Building work in Wimbledon: area guide

This is our area guide to building work in Wimbledon (SW19, Merton): the housing, the council rules that apply (Merton Council for planning) and every service we offer here. For whole-house refurbishment go to Home renovation in Wimbledon.

The period houses between Wimbledon Village, the Common and the station are large by London standards, and they hold their value on being kept properly rather than maximised. Deep plans, tall storey heights, cellars beneath the front rooms and solid walls built to carry a good deal of load. Owners here usually want the ground floor rethought, which is load-bearing wall removal first, a rear addition that suits the house, which is a house extension, and the services brought up to date behind the scenes. Long spans and heavy walls make the structural side bigger than it looks.

Around 25,760 homes make up Wimbledon on the valuation list; 51% are flats and 49% houses, and 52% date from before 1919, 10% from between the wars and 38% from after 1945. VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 7 statistical areas in Wimbledon. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Long spans and where the load ends up decide the SW19 steel

In a substantial SW19 house, the spine wall running through the middle of the plan is doing serious work. It carries joists from both directions, often a chimney stack, and sometimes the wall above it on the storey over. Take a large opening out of it and load once spread along many metres of brickwork arrives at two points instead. So the engineer we appoint examines what is beneath the bearings as well as the beam itself, and a pad foundation or a widened bearing sometimes forms part of an open-plan conversion design.

Where the masonry underneath cannot take that concentration, the usual answer is a goalpost frame: a beam supported on steel columns with base plates taking load down to a designed foundation, rather than relying on existing brick piers. It sounds dramatic and it is routine RSJ installation. What matters is that the frame is fabricated to the engineer's drawing, connections are made as specified, fire protection to the steel is applied, and building control sees the whole assembly before it is boxed in and plastered over. The frame is positioned and levelled while temporary support carries the structure above, and only then does the old wall come out beneath it.

Working in an occupied house near the Common sets the order of jobs

Most of this work happens while the family is still living there, so sequencing decides which job runs when. Structural work and first fix come first, then plaster, then the kitchen renovation and bathroom renovation, then decoration, and we keep at least one bathroom and some kitchen function running for as long as the layout allows. Dust screens go up at the boundary of the working area, the heating stays on where it can, and the house is left secure each evening. One person holds the programme so you are not coordinating trades yourself.

Access around the Village and the roads near the Common is manageable but not generous. Streets are narrow in places, many houses have a short driveway a skip can sit on, which keeps the road clear, and a few have no off-street space at all. For a fortnight each summer the Championships bring a great deal of extra traffic and parking restriction to the streets around the All England Club, so deliveries and skip exchanges are scheduled around it rather than losing days to a road we cannot reach. Any permit or bay suspension the job needs is applied for well ahead of that fortnight.

Where to go next for work in Wimbledon: house extensions in Wimbledon, the Merton area guide, building work in Morden, building work in Tooting and Renovation Order of Works.