St Albans House

St Albans House is a full refurbishment and single-storey extension to a Georgian cottage in the Green Belt in St Albans, Hertfordshire. It is a locally listed house and in a conservation area, on Green Belt land, with a layered planning history and a handful of quirks inherited from previous extensions.

The clients have tried to obtain the planning a few times but it was not succesful. A careful approcha and pre application advice leaded to success and obtaining a permission to extend the house while navigating the sensitivities of working with a heritage property. From our first conversations, we knew the big gestures weren’t going to be possible — this wasn’t a project about maximising volume. Instead, we focused on making small, thoughtful interventions that could do a lot with a little.

The existing single-storey rear extension had a poorly detailed flat roof and mismatched windows. We proposed removing the pitched roof, adding a small additional volume to the rear for a utility space, and rebuilding the roof as a green sedum surface — low maintenance, better to look at from above, and helping the project sit more gently in its context.

We also upgraded the glazing throughout. Existing single-glazed windows were replaced with new double-glazed timber ones to match the originals. Additional openings were introduced to bring light deeper into the plan, including new rear-facing doors and a discreet rooflight above the stair landing.

Internally, we reconfigured the ground and first floors — not radically, but carefully — to make the house feel more open and usable. The idea was to bring the home up to modern standards, without losing the charm that comes with a smaller-scale Georgian building. The rear garden, which had become overgrown and crowded with outbuildings, was stripped back. We removed an old gazebo and shed, and redesigned the landscaping with new retaining walls, planted beds and a proper patio space for outdoor use. A few trees were lost in the process, but this was coordinated with an arboriculturalist from the outset and factored into the planning submission.

Scope
Rear Extension and full refurbishment

Stage
On site