The spire of the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Godalming, seen across Phillips Memorial Park. Photo: Margaret Anne Clarke, CC BY-SA 4.0Designing around a historic town centre
Waverley Borough Council has 44 conservation areas, and five of them are in Godalming: the Town Centre, Crownpits, Ockford Road, Binscombe and the Godalming Navigations along the Wey. The town centre conservation area was first designated in 1974 and extended twice since. The Pepperpot, the old town hall built in 1814 where Church Street meets the High Street, is Grade II listed, and Church Street is lined with 17th century timber-framed buildings.
If your home is listed, the rules are different from an ordinary house. Historic England is clear that listed building consent can be needed for internal works as well as external ones where they affect the building's character, and carrying out unauthorised works is a criminal offence. So before we specify anything that touches historic fabric, you should speak to Waverley's heritage team. We are not planning advisers, but we plan every installation so that it can be discussed with them clearly.
From our Cobham projectHow do we hide technology in a period home?
Our approach in older houses is to change as little of the building as possible:
- Wireless Lutron lighting control that retrofits without chasing new cables through old plaster, with one keypad replacing a row of switches.
- Speakers and cabling routed through existing voids, loft spaces and service routes, agreed before work starts.
- Equipment racks in a cupboard or cellar rather than on show.
- Lighting scenes that suit the rooms: soft picture lighting for the evening, brighter settings for cleaning, and a single press for goodnight.
Our wider lighting and shading page covers automated blinds and curtains, which help in rooms where you cannot change the windows.
The aim is a house that looks exactly as it did before we arrived, and simply works better.
Our demonstration cinema in Walton-on-ThamesA cinema room in a Godalming family home
Away from the historic core, Godalming's housing is a genuine mix: at the 2011 census roughly three in ten homes were detached, three in ten semi-detached, and the rest terraced houses and flats. A spare bedroom, loft or garage conversion often makes a good cinema room. We start with cinema room design: seating distance, screen size and speaker positions worked out for your room, with 3D visuals before anything is built. A professionally designed small cinema room typically costs £15,000 to £25,000 fully installed, and you can see the line-by-line breakdown in our small cinema room cost guide.
Godalming is about 16 miles from our Walton-on-Thames showroom. Our nearest published cinema is in Fetcham, and a family a few miles north in Guildford used us for their new build: "The finished system is intuitive and easy to use, with lighting scenes and automation that work perfectly for family life." (Turning Left For Less, Google review)
Book a showroom visit to hear the demonstration cinema, or book a free design consultation and we will come to you.
