Kitchen renovation in Ravenscourt Park

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

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.

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.

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.

Local design and consent context

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.

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.

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.

Access and site planning

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.

Continue planning

The Ravenscourt Park area guide · Kitchen renovation across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

Discuss your project

Tell us what you are planning in Ravenscourt Park

Share the property location, the work you have in mind and any drawings or permissions you already have.

£5M public liability, £10M employers’ liability and contractors’ all risks cover.

Design support: Hampstead Architecture & Planning.
Surveying support: Hampstead Chartered Surveyors.