Period property restoration in Parsons Green

The properties we see in Parsons Green

The Peterborough Estate — the grid south of New King's Road — is 1890s red-brick terraces known locally as the Lion Houses for the stone lions on their gables. They are large, generously proportioned, and almost identical to one another: the same back addition, the same side return, the same roof pitch. Towards Hurlingham the houses get bigger and detached; towards Sands End the stock shifts to smaller workers' cottages and, along the river, new-build apartment blocks. The Lion Houses are a conservation area, which shapes everything.

Planning in Hammersmith & Fulham

The Peterborough Estate is a designated conservation area, so front elevations, roofs visible from the street and boundary treatments are all controlled, and the lions themselves are protected features. Rear alterations are generally more achievable. Hammersmith and Fulham is the same authority as the rest of Fulham, so the process is familiar to us, but the conservation designation here means permitted development cannot be assumed the way it can a few streets north.

What period restoration involves

Restoration work on a Fulham Victorian terrace runs £1,800–£4,000 per square metre because it is slower and more skilled than standard refurbishment. The rule that saves the most money and heartache: repair original fabric wherever it can be repaired, because a replaced cornice never quite matches and a buyer can always tell.

Consider this if

• The house is in a conservation area and needs sympathetic work
• Original cornice, ceiling roses or joinery have been damaged
• Sash windows are rotten, draughty or painted shut
• Previous owners used cement render or gypsum on solid walls
• There is rising or penetrating damp in a solid-wall property
• You want to reinstate features a 1970s modernisation removed

What's included

• Survey of what is original, what is replacement and what is salvageable
• Sash window repair and draught-proofing rather than replacement
• Lime plaster and lime mortar on solid walls so they can breathe
• Cornice and ceiling rose repair, or run-in-situ matching where lost
• Careful damp diagnosis — cause first, not injected chemicals by default
• Conservation area and listed building consent applications handled

The standard we build to

Work follows Historic England guidance on breathable construction and minimum intervention, with conservation area or listed building consent obtained where the works require it.

For the full write-up on period restoration — costs, timescales, certification and the questions people ask most — see our period property restoration page. The prices and standards are the same wherever we work.