Choose the report for the Bow decision
Choose according to construction, alterations, condition and the purpose of your instruction.
- RICS Level 2 Home Survey — a conventional home in reasonable condition, without significant complexity.
- RICS Level 3 Building Survey — an older, altered, unusual or complex home needing a fuller investigation of condition.
- Specific defect investigation — a defined concern such as damp, cracking or water ingress.
- Pre-acquisition commercial building survey — condition and technical risk for a commercial purchase or lease.
Send the address, plans and your concerns so the proposed service, inspection limits and fee can be confirmed before instruction.
Tredegar Square evidence: terraces and roofs behind parapets
Tower Hamlets’ June 2025 Tredegar Square appraisal describes residential terraces alongside detached and semi-detached examples at the area’s edges. Its roofscape account identifies inverted-valley London roofs concealed at the front by parapets, with other roof forms including mansards on Mile End Road. It also records rear additions built as part of many original houses. Those observations are bounded to the Tredegar Square setting, not a roof diagnosis for every Bow property.
For a purchase nearby, distinguish the main covering from the roof over the back addition. Ask which available drawing shows the actual roof shape.
Bow building stock and property types
Bow’s stock runs from the Georgian terraces of Tredegar Square, through Victorian terraces around Bow Road and Roman Road, to the Bow Quarter matchworks conversion and period houses divided into flats.
The Georgian square at the heart of Bow — three near-identical stock-brick terraces with continuous cornices, sash windows, fanlights, railings and basements — the centrepiece of the Tredegar Square Conservation Area, designated in 1971.
The former Bryant & May match factory on Fairfield Road, the Victorian and early-20th-century Fairfield Works — scene of the 1888 Match Girls’ Strike — converted to residential flats from the late 1980s, within the Fairfield Road Conservation Area.
The Victorian terraces along Bow Road and around the Roman Road market, solid-brick with sash windows and rear additions, many now subdivided.
Period houses and former industrial buildings divided into flats, where shared roofs, drainage and structure affect the individual home and past alterations need checking.
Conservation areas, listed buildings and alteration risk
Bow has several Tower Hamlets conservation areas, including the Tredegar Square Conservation Area, designated in 1971 to protect the Georgian square, the Fairfield Road Conservation Area covering the Bryant & May matchworks and its Grade II terrace, and the Driffield Road Conservation Area in the west of Bow. Being in a conservation area itself restricts some permitted development — cladding, some roof alterations and demolition — and requires consent for many works. Tower Hamlets’ Article 4 directions here are use-class directions rather than householder ones: they remove the right to convert commercial premises, and the right to convert a house to a small house in multiple occupation, without planning permission. For a Tredegar Square-side enquiry, keep parapet, roof-accommodation and rear-wing alteration decisions in separately dated entries.
Use current address-specific authority information for proposed work; the June 2025 roofscape description is separate from that permission question.
For a Bow house or converted flat, include a roof description alongside the room plan. Identify any parapet, rear wing or later roof accommodation that appears in the seller’s papers. The street frontage can give an incomplete view of the covering that serves the purchase.
Locate a concealed valley before organising the roof file
For a Tredegar Square-side enquiry involving a roof behind a parapet, request any available roof plan and identify the valley and rainwater outlet positions it shows. Put earlier leak reports beside the room and roof area named at the time. A street photograph of the parapet should not be treated as a view of the hidden covering.
Ask what safe roof-space or rear-elevation access could be agreed. Keep inaccessible valleys and concealed outlet connections as identifiable limitations. If a contractor’s account concerns only one outlet, distinguish that repair from a claim that the whole roof was renewed.
Separate the original back wing from a later enlargement
Where a Bow sale includes rear accommodation, ask the seller to distinguish the earlier wing from added rooms on the available layout. Mark the junction with the main house and the roof serving each part. An existing back addition is not, by itself, evidence that every later alteration was part of the original construction.
Group papers for an enlarged opening, changed ceiling and garden-room extension by project date. Match any completion record to that defined work. For a converted flat, identify whether the bought unit occupies the wing and which external junctions sit outside the access available for the survey.
Describe a mansard purchase by floor and project
If the property particulars mention mansard accommodation, show the upper rooms, stair and roof openings on the plan supplied for the enquiry. Ask which drawings explain that arrangement and whether the seller’s repair papers concern the main slopes, a window or a separate back roof. The local roofscape account cannot date a particular alteration.
Keep the history of subdivision distinct from later work at the top floor. Record any reported symptom where it was observed, with the relevant investigation attached. Responsibility and consent questions should be addressed through the actual property file alongside the proposed physical inspection scope.
Bow building survey questions
Can a Bow street photograph establish the whole roof’s condition?
A parapet may conceal the covering and valley described in the Tredegar Square appraisal. Request the building’s roof plan and identify the safe views available for the agreed inspection.
Does an original back wing prove a later extension is authorised?
The historical account describes building form. The bought house’s later enlargement needs its own project drawings and relevant property decisions, kept separate from the original wing.
How should an outlet repair be described?
Name the valley or rainwater connection addressed and the dated leak account. Distinguish a repair to that point from renewal of the entire covering.
Which papers matter for top-floor mansard accommodation?
Locate the purchased rooms, stair and openings, with drawings for the actual roof arrangement. Keep subdivision history, later alterations and repairs as separate entries.
Bow Building Survey Quote & Fee Estimator (From £550 plus VAT)
Content updated: October 2026.
Other Bow surveying services
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