Location Focus on Badger Farm and Oliver’s Battery

Badger Farm and Oliver’s Battery are ideally positioned to the south of Winchester, offering families the perfect blend of suburban tranquility and convenient access to the city centre. Both areas benefit from excellent schools, with Oliver’s Battery falling within the highly sought-after Kings School catchment area, while Badger Farm has excellent local amenities and pedestrian shortcuts to St Cross and the water meadows.

Badger Farm: 1970s and 80s Housing with Potential

Badger Farm was developed throughout the 1970s and 1980s as a planned estate and comprises a variety of house types with generous gardens compared. This makes them ideal for adaptation and extension.

Many homes feature practical layouts that lend themselves to modern open-plan living, while the standard ceiling heights of the era provide excellent potential for vaulted ceilings in extensions to create a generous feeling of space that might be lacking in the existing houses.

However, there’s an important planning consideration for Badger Farm homeowners. Most properties in the area have had their permitted development rights withdrawn under the terms of the original planning approval. This means that even small extensions and alterations require planning permission. While this adds a step to the process, it shouldn’t discourage you from pursuing your project. We have extensive experience navigating these requirements and ensuring applications are well-prepared and successful.

At Kestrel Close we extended a small three bedroom terraced home to provide additional living space above the parking area and an isolated outdoor space. The limited space provided a challenge to achieving a sympathetic design but sailed through planning despite adding significantly to the building frontage.

Oliver’s Battery: Varied Housing with Outstanding Views

Oliver’s Battery occupies a prominent hilltop position named after Oliver Cromwell, whose army camped here during the siege of Winchester in 1645. Today it comprises around 700 households, predominantly built in the 1960s and early 1970s, with a range of property types from modest bungalows to substantial detached homes.

The location offers spectacular views across the surrounding countryside, easy access to Winchester and the railway station, and excellent walking opportunities into the Hampshire downland.

Oliver’s Battery properties tend to have generous plots, making them particularly well-suited to extensions. Many of the original bungalows and smaller houses are being transformed into spacious family homes. The elevated position of many properties means that design often needs to consider both the views and the impact on neighbours, which is where our experience proves invaluable.

On Oliver’s Battery Road South we designed the extension and refurbishment of a 1960s detached home. The property had been extended previously, but our design reimagined the spaces to create a coherent layout that made the most of the plot and the views. We added a first-floor extension to provide additional bedrooms and reconfigured the ground floor to create an open-plan kitchen and family room that opened onto a generous terrace.

In Oliver’s Battery Gardens we transformed a compact bungalow into an airy future proofed home for an active retiree. The rear extension allowed the kitchen to open up to the new living area with bedrooms augmented by ensuite bathrooms and generous storage.

What makes both Badger Farm and Oliver’s Battery particularly appealing is the flexibility of the housing stock. The 1960s, 70s and 80s properties were built to good standards with straightforward construction that’s relatively easy to work with.

Our experience includes navigating the specific planning requirements in Badger Farm and making the most of the elevated positions and views in Oliver’s Battery.

Whether you’re looking to extend a compact terraced home in Badger Farm or transform a bungalow in Oliver’s Battery into a substantial family residence, we have the local knowledge and design expertise to help you achieve your goals.