Builders in East Sheen

Homes in East Sheen

Richmond Council's East Sheen village planning guidance describes attractive tree-lined streets of large houses towards Richmond Park, and terraced cottages and houses north of Upper Richmond Road West. Palewell Park was sold for building in 1896 and filled with semi-detached houses that set the tone into the 1930s: Edwardian bow-fronted, gabled houses in the north and inter-war houses south of Vicarage Road. East Sheen Avenue has large two-storey Arts and Crafts semis with steep plain-tiled roofs, and Sheen Common Drive has detached houses built between 1925 and 1932.

These family houses are ideal for rear kitchen extensions and loft conversions, and the Edwardian semis often have room for a two-storey side or rear addition. In Mortlake, the Victorian terraces and cottages suit side-return extensions and carefully designed rear dormers.

Planning in East Sheen

East Sheen and Mortlake are covered by the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, not Merton. Conservation areas include Christchurch Road, East Sheen Avenue, Model Cottages, Sheen Common Drive, Sheen Lane and Holmesdale Avenue, with Mortlake, Mortlake Green, Queen's Road, Thorne Passage and White Hart Lane nearby. Each has a statement and map on Richmond's conservation areas pages.

Several of these are covered by Article 4 directions that remove permitted development rights for changes fronting the road, including extensions, roof alterations, porches, hard surfaces, front walls and gates, and exterior painting. They include much of East Sheen Avenue and Park Avenue, Model Cottages, The Mall on Christchurch Road, and a number of Mortlake streets. Check your address before planning anything visible from the street.

Richmond's House Extensions and External Alterations guidance says single-storey rear extensions are usually acceptable up to around 3.5 metres deep on a semi-detached house and 4 metres on a detached one. It also discourages hip-to-gable conversions and front dormers, preferring rear dormers set well in from the roof edges. The East Sheen village guidance names large rear dormers as a threat in some character areas, so design matters.

Basements need planning permission everywhere in the borough: Article 4 directions have removed permitted development rights for basements since April 2018. Policy 54 of the Richmond Local Plan (adopted October 2025) resists basements of more than one storey under a house, limits basements under gardens to half of the garden, requires soil and drainage over them, and asks for a construction management plan. A screening assessment, and in some cases a full basement impact assessment, is needed where groundwater or throughflow is a concern. Richmond's basement guidance explains the process.

Worth knowing locally

• Richmond's flood risk assessment identifies East Sheen Common as a potential throughflow catchment, which is one of the triggers for a basement screening assessment.
• The village guidance discourages paving over front gardens for parking, so plan driveways and bin stores with that in mind.
• The railway and its level crossings divide the area, so access routes for skips, scaffolding and deliveries need planning around them.