Sash window repairs and restoration in Finsbury Park
We restore, repair and draught-proof timber sash windows in Finsbury Park and in Stroud Green, Brownswood and the streets off Blackstock Road. Most of the houses are late-Victorian terraces with bay windows, built quickly in the 1880s and 1890s. Three boroughs meet here, and the Stroud Green and Brownswood conservation areas carry their own controls.
Finsbury Park's windows
The streets around the park went up fast once the railway arrived, and the builders worked from the same pattern books: two and three-storey terraces in stock brick, with a bay to the ground floor or rising through both. The sashes are heavier two-over-two windows with horns, built for plate glass. Some bays are curved on plan, with sashes and glass bent to match, and these need particular care when they are re-corded or reglazed. Along Stroud Green Road the upper floors over shops have sashes of their own, often the most neglected on the street. The usual faults are rotten cills under the bay sashes, broken cords and draughts at the meeting rails.
What matters most in Finsbury Park
Finsbury Park's houses are late-Victorian terraces built fast from pattern books, each with a bay to the ground floor or rising through both. Their two-over-two sashes were made for plate glass, so they are heavy, and the cords carrying them break. Restoration here means new cords, sound weights and repairs to the cills that rot under the bay sashes.
Some of those bays are curved on plan, with the sashes and glass bent to follow them. That makes glass and glazing the second specialism the area needs, since a curved pane has to be handled with great care whenever the sash is re-corded or reglazed. The third is draught-proofing, because the meeting rails of these big sashes are where the cold gets in. The flats above the shops on Stroud Green Road deserve the same attention, as they are often the most neglected windows on the street.
What we do in Finsbury Park
Conservation in Finsbury Park
Parts of the area fall within the Stroud Green conservation areas on the Haringey and Islington sides and Hackney's Brownswood Conservation Area, and parts are covered by Article 4 directions. Our guide to conservation areas and Article 4 directions explains how it works. Check your own address on Islington, Haringey or Hackney Council's conservation area and Article 4 map, and we will go through what your windows need at the survey. Where an application does need drawings, we can prepare them. That is separate work and we quote for it.
Common questions
Can you repair curved sashes in a bay window?01
Yes. Curved sashes are made from shaped timber and carry curved glass, so we take them out with care and repair them rather than replace them. Where a curved pane is broken, new glass is bent to the original radius. Bent glass takes longer than flat glass, and the lead time is set out in the quotation. See glass and glazing.
My street is in Brownswood. Does the Article 4 direction stop me repairing my windows?02
No. Repair, re-cording and draught-proofing are not alterations, so the direction does not affect them. It matters if you want to change the windows themselves, and we tell you at the survey whether an application would be needed. If you are thinking of double glazed replacements, we explain what an application would involve.
Do you cover all of Finsbury Park?03
Yes: Stroud Green, Brownswood, Manor House, Highbury Vale, the Blackstock Road and Seven Sisters Road side, and north toward Crouch Hill and Harringay. Islington, Highgate and Hackney have their own pages. Start with a free digital survey: send photographs and we reply with what the windows need.
Book a survey
Send us photographs of your windows and we'll tell you what needs doing and what doesn't, with a written quotation. The digital survey is free.
Free digital survey with written quotation