Reputedly the station master’s house for Peckham Rye station, this property is a creative example of Victorian residential infill development; squeezed into the back gardens of two early Victorian houses and onto the side of a Georgian house.
The house built in 1864 breaks from the typical Victorian pattern of a straight stair off the entrance with a bespoke plan that sets the house around a central lightwell, which maintained daylight to its neighbour’s existing side windows.
The house had fallen into disrepair and the lightwell had been blocked up by a full storey of waste before being fully refurbished and extended in 2019 to create a spacious and light-filled home.
The new designs removed the walls to the original Victorian rooms on the ground floor to create a more fluid circulation between living spaces and the lightwell was opened up to create a central garden.
To the rear of the house a new extension houses the kitchen with double-doors opening out to the garden. The orientation of the fully-glazed elevation of the extension creates a new west face to the light-locked, north-facing back of house and pulls the light from the setting sun into the Ash-clad room.
The kitchen is arranged around a central island with joinery made from engineered Ash, boarded with a horizontal grain direction to increase the sense of width in the 3m wide space. Ash boxed beams to the ceiling amplify the sense of height and provide a recess for track lighting.
The central lantern skylight provides glimpses of the spring flowers on the wildflower roof overhead and shadows from the grasses dance on the Ash surrounds. A chandelier by the artist Alex Randall made from a stripped branch from an Ash tree is fitted to the recess.
The kitchen design creates a practical arrangement for a 3x4m room. A compact solution that uses open shelving, slim worktops and a large pantry cupboard to provide a space that celebrates the social acts of cooking and entertaining.
