Harrow on the Hill: Inglis Badrashi Loddo converts a Grade II listed ex–council chambers into refined, serene residences
London-based architecture practice Inglis Badrashi Loddo (IBLA) has completed the conversion of a Grade II listed Edwardian civic building in Harrow on the Hill Conservation Area into five new residential apartments.
Occupying a prominent position on the village green at the southern end of the high street, the building was designed by Harry Prince, a pupil of the leading Arts & Crafts architect E. S. Prior, after winning a competition for public offices for Harrow on the Hill Urban District Council. Completed in 1913, it served as council chambers for most of the 20th century before being converted into offices and a caretaker’s flat in the 1960s. Later alterations in the 1980s infilled the original central lightwell with toilets, a staircase and additional accommodation, obscuring and confusing the original plan.
Built on a sloping site near Harrow School, the building rises over three levels with two frontages. The ground floor elevation opens onto the high street, whilst a basement looks onto Byron Hill Road. It stands between the old Harrow Fire Station and the former branch of London County Bank, both dating from the 1880s.
IBLA’s longstanding clients – a private development company – acquired the building in 2013, around the same time as the neighbouring fire station. Following previous rejected applications, the clients approached IBLA in 2020 for their expertise in sensitive refurbishment and adaptive reuse of historic urban properties. The architects secured listed building and planning consent for five flats in 2021.
The brief was to balance three ambitions; maximising the land value, creating functional, atmospheric homes, and respecting the building’s listed status. Much of the fabric had suffered from unsympathetic changes made during its previous life - a courtyard filled in, heavy steel structure inserted, and services run straight through historic cornicing.
IBLA’s design turned on two major moves: reinstating the original lightwell and introducing a new timber-clad spiral staircase within the courtyard, rethinking the building’s vertical circulation. The architects began with a detailed analysis of the existing fabric, alongside a close study of historic photos and original drawings. Removal of poor quality, late 20th-century additions allowed the original lightwell at the heart of the site to be reopened, bringing daylight back into the building whilst restoring the original plan-form.
Reusing the grand original staircase to serve all the new flats would have consumed too much of the frontage and left the smaller units isolated from it. Instead, the architects treated the entire main frontage as a single duplex, which is entered from the High Street, while a new timber-clad spiral staircase in the reinstated courtyard gives independent access to the rear units from Byron Hill Road: Flat 1 and Flat 2 on the lower ground basement floor, Flat 3 on the upper ground floor, and finally Flat 4 on the first floor. Each flat has its own bedroom, washroom, living space and a fully equipped kitchen.
In Flat 90 - the principal duplex - the original timber panelling was sanded, re-oiled and fire-protected, and the existing doors were retained. Marble light fittings and picture-rail-mounted spotlights avoid fixing into the panelling or ornate ceiling roses, while kitchen servicing is intricately threaded through the existing fabric. The main staircase and hallway were restored by lifting glued-down carpet, removing later fire doors, and reopening blocked windows.
Flats 1 and 2 are self contained in the basement, while Flat 3 is a two-bedroom apartment. Flat 4 occupies a former meeting room, retaining original oak parquet flooring and cornicing. Its layout also includes a Jack and Jill toilet shared between two bedrooms, which doubles as a secondary fire escape route for one of the rooms.
Across the flats, new servicing and amenity elements are introduced as freestanding timber-clad ‘pods’ - scaled and detailed like furniture rather than partitions - containing showers, toilets, basins and storage, designed below the horizon of the original picture rails and cornicing. Internally, they are finished in a water-resilient timber laminate, with blue-grey herringbone tiling, echoing the pine parquet found throughout the building. Taps and ironmongery are a brushed brass finish, picking up from the original knob furniture, retained wherever possible.
The spiral staircase itself is engineered to carry its own enclosing walls, using the lifting anchors cast into each precast concrete tread as fixing points for the curved timber structure above. Loads pass down through the central column to a small new pad foundation, avoiding the need to break out the existing 300mm concrete slab and allowing the whole extension to be built above ground with minimal excavation. It is clad in thermally treated pine, secret-fixed in narrow, offset boards that follow the stair's curve - a weathered counterpoint to the masonry outside and the timber pods within.
Elsewhere, non-original openings were stripped out and the facades restored to their original composition of red brick, stone quoining, and a clay-tiled roof with copper-domed cupola. Walls and floors were insulated where possible, secondary glazing added for warmth and security, and new services routed carefully through the fabric to protect the original details.
Team:
Architect: Inglis Badrashi Loddo
Interior design: Inglis Badrashi Loddo
Form of contract/ procurement route: JCT Intermediate
Structural engineer: Price & Myers
M&E consultant: Seraphic
Principal designer: Inglis Badrashi Loddo
Approved building inspector: Socotec
Main contractor: Invicta Construction Ltd
CAD software used: Vectorworks
Photographer: Brotherton Lock
Interior Styling: Alma + Midori
Photographer: Brotherton Lock
Materials Used:
Kitchen cabinetry & bathroom pod panels Basically Trade
Kitchen laminate finish H3406 Anthracite Mountain Larch, Egger
Kitchen laminate finish Super Matt Cashmere, Egger
Concrete spiral staircase Spiral Stair UK
Timber cladding Abodo Vulcan Flatsawn (secret fixings), Russwood
Bathroom pod wall tiles Oslo Indigo Matt porcelain, Mandarin Stone
Bathroom floor & wall tiles Porcelanosa
General lighting Astro Lighting
Feature lighting in No. 90 Flat Holloways of Ludlow
Porcelain worktop 508 Isobellia, Caesarstone
Oak parquet flooring Exquisite Flooring Installers Ltd
External stone-effect paint Stonelux
