The basis of this overview
Within the London Borough of Merton, two conservation areas carrying the John Innes name cover about 42 hectares between them, and together they form the study area for this page. Heritage, direction, ground and flood results are given for that combined footprint, while housing figures come from three statistical areas around it.
The numbers describe the area, not a particular house, and they sit alongside the council's own guidance for the designations. For neighbouring districts and the wider region, see the South West London guide.
What the records show for the John Innes areas
Every statement below links to the public record it comes from; sources were re-checked on .
Two John Innes designations
The larger record, John Innes (Merton Park), reference 2813, covers about 31.7 hectares, and the national planning data gives its record a start year of 1968 only (the date the dataset uses for a designation or its latest boundary change), without a day or month.
The second, John Innes (Wilton Crescent), reference 2814, covers about 10.4 hectares with a recorded start year of 1984.
Merton publishes a map, a character assessment and a management plan for the John Innes area, plus a design guide, which are worth reading ahead of any change to a front garden, boundary, roof or elevation.
Because the two records start in 1968 and 1984 and are held separately, a house is placed in the correct one using the mapped records before the relevant guidance is applied.
Article 4 position
No direction intersecting either designation shows in the Article 4 layer of the national planning data.
Absence from a national dataset does not prove that no direction exists, so Merton's conservation areas page and its list of conservation areas are checked for the address before permitted development rights are taken for granted.
Eight list entries
Eight list entries sit inside the two boundaries in Historic England's NHLE layer as it stood on 1 November 2026: seven are Grade II and one, the Church of St Mary, is Grade II*.
Scheduled monuments and registered parks and gardens are both absent from the study area in the same layer's results, so for most houses the conservation-area designation is the heritage control that matters day to day.
For the few properties that are listed, the entry text is read in full, because listed building consent can apply to interior and minor works that would need no consent in an unlisted house.
Gravel on part of the clay
Under each of the five sampled locations, BGS 1:50,000 sheet data records London Clay Formation, given as clay and silt.
Kempton Park Gravel Member deposits, a sand and gravel, overlie that clay at three of the points, and the other two have no superficial cover, so in the BGS mapping the near-surface ground changes within a short distance.
Clay without a gravel cover moves as it wets and dries, whereas gravel above it can lose fine material where drainage leaks, and the sheet data suggests which of those two lines of enquiry fits a particular house before the visit confirms it.
Flood and surface water
Flood Zones 2 and 3 do not reach either conservation area on the EA's Flood Map for Planning.
The zones disregard defences and do not assess individual buildings, so surface water for an address is looked up on the long-term risk checker instead.
Dwellings by age and type
Three surrounding LSOAs, E01003428, E01003384 and E01003423, hold about 2,140 dwellings in the Valuation Office Agency counts for 2025, which the VOA gives to the nearest ten.
Build periods in those counts are 31.3% before 1900, 22.0% for 1900-1918, 17.3% for 1919-1939, 13.1% from 2000, 12.1% for 1973-1999 and 3.7% for 1945-1972.
By type, the agency's tables record 54.2% flats or maisonettes, 26.6% terraced houses, 11.2% semi-detached, 7.0% detached and 0.9% bungalows, and 24.3% of dwellings sit in bands F to H.
These three surrounding areas do not match the conservation areas, so the VOA figures describe the setting; with more than half the stock built before 1919, many enquiries still concern houses of that age, with original roofs, chimneys and joinery to assess.
Local guides for the area
The first list holds the local pages written for the John Innes area; the second links each service as it is offered across London.
Nearby areas
Wimbledon, Morden, Colliers Wood, New Malden and Tooting are covered by their own pages, and wider coverage sits in the South West London guide.
John Innes areas: owners' questions
What are the John Innes conservation areas?
They are two Merton designations: John Innes (Merton Park), about 31.7 hectares with a record start year of 1968, and John Innes (Wilton Crescent), about 10.4 hectares with a start year of 1984, both held in the national planning data. This guide treats them together as its study area.
Has a direction removed permitted development rights here?
None intersecting either area appears in the national Article 4 data. That dataset is not always complete, so check the council's conservation pages, or ask a conveyancer, before relying on permitted development rights for windows, porches or roof changes.
Which entry here is Grade II*?
The Church of St Mary. It is one of eight list entries the NHLE returns within the two conservation areas, the other seven being Grade II, so most houses are protected by the area designation rather than by listing.
Does the gravel change what is checked?
It can. The geology map shows Kempton Park Gravel over London Clay at three sample points and bare clay at the other two. Drainage condition matters more on gravel and seasonal movement more on clay, and only the site shows which applies to a particular house.
How old is most of the housing?
In the three LSOAs used, 31.3% of dwellings predate 1900 and 22.0% date from 1900-1918 in the VOA 2025 counts, so more than half were built before 1919. Those areas do not coincide with the conservation areas and are only an approximation.
What information speeds up an enquiry?
The address, whether you are buying, extending or repairing, any drawings or planning references for past work, and for a flat the lease and service charge details. Photographs of the front, the roof and any cracks you have noticed help decide what the visit needs to cover.
How we work on an instruction
Hampstead Chartered Surveyors is a RICS-regulated firm (RICS Regulated Firm No. 923064) working from its registered Hampstead NW3 office. The firm does not claim premises, staff or completed instructions in an individual locality, and it does not treat a neighbourhood name as evidence about a particular building.
An instruction starts with the full address, the decision the client faces and the documents already available, such as leases, drawings, notices or earlier reports. The scope, fee and inspection date are confirmed in writing only after that review, and access to roofs, lofts, basements or common parts is agreed before the visit.
Reports include RICS Level 2 and Level 3 home surveys, building and defect investigations, party wall appointments, reinstatement cost assessments, contract administration and schedules of condition. Each report records what was inspected, what could not be seen and what further investigation the evidence supports.
Public datasets such as the conservation-area register, the National Heritage List for England, British Geological Survey mapping, the Environment Agency flood map and Valuation Office Agency housing statistics describe areas rather than individual properties. They frame questions before an inspection; they never replace it.
Reviewed by Savas Bulduk BSc (Hons) MRICS, Director & Chartered Building Surveyor at Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy. Last reviewed: . Our people · RICS firm record