house or an apartment block the stack may serve several homes, so ask the freeholder or managing agent who controls it. The profile asks that soil pipes, rainwater pipes and gutters, when replaced, keep their original form and material, with PVC discouraged, and that vents are as inconspicuous as possible. Installing a bathroom that involves plumbing can also bring in the Building Regulations.

LEASE: alterations and home improvements · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, design guidelines, printed pages 20 to 24 · When Building Regulations approval is needed

Opening up, structure and sound

Open up a floor before fixing a layout: only then can the joist direction, the timbers’ condition and any load on the wall beneath be confirmed. In the three-storey houses with basements at 41–93 and 30–38 (even) Ravenscourt Road, repeat that check on every floor, and note any beam or joist bearing on a party wall, since work on one can call for Party Wall notice. A listed house can need listed building consent for opening up. Above another flat, check the lease on floor coverings and sound before choosing a hard floor.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, printed pages 8 to 12 · Party-wall work requiring notice · LBHF: statutory listed buildings · LEASE: alterations and home improvements

Front walls, railings and front gardens

The profile says permission should not be granted to alter or remove original or traditional front walls and railings and their footings, treats the frontage walls and piers of 41–93 Ravenscourt Road as significant and calls the front gardens of Paddenswick Road particularly important to their character. Direction No. 4 controls front boundary gates, fences and walls at 20–23 on the road called Ravenscourt Park and 41–103 (odd) Ravenscourt Road, and No. 5 removes the right to lay a hard surface at the listed Ravenscourt Gardens houses.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, design guidelines, printed pages 20 to 24 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, printed pages 8 to 12 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 4) Article 4 direction summary · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 5) Article 4 direction summary

Excavation and protected trees

Digging down is its own planning question: the council says any basement excavation needs planning permission, and the Local Plan generally treats a floor partly below ground as basement development. The profile resists digging out front gardens to light basements where planting integral to the street would be harmed, though sensitive designs may be acceptable. The council needs six weeks’ written notice to prune or remove a private-land tree in the conservation area with a trunk of 75mm diameter or more, and its list records a tree preservation order at 54 Ravenscourt Gardens.

LBHF: urban design and conservation · LBHF Local Plan 2018: policy document · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, printed pages 25 to 28 · LBHF: trees and tree preservation orders · LBHF: tree preservation orders by address (TPO list)

Roofs, flues and energy upgrades

Settle how the home is insulated, heated and ventilated before buying equipment. Insulating a roof from above means lifting and relaying its covering, and Direction No. 1 covers front roof alterations and changes to rear roof coverings at the houses it names; where traditional materials remain, the profile asks for repairs in slate, lead and timber and for original features such as Napoleon hats, finials and cast iron gutters to be retained. It wants rooflights as inconspicuous as possible and gas flue positions carefully considered, and a new heating system can need Building Regulations approval.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, design guidelines, printed pages 20 to 24 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 1) Article 4 direction summary · When Building Regulations approval is needed

A practical plan for the street and building

Working hours, deliveries and shared access

Skips, scaffolding, materials and parking bays

Work out early where a skip, a scaffold or a delivery vehicle can stand. Hammersmith and Fulham accepts skip, scaffold and building-material licence applications only from the firms concerned, not from residents. A skip licence lasts 14 days at minimum and a skip may never sit on the footpath; a scaffold licence lasts a month at minimum and must keep a footway at least 1.2 metres clear; and materials or plant left on the road need a building contractor’s licence and can go on the carriageway only. To suspend up to six parking bays for up to three days, allow at least eight days’ notice, counting Saturdays and Sundays.

LBHF: skip licences · LBHF: scaffolding licences · LBHF: building material, plant and machinery licences · LBHF: parking suspensions and road closures

Working hours and the people around you

Plan the loud stages around the council’s hours for noisy building work, which end at 6pm on weekdays and 1pm on Saturdays, start no earlier than 8am, and exclude Sundays and bank holidays. A contractor needing other hours can apply for prior consent under section 61; noisy work outside the hours without it risks prosecution. The council issued a Code of Construction Practice on 1 April 2023, and its stated expectation is that all construction sites in the borough meet it. Before the first noisy day, write to your neighbours, and to any managing agent or residents sharing the building, with the start date and the stages that will be loud, and settle as a household, before the work is sequenced, whether you will stay at home through them.

LBHF: construction site noise and permitted hours · LBHF: construction guidance and Code of Construction Practice, April 2023

A clear scope before a price

Plan your renovation budget and quotation

Quotations can only be compared when every builder prices the same written scope, drawn from a measured survey of the house or flat as it is today. List repairs to roofs, chimneys, sashes and front walls separately from the work in each room, and flag any item that must wait for listed building consent, a planning decision needed because of an Article 4 direction, the landlord’s answer or the Party Wall procedure.

Existing condition

Begin with one shared record of the building today, so that no builder has to price from guesswork.

  • Plans of every floor and a photo of each room
  • Sashes, roof, chimneys and stucco recorded
  • Where floors and walls will be opened up

Rooms, finishes and services

Write a room-by-room specification, fittings and finishes included, so that every quotation prices the same work.

  • Layouts with fittings and quantities
  • Pipe, duct and cable routes drawn
  • Who supplies and installs each fitting

Approvals and site arrangements

Name each consent, notice and licence this address calls for, and the person responsible for it.

  • Article 4, listing and lease checked by house number
  • Notifiable party wall work identified
  • Licences and bay suspensions applied for early

Written allowances and sequence

Agree in writing, before you sign, how unknowns are allowed for, what is excluded and the sequence of the work.

  • Named provisional sums for the unknowns
  • VAT treatment shown on every quotation
  • Handover certificates and inspections listed

A Ravenscourt Park address carries no set surcharge, and how long the work lasts depends on the building and the scope, not the postcode. Ask each builder to set out the VAT position, to name the professional fees, such as a structural engineer’s, that sit outside the quotation, and to explain how defects hidden under floors and plaster would be priced if found. Where only a bathroom is being renovated, as a standalone project, the price is worked out for the bathroom by itself.

From an idea to a workable scope

Prepare your brief and renovation budget

  1. Address, home type and photographs

    Because the directions and list entries around the park name house numbers, give the number as well as the street. Describe the home (whole house, maisonette or flat) and, if it is not a whole house, its floor and whether it shares a hall or stair. Photographs of the front wall or railings, the rear elevation, the roof slopes and chimneys, and each room to be changed help most.

  2. Documents worth sending

    The core papers are the title or lease, any decision notices for planning or listed building consent and the building control completion certificates for past work; add drawings of earlier alterations and, for a flat, the block’s rules. Note anything your own searches turned up, for example a Buildings of Merit entry, a direction schedule that names your house number or a protected tree in or near the garden.

  3. Decided items versus unknowns

    Mark each item in the brief as decided or open. The bathroom layout or the joinery you are keeping may be decided; the state of the sashes, what a lifted floor reveals, an engineer’s view or the council’s answer on a direction or listing may not. Ask every builder to price the open items as the same named provisional sums, so no quotation looks cheaper by leaving them out.

  4. Settle who does what on site

    Every application, notice, licence and inspection needs a named owner, so agree who that is for each. Then plan the sequence: when deliveries come, how the noisiest work fits the council’s hours and any building rules, whether the household stays at home, and how any change of scope is confirmed in writing, with its price, before work on it begins.

Ready to take the next step? Send the property address and a short outline of what you want to change.

Discuss your Ravenscourt Park project

Our Hampstead base, serving Ravenscourt Park

Talk to our Finchley Road studio

Our studio is in Hampstead on Finchley Road, at NW3 6DN. We serve Ravenscourt Park from this office. Bring us the practical questions about your house, flat or bathroom and the result you want to achieve.

Contact the studio to discuss your brief and arrange the next step. If you already have drawings, a lease or planning correspondence, tell us what is available.

Book a free feasibility visit
Hampstead Renovations
Unit 3, Palace Court
250 Finchley Road
London NW3 6DN

020 7101 3168
contact@hampsteadrenovations.co.uk

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Questions before you begin

Renovating in Ravenscourt Park: practical answers

Can I ask you to renovate only the bathroom?

Yes. Renovating one bathroom on its own is a standalone job we price and run in full, whether it is a family bathroom in a house by the park, a compact shower room in a flat or a ground-floor WC. It helps to send the room’s measurements, photographs of each wall and the ceiling, the position of the window and whether another bathroom or WC will stay usable during the work.

Does the Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area cover my address?

That depends on where the boundary falls, as drawn on the council’s map. The area, number 8 in the Local Plan’s table, has the park at its heart, reaches west to the borough boundary and has the District line and King Street as its southern edge, and its profile also covers Victorian housing north of Goldhawk Road and Edwardian housing and Wendell Park. Westcroft Square is a separate conservation area whose eastern boundary follows the rear of the properties on the road called Ravenscourt Park.

LBHF Local Plan 2018: policy document · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, designation and character · LBHF: Westcroft Square Conservation Area character profile, designation · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area

How do the Article 4 directions and listings here apply to a house?

It varies house by house. Direction No. 1 covers front roofs, rear roof coverings and painting unpainted brick at named houses around the park, and rear extensions as well at 15–19 (odd) and 41–105 (odd) Ravenscourt Road; No. 3 covers enlarging or altering the house and porches, No. 4 front elevations and boundaries and No. 5 hard surfaces, each at named houses. Listing is separate, and listed building consent can apply indoors as well as out: 11 Ravenscourt Square is Grade II and the Church of the Holy Innocents Grade II*.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 1) Article 4 direction summary · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 3) Article 4 direction summary · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 4) Article 4 direction summary · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 5) Article 4 direction summary · Planning Data: 11 Ravenscourt Square, Grade II, list entry 1358589 · Planning Data: Church of the Holy Innocents, Grade II*, list entry 1192523 · LBHF: statutory listed buildings

What should I check before replacing sash windows here?

Begin with a survey of each window, because the conservation area profile asks for timber sashes to be maintained and repaired wherever possible. Then check whether Direction No. 4 covers your front elevation, as it does at 1–5 Ravenscourt Place, 41–103 (odd) Ravenscourt Road and named Ravenscourt Square houses, and whether the building is listed. Householder permitted development rights belong to houses, not flats, so check with the council before altering a flat’s windows; replacement windows can also fall under the Building Regulations.

LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area character profile, design guidelines, printed pages 20 to 24 · LBHF: Ravenscourt and Starch Green (No. 4) Article 4 direction summary · LBHF: statutory listed buildings · Householder permitted development technical guidance · When Building Regulations approval is needed

Whose agreement does an internal flat refit need?

Read the lease first. If it makes alterations subject to the landlord’s or freeholder’s permission, that permission is needed alongside any planning permission or Building Regulations approval, not instead of it. Planning permission is unlikely to arise for a refit that stays inside the flat, since GOV.UK lists interior alterations among the works that are not development. GOV.UK also lists bathroom plumbing and electrical work by a bath or shower among the jobs that may need Building Regulations approval, and where the building is listed, the listing extends to its interior.

LEASE: alterations and home improvements · When planning permission is required · When Building Regulations approval is needed · LBHF: statutory listed buildings

How do I know whether a wall can come out or the bathroom can move?

Survey the building first. Whether a wall holds up floors, the roof or a chimney breast is for a structural engineer to confirm before removal. A bathroom can move where its new position gives the waste pipe a workable gradient to the stack and the extract a way outside. In a flat the stack may serve several homes and the lease may require consent; in a listed house, removing a wall or moving plumbing can need listed building consent; and cutting into a party wall may mean serving notice on the neighbour.

LEASE: alterations and home improvements · LBHF: statutory listed buildings · Party-wall work requiring notice

Is digging out a basement or lowering a lower ground floor possible?

Both involve excavation, and the council says any basement excavation needs planning permission. Policy DC11 expects a new or extended basement to be one storey, except on large sites, reaching no further into or under the garden than half the host building’s depth from its principal rear elevation and keeping no less than one metre of soil above any part of it under a garden. Policy CC3 requires a flood risk assessment in Flood Zones 2 and 3, and a non-return valve or equivalent where vulnerable development includes basement or lower ground floor accommodation.

LBHF: urban design and conservation · LBHF Local Plan 2018: policy document

What hours does the council allow for noisy building work?

On Saturdays the council’s window for noisy building work is 8am to 1pm and on weekdays 8am to 6pm, and it expects none on Sundays or bank holidays. A contractor who needs other hours can apply in advance for consent under section 61. In an apartment block or divided house, ask the managing agent whether the building sets tighter hours, and agree the noisiest stages with neighbours in advance.

LBHF: construction site noise and permitted hours · LEASE: alterations and home improvements

What makes quotations for a house or flat near the park comparable?

Compare quotations only once they price the same written scope. Then check, line by line, the quantities, fittings and finishes, how each treats the original sashes, chimneys and front walls you are keeping, and where VAT, professional fees, licences and provisional sums appear. If totals differ widely, ask each builder which assumptions explain the gap before choosing on price.

Where is your studio, and what happens after I get in touch?

Our studio is at Unit 3, Palace Court, 250 Finchley Road, London NW3 6DN, and we serve Ravenscourt Park from this office. Send the address with its house number, the rooms involved and a few photographs; once we have talked through what you want to change, a lease, drawings or planning letters can follow.

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Guides for your property and project

Explore the relevant property guide, then check the current official sources above for your address and proposed work.

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Hampstead Renovations operates alongside Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy — an RICS Regulated firm providing chartered building surveying, fire safety and project advisory services, under shared directorship. Both practices are based in Hampstead NW3, giving Ravenscourt Park clients access to professional oversight from survey through to handover.
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