Location Focus on Central Winchester

The centre of Winchester has everything you could wish for. The stunning architecture of the Cathedral and it’s environs, a wide variety of bars and restaurants and the River Itchen taking the countryside right into the centre means you can have the best of all worlds. And as a small city, there’s plenty of choice of residential properties of all types.

Having practiced in Winchester for over fifteen years, we’ve undertaken projects in most parts of the city centre and are familiar with the challenges they bring. Many of the properties are smaller terraced properties and may have undergone alterations when economy was a greater driving factor than it is now! Given the high values of all central property types, we feel it’s important to maximise the space and comfort of every project.

In Sussex Street we extended a small terraced house to provide much needed additional living space. This involved navigating approvals to build close to the shared sewer and overcoming objections from neighbours to the size of extension proposed. This house was similar to many you would find in the city centre with small loft conversions.

On Upper Brook Street we achieved consent to enlarge an existing loft with a dormer to the rear. As it’s part of the conservation area, planning approval is required for all loft extensions and the planning and conservation officers will ensure that the designs are compatible with the character of the area. This usually means ensuring the dormer is designed to be in-keeping and not overly large.

An early project on Romsey Road saw us convert a narrow commercial building into a five-storey house. By relocating the central staircase we were able to create extra space in the top storey and allow for interconnecting rooms on the lower floors. The result was a complete transformation from the existing cellular plan.

At Peninsula Barracks we reconfigured an existing apartment to provide an updated interior and improved arrangement of spaces. The development was converted in the 1990s from the former home of The Royal Green Jackets. Housed in the former rifle range, the apartment was spacious with high ceilings but was far from ideal in how it had been laid out. The kitchen was small and located away from the living spaces while the second bedroom had a large window close to passing pedestrian traffic. Our solution swapped these rooms and opened up the new kitchen with large double doors to use the large hallway as a link between the kitchen, dining and open plan living space.

Another apartment project at Wharf Mill over the Itchen River saw the reconfiguration and refurbishment of a listed conversion as an urban pied a terre for a retired couple. We uncovered original beams behind plasterboard partitions and exposed them to good effect. This created a top floor living space out of the unusual layout. The bedroom that was displaced was reinstated on the lower floor close to the shared bathroom so the amenity and flexibility of the layout was also improved. A refurbished kitchen opened onto a dining and living space below the galleried lounge and exposed beams.

On Canon Street a recent project saw the extension and refurbishment of a compact terraced home. As a highly desirable location right next to Winchester College, it was important to make the best use of space. We reconfigured the existing cramped bathroom and improved the ground floor ceiling height as part of our extension and reconfiguration.

With our experience across a broad range of property types in Central Winchester you can be confident that we will be able to assist you with your project.