Bespoke joinery in Richmond

Fitted storage, cabinetry and the room around it.

Start with the bespoke joinery brief

Start with what the furniture needs to hold and how you use the room. Record alcoves, ceiling heights, skirtings, sockets and radiator positions before setting cabinet depths or door swings. Keep the details worth retaining in the measured brief.

Agree internal layouts, lighting, ventilation, hardware and finish samples before manufacture. Drawings should show how new joinery meets uneven walls and existing cornices, and how access for installation will work.

The local building context

Richmond’s Local Plan defines the Richmond & Richmond Hill area as the town centre and riverside, with residential and mixed-use streets reaching into Richmond Hill and North Sheen, and neighbourhood centres at Sheen Road and Friars Stile Road. The Central Richmond appraisal calls that conservation area the historic core of a settlement whose origins date from the 14th century, and notes that George Street formed part of an important coaching route.

The Richmond Green appraisal describes a large central green, an open space with a tranquil residential character, and properties dating from the late 15th century to the late 20th. Historic England lists 1–4 Maids of Honour Row, a terrace of three-storey houses of about 1720, at Grade I, and 2 to 6 Old Palace Terrace, early 18th-century brown brick with red dressings, two storeys with attic and basement, at Grade II*.

The Richmond name is shared by several official areas: the borough of Richmond upon Thames, Richmond town centre and the Richmond & Richmond Hill place-based strategy, the Central Richmond, Richmond Green, Richmond Riverside and Richmond Hill conservation areas, and the Richmond Town archaeological priority area. Neither the name nor a TW9 or TW10 postcode shows whether a home falls within any of these, is in a conservation area or listed, is under an Article 4 direction or sits on a particular freehold. Establish the council first; after that, the conservation map, the national list, the Article 4 register, the title or lease and the planning history answer the rest.

Local design and consent context

Central Richmond, Richmond Green and Richmond Riverside were each designated on 14 January 1969, and their appraisals were adopted on 20 November 2023. Central Richmond was extended in 1977, 1988, 2000, 2003 and 2005, Richmond Green in 2005 and Richmond Riverside in 1977, 1982 and 2005. At the points checked, readings of the national dataset place George Street, Hill Street and Paradise Road in Central Richmond, and Old Palace Lane and Water Lane in Richmond Riverside.

Policy PBS6 sets the strategy for Richmond & Richmond Hill, and Policies 28, 29 and 46 cover design quality, heritage assets and amenity. The Richmond and Richmond Hill Village Planning Guidance, adopted on 7 June 2016, and the House Extensions and External Alterations SPD of 1 June 2015 remain on the council’s list of adopted SPDs but cite the superseded plan. A Trees and Development SPD dated 9 June 2026 is listed too.

Some older Richmond houses have basements, and Historic England’s entries for Old Palace Terrace and 28–40 Richmond Hill both record one; fitting out an existing basement room is a different project from excavation. Creating or extending a basement has needed planning permission across the borough from 1 April 2018, and Policy 54 resists more than one storey below existing ground, asks for a Structural Impact Assessment where a basement is added to or next to a listed building and requires a pumped device where there is a waste outlet.

Access and site planning

Walk the route from the street to the room, including steps, a shared hall or a narrow lane. At the points checked on TfL’s data, Lower Mortlake Road, Clifford Avenue and Chertsey Road are TfL roads, while Kew Road, Petersham Road, Richmond Hill, Hill Street, George Street, Paradise Road, Sheen Road and Queen’s Road are not; check TfL’s map for your frontage, as TfL issues the highway licences on its roads. On council roads, a skip licence lasts up to three weeks and can be renewed, a bay suspension needs at least 10 working days’ notice and can be enforced outside controlled hours, and a scaffolding or hoarding licence is issued under the Highways Act 1980 only after a site meeting.

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