Careful work for one of London's most protected streetscapes.
Greenwich is a few minutes from the workshop and a regular part of my week. It is also one of the most tightly protected parts of London to own a period house in, which makes the standard of window work that much more important.
The Georgian townhouses around Croom's Hill and the streets climbing towards the park have some of the oldest sash windows I get to work on, often with original glass still in them. West Greenwich and the Ashburnham Triangle bring beautiful early and mid Victorian terraces, and there is plenty of later Victorian and Edwardian stock heading out towards Westcombe Park and Charlton.
Original glass is worth saying something about. Old cylinder and crown glass has a slight ripple that modern float glass simply cannot copy, and once it is broken it is gone. Where a pane can be saved I save it, and where a sash has to be rebuilt I take the old glass out and put it back in.
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24 Crooms Hill, Greenwich. Photo by No Swan So Fine, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Greenwich sits on the river, and river air is hard on painted timber. Damp, salt and constant wetting and drying cycles break down old paint faster than they would a few miles inland, and once the paint film fails the timber underneath starts taking water. On the north facing and river facing elevations I regularly find decay that has been quietly spreading for years behind a coat of paint that still looks reasonable from the ground.
The other Greenwich constant is the sheer number of layers of paint. On a house that has been repainted every decade since it was built, sashes end up wedged solid and the crisp mouldings the joiner cut two hundred years ago disappear under the build up. Stripping that back properly is slow work, but it is what brings the window back.
Every job in Greenwich starts the same way: a free survey, an honest conversation about what your windows actually need, and a written quote with no pressure attached.
Complete restoration of original timber sashes, done the traditional way.
Find out moreDecayed sections cut out and matching new timber spliced in.
Find out moreSnapped cords and unbalanced sashes put right so windows glide again.
Find out moreCracked panes, failed putty and slimline double glazed upgrades.
Find out moreMaritime Greenwich is a World Heritage Site and much of the surrounding housing sits in conservation areas, with a great many individually listed buildings among it. Replacement windows in the wrong material or the wrong proportion are not just unsympathetic here, they are often simply not permitted.
That is genuinely good news for anyone who loves their house. Restoring what you already have is almost always cheaper than fighting for consent to replace it, and it gives a better result. I repair like for like, match existing mouldings and glazing bar profiles exactly, and keep any upgrade such as draught proofing fully reversible.
All of SE10 and the surrounding area, including West Greenwich, East Greenwich, the Ashburnham Triangle, Croom's Hill, Maze Hill, Westcombe Park and across to Charlton and Blackheath.
Wherever it is sound, yes, and I would always want to. Original cylinder and crown glass is part of what makes a period window look right, and I remove and reinstate it by hand rather than replacing it as a matter of course.
No. The Schlegel Q-Lon seals are routed discreetly into the frames and beads, so from inside the room and from the street the window looks exactly as it did. It just stops rattling and stops the draught, and it carries a 10 year performance guarantee.
It depends on the property and on what is being done. Straight repair and redecoration is usually fine. Anything that changes the appearance may not be. I will tell you where you stand at the survey rather than leaving you to find out later.
Based between Blackheath and the Medway towns, covering South East London, Kent and Essex. Not on the list? Get in touch anyway, I can often help with specific projects.