Choose the report for the Petersham & Ham 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.
Petersham Road cottages at Ham Common’s northern approach
Richmond’s Ham Common Conservation Area 7 statement describes 291–343 Petersham Road as a closely grouped run of nineteenth- and twentieth-century terraced cottages forming the northern approach to the green. It notes varied architectural treatments within a modest scale and consistent front boundaries. The same page distinguishes the small detached or terraced houses and cottages of Lock Road and New Road, with low walls and hedges.
Those named groups provide a bounded reference within the combined Petersham and Ham locality. Match the purchased address to its own plan and records; the statement does not identify every home’s original fabric, establish boundary ownership or assess a particular cottage’s current condition.
Recorded building forms
- Five Petersham and Ham property types requiring different evidence
- Petersham mansions and substantial houses
- Village terraces and cottages
- Ham Common's mixed historic edge
- Parkleys and associated Span housing
Connect the Petersham and Ham cottage frontage to its rear plan
If the dwelling presents a compact frontage, show its full depth and rear additions on the seller’s layout. Name each extension or separate garden building included in the purchase, with the route through the house or side access marked. Do not let a consistent street elevation stand in for a record of rooms or roofs behind it.
Request drawings for any opened-up ground floor, relocated kitchen or added storey, retaining the earlier arrangement where the file supplies it. Connect available structural and completion documents to the relevant project. A recent decorative scheme should have its own description rather than being used to explain the support to a larger opening or the construction of a room formed during an earlier phase.
Mansions, cottages and Span in one brief
The record spans seventeenth-century mansions behind walls, village cottages, the common's mixed edge and pioneering 1950s Span housing. A condition instruction identifies the subject's group first, because a walled mansion and a flat-roofed Span block have almost nothing in common as survey problems.
Construction era picks the method
The recorded method assigns traditional pitched roofs and masonry different questions from post-war flat-roofed blocks, with concealed build-ups documented in both. The report applies the system that matches the actual construction, which is what keeps its movement, ventilation and drainage advice usable.
Managed estates pair fabric with governance
For the recorded listed close and Span estate, a unit inspection is paired with management evidence on specifications, approvals, renewal cycles, reserve funds and cost allocation. The report treats those records as part of the survey product, since envelope history on a managed estate cannot be read from one flat.
Landscape components join the schedule
Boundary walls, gates, terraces, steps, trees and outbuildings are recorded for inspection where accessible, with ownership and protected status kept separate from condition. The survey prices those components alongside the house, because on these plots the landscape fabric is often where the deferred maintenance lives.
Moisture is mapped without a postcode verdict
Staining, salts, decay and readings are recorded for mapping against rainwater disposal, plumbing, levels and ventilation, with river proximity kept as context. The report names the supported mechanism, proposes invasive testing only where it would change the decision and leaves area-level water history to the address searches.
Recorded inspection topics
- Read roof and wall interfaces by construction era
- Interpret moisture without a postcode diagnosis
- Test additions and structural reorganisation
- Inspect landscape-facing components
- Pair flat condition with estate governance
Identify Petersham and Ham boundary features by the sale evidence
For a low front wall, hedge, gate or side enclosure relevant to the sale, mark the feature and the bought land on the supplied boundary plan. If the seller describes a shared feature or an access arrangement, keep the associated documents with that account. The council’s mention of consistent front boundaries records a streetscape, without allocating repair responsibility to an individual owner.
Show which side of an external wall can be viewed through the offered access. Where a retaining function or earlier repair is reported, request the plan and work description identifying the section involved.
Separate Petersham and Ham roof phases and cottage repairs
Locate the main roof, any lower rear covering and the chimney positions on the current house outline. If an attic room or dormer has been added, ask for drawings showing the staircase and the roof space left outside the room. Record whether an accessible hatch is offered and which parts cannot be reached without a different arrangement.
A roof invoice should identify the covering or junction worked on and its date. Keep a renewal project separate from a later local repair, with any before-and-after photographs attached to the named component. For a reported leak, write down the room, affected surface and previous investigation; neither cottage scale nor the historic approach to Ham Common supplies evidence that the leak has been resolved.
Give Petersham and Ham outside structures a stated place in the brief
List a bought garage, workshop or detached room separately from the principal dwelling. Show its position, visible relationship to the garden and means of entry, while keeping a neighbour’s structure clearly labelled. If a sales photograph shows a building beyond the apparent boundary, ask the seller to clarify its connection to the transaction before assuming it is included.
For altered external drainage or paving, retain the drawings and account of work supplied for that location. Record any earlier professional advice in full, together with evidence of subsequent activity.
Local evidence
- Richmond: Ham Common Conservation Area 7 statement
- Richmond Council — Petersham Conservation Area 6
- Richmond Council — Ham House Conservation Area 23
- Richmond Council — Parkleys Estate Conservation Area 67
- Richmond Council — Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Plan
- Richmond Council — conservation-area Article 4 directions
- Richmond Council — Strategic Flood Risk Assessment
- Historic England — Ham House, NHLE 1080832
- Historic England — Ham House registered landscape, NHLE 1000282
- Historic England — 1–18 Langham House Close, NHLE 1033380
- Historic England — 1–9 Tennyson Court, Parkleys, NHLE 1051042
- Environment Agency — check long-term flood risk
- British Geological Survey — Geology of Britain viewer
Petersham & Ham building survey questions
Which Petersham Road buildings does the statement describe?
The cited passage concerns the cottage group numbered 291–343 and also discusses Lock Road and New Road. It is a local architectural reference; locate the purchased number separately rather than applying the passage to every Petersham and Ham property.
What helps when a small cottage has substantial rear additions?
Provide a current full-depth plan and a dated file for each addition, including available structural and completion records. Mark lower roofs and any separate garden building so the frontage does not become the only outline of the purchase.
Does a consistent front boundary establish repair ownership?
No individual allocation follows from that streetscape description. Keep the seller’s boundary plan and supporting documents with the identified wall or hedge, and separate those documentary questions from observations about its physical condition.
How should an attic alteration be included in the Ham brief?
Identify the added room, stair, dormer and remaining roof voids on the layout. Supply the available project drawings and describe the hatch or other access offered, with any unentered space recorded clearly.
Petersham & Ham Building Survey Quote & Fee Estimator (From £550 plus VAT)
Content updated: October 2026.