Steel staircases made in Westerham

Staircase jobs that come up in Westerham

Most of Westerham's 20th and 21st-century houses stand north of the A25 around Croydon Road and Farley Lane, and the loft conversions follow: the July and August 2026 parish planning list carried a hip-to-gable conversion with a rear dormer on Croydon Road, the sort of job that brings a call for an external steel stair. The apartment blocks near Croydon Road and Market Square, singled out by the 2015 Appraisal for their Juliet balconies, are where a fire escape or a proper balcony has to satisfy Building Control and the conservation officer at once.

Timber-framed cottages on the High Street and the Victorian terraces of Stratton Terrace and New Street sit on small plots, so work there is a short straight flight to the garden or replacement front railings. Hosey Hill, French Street, and The Avenue and Chestnut Avenue up on the Downs have larger detached houses on sloping grounds, where a garden staircase replaces a bank of steps.

The Conservation Area, listed buildings and Green Belt

Westerham's historic core is a 36-hectare Conservation Area with about 100 listed buildings, reaching from the Hosey Hill junction to Squerryes Court and up part of London Road. A conservation area is Article 2(3) land, as is the Kent Downs National Landscape around the town, so side extensions and rear extensions of more than one storey need householder permission from Sevenoaks District Council. An external staircase serving a balcony, veranda or raised platform will normally need permission too, since those are excluded from permitted development; a Juliet balcony with no platform and no external access normally does not.

On a Grade II building such as Pitts Cottage or the Kings Arms, any fixed external stair, balcony or railing needs Listed Building Consent. Parts of the Conservation Area are in the Metropolitan Green Belt, where the 2015 Green Belt SPD also applies, and the Westerham Village Design Statement of April 2019 is a material consideration for any application in the parish.

Access, ground and finishes

Westerham sits on a small hill within the Darent valley, in the shadow of the North Downs. Plots on the High Street and around Quebec Square are close-packed behind Kent ragstone and brick walls the Management Plan wants kept, so we survey the route in first and make the flight in sections two of us can carry through a side passage rather than lift over a wall. The larger houses on extensive grounds at Hosey Hill and French Street, and along the Westerham Hill stretch of the A233, give us room to work but leave the steel out in the weather on the Greensand Ridge or near the 251-metre crest of Betsom's Hill.

There we use hot-dip galvanised mild steel, powder coated in any RAL colour and fixed to concrete pads. Stainless handrails suit the newer houses, and glass infill on a balcony keeps the view south over the pasture to Hosey Common and Toys Hill.

How we get to you from Westerham Hill

From 4 Fort Cottages to the Green is about five minutes with the road clear, straight down the A233 to the A25. The hill is steep and the A25 through the town carries heavy traffic at peak, so we deliver long flights outside the peaks. The rest of the parish is close: Crockham Hill is three miles south of the town on the B2026, Tatsfield 3.3 miles north-west, Oxted 3.4 miles west, Sevenoaks six miles east, and Warlingham, at the far end of our patch, 6.2 road miles from the workshop. Brasted, Sundridge and Chevening lie along the A25 towards Sevenoaks, Edenbridge is south beyond Crockham Hill, and M25 junctions 5 and 6 sit either side of the town for anything further.

With the town this close, a free survey is usually a matter of calling in, and a phone photo of the wall or opening gets you a written estimate the same day.

Where we work in and around Westerham

We cover the whole of Westerham parish and the TN16 post town. In the town that takes in the Green, Market Square, the High Street and Quebec Square, Croydon Road, Farley Lane and London Road, The Flyers Way and Railway Terrace on the old station site, and Westerham Trading Centre on Hortons Way. South of the A25 we go out through Hosey Common to Hosey Hill and French Street, to Chartwell on Mapleton Road, and down the B2026 to Crockham Hill, in the parish though its post town is Edenbridge.

TN16 2, the Westerham Hill sector, takes in Heights View, The Avenue, Chestnut Avenue and Main Road on the hill, Pilgrims Way along the scarp foot, and Fort Cottages itself. South Street and Biggin Hill are just over the boundary in the London Borough of Bromley, Tatsfield is in Tandridge across the Surrey boundary, Brasted, Sundridge and Chevening lie east along the A25, and Limpsfield and Oxted west.

Gates, railings and balustrades in the town

Staircases bring most of our Westerham calls, but front railings and gates in the Conservation Area follow close behind, usually where an original boundary has been lost. The Management Plan wants original walls, railings and hedges retained wherever possible and railings finished black, so we match the pattern that survives next door and finish to suit. A gate or railing is permitted development up to one metre beside a road used by vehicles and two metres elsewhere, never within the curtilage of a listed building, and since the council has made an Article 4 direction for front boundaries in Kemsing we check with Sevenoaks before relying on it here. Balustrades for the flats near Market Square and the larger houses on the Downs are glass or stainless; in the historic core they are plain steel bar.

Questions from Westerham customers