Whole-house & lower-ground refurbishment
Lower-ground floor reconfiguration and garden opening, Primrose Hill
Reworking of a dark lower-ground storey in a stucco-fronted Primrose Hill terrace in NW1, lowering the internal slab locally and replacing late twentieth-century uPVC doors with timber-framed garden glazing.
- Project type
- Whole-house & lower-ground refurbishment
- Area
- Primrose Hill, London
- Planning authority
- Camden
- Constraint
- Primrose Hill Conservation Area
- Application type
- Householder planning application
- Decision
- Approved with conditions — April 2026
Many four-storey stucco-fronted terraces in Primrose Hill carry their kitchen and family dining rooms on the lower-ground floor, where ceiling heights are tighter and previous alterations often left fragmented rooms and stepped rear yards. Here, an unsympathetic 1980s rear conservatory and uPVC casements pinched the rear garden terrace and starved the middle of the plan of daylight.
We removed the dated conservatory and designed a crisp, full-width rear opening within the footprint of the existing lower-ground projection, paired with a structural steel goal-post frame that unites the front kitchen and rear dining room into a single dual-aspect floorplate. By locally re-forming the ground-bearing slab with insulated underfloor heating, we gained 180mm of finished floor-to-ceiling height without full basement underpinning.
On the rear elevation, painted timber folding-sliding doors and a brick soldier-course lintel replaced the uPVC infill, restoring the masonry hierarchy of the upper stucco and stock-brick walls while opening the dining space level onto a yorkstone courtyard.
Householder planning permission was granted by Camden, and Party Wall awards were agreed with both adjoining owners prior to the groundworks package starting on site.
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