Learn about the background of Putney's beautiful Conservation Areas and how to obtain planning consent in these rightly protected zones.
If Putney is widely recognised as a great place to live, one of the things that makes it so are the pleasant residential streets. No wonder a high proportion of these are designated as Conservation Areas.
Of course if you’re planning alterations to your home this protection makes it harder to get consent, but that’s where an experienced architect with local knowledge can help.
Some of SW15’s conservation areas cover wide areas, others are more specific.
The biggest include the Oxford Road conservation area to the east of Putney High Street, the West Putney conservation area which includes many of the leafy Edwardian roads south and west of the town centre, Dover House Estate to the west of this beyond car free Putney Park Lane, Westmead immediately south of that and the 1960’s Alton Estate in Roehampton. Some are more specific: Deodar Road, and Coalecroft Road conservation areas cover just one side of their respective streets, Parkfields does both sides of that atmospheric backwater and adds the adjacent Nelson Houses on the Upper Richmond Road. Rusholme Road conservation area is a little bigger, taking in Holmbush Road and one end of Lytton Grove, all part of a lovely enclave of big Arts and Crafts houses. More amazing Arts and Crafts houses feature in the Putney Lower Common conservation area along with the grade II* listed All Saints Church designed by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones with its Morris & Co. windows. If it’s real history you are after, try Roehampton Village or Putney Embankment conservation areas. Both do what it says in the name. West of Putney High Street, the Charlwood Road and Lifford Street conservation area represents the earliest Victorian expansion. There are some oddities too. Putney Heath conservation area is broken in to three separate parts, divided by the Heath itself – it’s not Wimbledon Common until you cross into SW19. East Putney’s area just links up but is really four or five very different places, whilst Wandsworth Town conservation are somehow includes only half the police station and half the Town Hall. You can read more about the history of any of these in Wandsworth Council’s Conservation Area Appraisals. So where in Putney or Roehampton is not covered? Notable are the streets leading off both sides of the Lower Richmond Road, Roehampton Lane or Priory Lane, the Ashburton Estate, the Carlton Drive area and most notably Putney High Street itself. Sadly the same Victorian expansion that created most of the nice areas listed above included demolishing nearly all the historic High Street. Roehampton fared rather better.
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