Period property restoration in Wandsworth

The properties we see in Wandsworth

The Tonsleys are 1850s–1870s two-up two-down cottages: solid-walled, almost no floor void, and with lath-and-plaster ceilings, which makes them the most difficult properties on our patch to run services through. Southfields is a large 1900s grid of substantial Edwardian houses, mostly intact as family homes, with generous voids and logical layouts — much easier to work in. Earlsfield is smaller Victorian terrace, heavily converted to flats. The riverside developments are post-2010 with three-phase supplies, heat networks and management companies.

Planning in Wandsworth

Wandsworth is a comparatively permissive authority, and much of the Southfields and Earlsfield stock retains permitted development rights. Conservation areas apply around Wandsworth Common and parts of the Tonsleys. Riverside apartment blocks bring lease and management-company consent into play, and several require a permit to work and out-of-hours restrictions that materially affect the programme.

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.