Builders in Mortlake

Homes in Mortlake

Richmond Council's Mortlake village planning guidance picks out listed Georgian houses on Thames Bank and along Mortlake High Street, with simple, symmetrical brick elevations and large sash windows; houses at 97 to 119 High Street have long back gardens running down to the towpath. Inland, Victoria Road has two-storey cottages with four-pane sashes and slate roofs, Fitzgerald and Avondale Roads have canted bays and timber porches, and Rosemary Lane has taller mid-Victorian townhouses.

The Edwardian streets are just as distinctive. Cowley Road has paired houses with Dutch gables, ball finials and twin front doors, some dated 1911; Kingsway and Shalstone Road have Arts and Crafts details and rendered gables; and Watney Road's semi-detached houses with roughcast gables were built for workers at the Stag Brewery. On Queen's Road, pairs of cottages share a chimney stack. Houses like these suit rear extensions and discreet loft conversions, designed around their original details.

Planning in Mortlake

Mortlake is covered by the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its conservation areas include Mortlake, Mortlake Green, Queen's Road and White Hart Lane, with statements on Richmond's conservation areas pages, and a number of its streets are covered by Article 4 directions controlling changes facing the road. Our East Sheen page lists those streets.

The Mortlake village planning guidance asks for traditional materials (stock and red brick, clay tiles, slate and timber) and warns that modern impervious materials can trap water and cause damp in older walls. It discourages uPVC windows, recommending like-for-like repair or slim timber double glazing instead. Richmond's conservation area statements name poorly designed and oversized roof additions as a pressure on the area, and say that lightwells should go to the side or rear rather than eating into front gardens. Richmond's House Extensions and External Alterations guidance sets out its expectations for rear extensions and dormers.

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

• The village guidance notes that Mortlake's tight street layout and shallow front gardens mean it is rarely possible to convert a front garden for parking, with Victoria Road among the few exceptions, and asks that any gap in a boundary wall is no wider than one car. Cowley Road and First and Second Avenues have some of the best original front walls.
• The riverside High Street follows the flood line of the Thames, and Richmond's flood risk assessment identifies a surface-water critical drainage area covering Richmond and Mortlake, so check your property's flood zone before planning anything below ground. See Richmond's flood risk pages.
• The former Stag Brewery site, where brewing ended in 2015, received planning permission on appeal in 2025 for a phased mixed-use scheme including a secondary school, so expect construction activity around the riverside in the coming years.