Renovating a whole house in Tring means dealing with fabric from several periods at once, and inside the conservation area with an appraisal that sets out what Dacorum expects. Where structure is involved we appoint the engineer and build to the calculations. Where it is not, it is a run of trades in the right order, and we sequence them.
The Rothschild estate fabric and the architect behind it
Nathaniel de Rothschild bought the Tring Park estate in 1872 and was created 1st Lord Rothschild of Tring in 1885. The 2nd Lord died in 1937 and the estate was divided and sold between 1938 and 1940. William Huckvale, born 1848 and died in Tring in 1936, moved to the town in his early twenties and worked for the estate for over forty years. The appraisal records that the majority of estate farms were rebuilt during that time.
Fifty cottages built to Huckvale's designs for the estate were presented to Tring Urban District Council, and not all of them stand inside the conservation area. Tring Park Mansion itself was much altered from the late 1880s, when the house was refaced in red brick with white ashlar dressings and the roof lifted to insert a full height top floor in place of the mezzanine. Where a house came out of that programme, matching existing detail is the question to settle before materials are ordered.
What the appraisal says, and what it only recommends
Dacorum Borough Council published the Tring Conservation Area Character Appraisal and Management Proposals in March 2019, prepared by Beams Ltd of Hertford. It was the first conservation area appraisal produced for Tring, some fifty years after the area was designated.
It recommends that extra control be introduced by Article 4 direction to limit the use of uPVC anywhere in the conservation area. That is a recommendation rather than a direction that has been made. Useful to know before windows are specified, and useful to know that the council has put its preference on record.
Materials, elevations and where render becomes a planning question
Slate on the roofs and sash windows in flat arched openings. The appraisal records that slate is used almost everywhere for roofing in the western character area and has survived well, with replacement roofing in modern factory made tiles also present. It describes frontages there as generally flat, with windows and doors recessed into flat arch openings containing double hung sliding sash windows. It gives Henry Street as the example of the predominant house style.
Inside the conservation area, no part of the exterior of a house may be clad or rendered in stone, artificial stone, pebble dash, render, timber, plastic or tiles without planning permission from Dacorum Borough Council. External wall insulation and render are planning questions here, not simply specification ones.
What the radon mapping says about the ground floor
Tring reads low, with one exception on the eastern side. The BGS Radon Indicative Atlas GB version 3 places grid squares SP9211, SP9212 and SP9111 entirely in the lowest band of radon potential, with less than 1% of homes above the Action Level. Those squares cover the High Street, King Street, Park Road, Miswell Lane and Icknield Way. Grid square SP9311, covering Brook Street, Station Road and Grove Road, is recorded with a maximum radon potential of 1% to 3%, a higher band than the rest of the town.
That matters where a renovation takes up a ground floor slab. The radon position for the address is worth confirming with building control before the new floor goes down, because retrofitting a membrane afterwards means lifting it again.
- Structural alterations and load-bearing wall removal
- Damp treatment, tanking and timber repairs
- Planning permission and building control coordination
- Roof repairs, gutters, fascias and rainwater goods
- Plastering, flooring, painting and decorating
The GS Renovation Difference in Tring
We are based at 3 Chauncy Avenue in Potters Bar, around 21 miles from Tring, and we cover the town. A full house renovation is the job where that distance matters least, because it is a continuous run of weeks on site rather than a string of short visits. Abdelaaziz Saaid founded the firm and brings over thirty years of hands-on experience, and you deal with him directly rather than through a site manager. We are fully insured, rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder, and registered in England, company number 14611254.
- Honest updates if a date or a detail has to move
- A whole-house programme sequenced so no trade doubles back
- Kitchen and bathroom selections planned early to hold the programme
- Site left safe and secure at the end of every day
- Dust screens and floor protection in occupied homes
- Waste cleared as we go, not left piled in the garden