Marble Hill House seen across the lawns of Marble Hill Park, Twickenham. Photo: Jim Linwood from London, CC BY 2.0Match day or film night: what should your room do?
In a town that is home to Allianz Stadium Twickenham, England's rugby ground, sport is a natural place to start the brief. That changes the brief. A room for live rugby needs a bright, large picture that holds up with the lights on, sound that carries crowd noise without drowning out the commentary, and seating that works for a houseful of friends. A room for films wants darkness, precise surround sound and a screen as large as the seating distance allows. Most families want both, and good design means you do not have to choose.
That is why a media room suits so many homes here: an 85 inch or larger 4K screen for every day, a discreet surround sound package, and Control4 scenes that switch the room between match mode and film mode from one remote. If you can give a room over to film entirely, a dedicated cinema room is the next step up.
From our Roehampton Gate projectWhat are the houses like in Twickenham and St Margarets?
St Margarets began as a planned estate. The Conservative Land Society bought the park of St Margaret's House in 1854 and laid out an estate along early garden suburb lines, with plots grouped around three private pleasure gardens. Richmond Council describes the dominant building form as detached villas in a deliberate mixture of Gothic and Italianate styles, with decorated chimney stacks, stucco details and timber and iron porches. The whole estate is protected as the St Margaret's Estate conservation area.
Twickenham's historic core runs along the Middlesex bank of the Thames, from the medieval village around St Mary's Church to the Palladian Marble Hill House in its riverside grounds, all within the Twickenham Riverside conservation area. Away from the river, further conservation areas cover streets from Twickenham Green to Waldegrave Park, which is why so many of the homes we visit here come with period details worth protecting.
From our Roehampton Gate projectHow do we add technology to a period room?
- Lighting first. A villa with high ceilings and big bay windows looks very different under good scenes. Smart lighting and shading, often Lutron, gives you one keypad per room and blinds that close with the lights for a match or a film.
- Sound through the house. Multi-room audio means the pre-match build-up can play in the kitchen and garden, then follow you into the media room.
- One system, one app. A Control4 smart home ties the screens, music, lighting, heating and security together, so nobody has to hunt for the right remote at kick-off.
Inside, most of this work leaves the fabric of the house alone. Outside, conservation area rules can restrict changes that would be allowed elsewhere, so check anything visible from the street with Richmond Council's planning team first.
Our demonstration cinema in Walton-on-ThamesWhere can you see our sport and cinema rooms?
Our Walton-on-Thames showroom is about 6 miles from Twickenham and St Margarets, and our engineers have designed and installed systems in homes across both. The published project closest to this brief is our Epsom media room and sports bar, built for a family of Manchester United supporters: an 85 inch Sony TV recessed into the wall, an Anthem MRX740 receiver with 5.1 surround sound, Lutron RA2 lighting and QMotion blackout blinds, all on Control4. In Oxshott, our cinema has separate Control4 modes for film nights and football. As one client, Chris Kipling, put it in his Google review: "the cinema room they created was outstanding."
The best test is your own. Book a showroom visit, bring a match or a film you know well, and judge the picture and sound for yourself. Budgets are straightforward: a media room around an existing TV wall can come in under the £15,000 to £25,000 we quote for a professionally designed small cinema room, fully installed. When you are ready, book a free design consultation.
