Building work in Kennington: area guide

This is our area guide to building work in Kennington (SE11, Lambeth): the housing, the council rules that apply (Lambeth Council for planning) and every service we offer here. For whole-house refurbishment go to Home renovation in Kennington.

Some of the oldest domestic brickwork we work on in south London stands within walking distance of Cleaver Square. Kennington is not one thing though. Most homes in SE11 are flats, where freeholder consent comes before any wall moves, and the houses split in two: early terraces with railed lightwells and pavement vaults and, closer to Kennington Park and the Oval, ordinary bay fronted Victorian streets built decades later on very different principles. Get the era wrong and you price the wrong job. We work across SE11 as a visiting contractor with no office here, and appoint the structural engineers rather than write calculations ourselves.

On the valuation list Kennington counts about 8,500 homes, 82% flats and 18% houses; 28% predate 1919, 12% are interwar and 60% post-war. VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Lambeth Walk & North Kennington and Oval. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Kennington lower ground floors need a damp diagnosis before a wall job

Plenty of Kennington houses have a lower ground floor opening onto a front lightwell, with brick vaults running out under the pavement. These are the spaces owners most want back, and where the trouble concentrates. Failed tanking, gulleys blocked by decades of leaf fall, external ground raised above internal floor level and air bricks rendered over by a previous owner all push moisture into solid walls that were never designed to be sealed. We find the cause before specifying a finish, because a dry lining hung over an unresolved source of water simply hides the problem for a season.

Making the lower ground habitable is structural as often as cosmetic. Widening the opening between front and rear rooms, or forming new doors out to the garden, is load-bearing wall removal in old brickwork on shallow footings, where temporary support matters more than in later houses. The engineer we appoint sets out the propping and the beam, and we follow it. Drainage below the level of the sewer needs pumping rather than gravity, which the design allows for, and building control is coordinated with Lambeth Council so the space is properly certified. In a flat, the same opening waits on the freeholder's licence.

Bay fronted streets off Kennington Road take the familiar steel sequence

Away from the squares, much of Kennington Road and the streets towards Kennington Park is standard bay fronted Victorian terracing with a rear closet wing, a side return and a spine wall carrying the joists. Here RSJ installation is the familiar sequence: an engineer designs the beam, we prop, cut in stages, set padstones into sound masonry and transfer the load before anything is struck. That construction is harder and less forgiving than the earlier brick a few streets away, and the approach changes accordingly, so identifying which of the two you own is the first thing our survey settles.

Chimney breasts come out of these houses regularly, and a chimney breast removal deserves more caution than it usually gets. The stack normally sits within the wall shared with next door, so removing a breast at ground or first floor while keeping the masonry above means a steel beam, or gallows brackets bolted into that shared wall only where the engineer and building control accept them. That is notifiable under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, and the duty to serve notice sits with you as the building owner. Redundant flues are capped with ventilation left low down so nothing traps damp.

Where to go next for work in Kennington: kitchen renovation in Kennington, house extensions in Kennington, the Lambeth area guide, building work in Camberwell, building work in Vauxhall and Staircase Renovation Cost.