Gallows brackets were once the standard answer for a first-floor stack in a Highbury terrace. Since LABC withdrew that detail in 2024, most inspectors want a beam instead, and we price accordingly. The engineer sizes it, we prop the opening, install the steel onto padstones, and leave the room near Highbury Fields squared off.
Removing a chimney breast in Highbury
Many of Highbury's bay-fronted terraces still carry their original chimney breasts in the front and rear rooms, long after the fires stopped being used. Removing a breast frees up a surprising amount of floor space, but the masonry above still has to go somewhere. The breast helps carry the stack overhead, so we never take one out without first working out how the weight above will be supported.
Where we remove a breast on the lower floors but keep the stack above, we support that retained masonry on steel gallows brackets bolted firmly into the party wall, or on a beam where brackets are unsuitable. In some N5 houses the stack is redundant all the way up, in which case we often take it out entirely and make the roof good, which removes the load altogether.
Party wall and building control in N5
In Highbury's tightly packed terraces the chimney stack almost always sits within the party wall shared with the house next door. Removing the breast, or bolting gallows brackets into that shared wall to hold the stack, is notifiable under the Party Wall Act, so you serve notice on the neighbour and agree the condition of the wall before any work begins.
The structural support is a Building Regulations matter, and Islington Council's building control inspects and signs off the gallows brackets or beam. This is not planning permission territory unless your home is listed and you are altering the exterior. We handle the engineer's input and the inspections, cap any redundant flue with ventilation to keep damp out, and replaster so no trace of the breast is left.
The errors we are called to correct
The chimney work we get asked to put right in N5 falls into three familiar types. A breast removed with no support at all, discovered when cracks appear in the bedroom above. A flue sealed at both ends, which traps moisture and produces damp patches on the chimney wall within a year. And brackets or a beam fixed into a party wall that proved to be soft or half thickness once the plaster came off. A fourth is more cosmetic but still costly, which is reinstating a wall without allowing for the difference in plaster thickness either side.
None of those are hard to avoid, they are simply skipped. We have the engineer establish the load before anything comes out, we open up and inspect the masonry the support will fix into, and we cap the flue at the head while leaving a vent low down so air can move through the shaft. The extra time that takes is a day or two, considerably less than putting any of it right later.
- Loft inspection of the retained stack before work starts
- Structural engineer's calculations arranged and followed
- Hearth removal and floor structure reinstatement
- Ventilated caps and airbricks to disused flues
- Making good, plastering and reinstating the wall line
Why Highbury Homeowners Choose GS Renovation
Highbury homeowners choose GS Renovation because we treat chimney breast removal as the structural job it is. You get an engineer-checked support solution, gallows brackets or a beam correctly fixed and Islington building control handled end to end, and tidy working in your occupied N5 home, all finished and certified and backed by 30+ years across the borough.
- Flue capped with ventilation so the remaining stack stays dry
- Paperwork and certificates handed over for when you sell
- Founder-led team with 30+ years of hands-on experience
- Site left safe and secure at the end of every day
- Neighbours given notice before the noisy stages
- Steel beam support used where gallows brackets are not suitable