Basement conversion in West Kensington and Barons Court

Investigate the structure and ground before design.

Start with the basement conversion brief

Distinguish an existing cellar conversion from excavation for a new basement. Record levels, drainage, access and the adjoining structures, and obtain project-specific ground and structural investigations before relying on a design or budget.

Plan temporary works, waterproofing, ventilation, escape and spoil removal as part of the same brief. Ask Hampstead Chartered Surveyors to assess party-wall matters and Hampstead Architecture & Planning to coordinate the design requirements. An area name alone does not establish ground conditions.

The local building context

Designated on 10 April 1989, the Barons Court Conservation Area was extended on 2 July 2002 to include Gledstanes Road, Beaumont Crescent and parts of Greyhound Road and North End Road; in the April 2005 profile its northern edge follows Talgarth Road to include West Kensington and Barons Court stations. East of Hammersmith Cemetery, and particularly east of Vereker Road, the profile finds terraces noticeably grander than much of the locality, at four storeys or three over semi-basements; west of Vereker Road they become plainer red brick, generally three storeys, some with basement flats or roof dormers.

West of the cemetery the scale drops. Nos. 38 to 90 (even) and 51 to 71 (odd) Margravine Gardens, most of St Dunstan’s Road and the north side of Claxton Grove are two-storey terraces with suburban front gardens, mostly red stock brick under slate roofs with protruding party walls. The island site formed by Barons Court Road, Barton Road and Palliser Road holds 34 linked 1920s semi-detached houses in the style of Voysey, roughcast under steep clay-tiled mansards, and the present Comeragh Mews houses were made by converting the original two-storey mews buildings into three-storey units.

Queen’s Club Gardens was begun in 1892 by W. H. Gibb, formerly of the Gibbs and Flew partnership, as mansion flats around a communal garden and tennis courts; most blocks are four storeys with a basement, late Victorian red brick with white-painted timber sashes. Gibbs and Flew had begun Auriol Road, the Gunter Estate’s first phase, in 1882. The Fitzgeorge and Fitzjames Conservation Area, designated in September 1982 and described in March 2000 as the two avenues, was extended on 2 July 2002 to three eight-storey North End House blocks built from 1930 and the North End Parade shops.

Local design and consent context

Its guidance for the outside of houses is specific. Front roof extensions will only be considered where a terrace is already significantly impaired by them, and raising a ridge for more internal ceiling height is considered unacceptable. Excavating a front garden for basement windows or light will not normally be permitted where its planting is integral to the street or terrace, though carefully designed lightwells may be acceptable. It notes open views to the rear of terraces in many places, with the rears of Barons Court Road highly visible from the railway, and says the uniformity of rear elevations should be preserved.

Basement work answers to a different direction, which reaches every part of the borough other than the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation’s area; the council made it on 25 April 2017, and it has applied since 26 April 2018. Under it, digging a basement, forming a lightwell or carrying out other development below a house or its curtilage is no longer householder permitted development, whether or not the house is in a conservation area.

The plan makes North End Road (West Kensington) a Key Local Centre whose frontages include 1 Barons Court Road, 2 Castletown Road and 1 and 2–6 Charleville Road, and the Barons Court shops at 45–55 Palliser Road, 1, 3 and 3a Margravine Gardens and the station shops a Neighbourhood Parade. Policy DC11 sets tests for any new or extended basement, among them: a single storey, although exceptions may be made on large sites; a reach into or under the garden of at most half the host building’s depth, measured from the principal rear elevation, and at most half the garden’s depth; and, submitted with the planning application, a Construction Method Statement carried out by a qualified structural or civil engineer.

Access and site planning

Settle the delivery and waste arrangements with the street in mind before anything is booked. Hammersmith and Fulham grants skip licences to skip companies alone, for no less than 14 days; no skip may stand on the footpath, and one in a parking bay needs a suspension as well. Scaffold licences go only to scaffolding companies, for a minimum of one month. Bay suspensions need notice: 8 days for up to six bays for up to three days, and two weeks or more for bigger or longer ones. The council lists Talgarth Road and West Cromwell Road among roads where Transport for London is responsible for the pavements; on TfL red routes, TfL issues the licences and would rather materials were loaded straight into a vehicle than into a skip.

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The West Kensington and Barons Court area guide · Basement conversion across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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