What a kitchen extension costs in East Dulwich: real ranges for SE22 terraces

The question I get asked first on almost every East Dulwich job, before layout, before glazing, before anything, is what it will cost. A homeowner off Lordship Lane has seen a neighbour open up the back of their Victorian terrace, they want the same bright kitchen running into the garden, and they want a number. The honest answer is that a kitchen extension cost in Dulwich depends on the shape you build, the ground you build on, and the spec you choose, but there are real starting points I can give you. Here is what the figures actually look like on an SE22 terrace, and what moves them.

I run All Well Property Services and we work on period homes across Dulwich, so I have priced a lot of these. The ranges below are starting points, not quotes. A quote comes after I have seen the house, because two terraces on the same street can come out thousands apart depending on what is under the floor and what you want above it.

What a kitchen extension costs in Dulwich: the starting points

There are three shapes a kitchen extension takes on an SE22 terrace, and each has its own entry price. (Draft 13 goes through the layouts in detail; this post is about what they cost.)

A side-return extension fills the narrow alley alongside the back room. It is the smallest of the three footprints, so it carries the lowest entry price: from £55,000. On the shorter Lordship Lane plots it is often the layout that makes the most sense, because it adds a proper room without eating the garden.

A single-storey rear extension pushes the back wall out into the garden. It usually adds more floor area in one move than a side return, and it starts from £60,000.

A wraparound does both, filling the side return and extending to the rear in one L-shaped footprint. It gives the largest open-plan kitchen and the most light, it is the biggest build, and it starts from £75,000.

Another way to think about it, once you know roughly how big you want to go, is by floor area. The build runs from £3,000 per square metre on these jobs. That rate is a useful sense-check against the shape figures: a small side return and a generous wraparound are clearly different projects, and the per-square-metre number is why.

All of these are from-prices. London and South East London sit at the upper end of national figures, and Dulwich is no exception, so treat the lower number as the floor for a straightforward build and expect the period-house factors below to push a real project up from there.

What moves the figure up

The starting price assumes a reasonably standard build. Several things common to SE22 terraces move it.

Ground and foundations. These are pre-1919 houses with solid brick walls sitting on shallow Victorian footings. A new extension next to an old shallow footing has to be founded carefully so one does not undermine the other, and if the ground is poor or there are trees nearby, the foundation design gets deeper and more involved. You cannot see this from a brochure price. It is one of the main reasons I will not quote until I have looked at what the existing structure is standing on.

Steelwork. Taking out the original rear wall and the side wall of the closet wing means removing structure that has carried the floors above for over a century, so a steel frame goes in to replace it. A side return is usually a goalpost frame. A wraparound needs more steel and a corner connection where the two arms of the L meet, which is part of why the wraparound starts higher. The sizes come from a structural engineer's calculations, and bigger spans mean heavier, costlier steel.

Glazing. Light is the point of the whole job, and glass is where a budget can climb fast. A roof lantern or run of rooflights, plus big sliding or bi-fold doors across the back, sit at very different price points depending on the system you pick. This is the line item where the spec you choose, rather than the structure of the house, makes the biggest difference to the final bill.

Kitchen and finish. The build figure covers the box: structure, walls, roof, glazing and the basic fit-out. The kitchen units, the worktops, the flooring and the appliances sit on top, and they range enormously. A handleless German kitchen and a solid-wood Shaker run are both kitchens, and they are not the same money.

The costs people forget to budget for

Two things catch homeowners out because they are not part of the headline build price.

The first is statutory fees. If your extension falls under permitted development you may need a Lawful Development Certificate to confirm it, which carries a council fee of £129. On a terrace you are building tight against the neighbours on both sides, so the Party Wall Act usually applies. Where a neighbour does not simply agree, you will need a party wall surveyor, from £1,100. Neither is huge against the build, but both are real, and both are easy to leave out of an early sum.

The second is specific to Dulwich. Parts of SE22 sit on land managed by the Dulwich Estate, a charity that runs a Scheme of Management over the external appearance of properties. If your house is on the Estate, an extension needs separate written approval from the Scheme of Management Office at The Old College, Gallery Road, SE21 7AE, on top of council planning and Building Control. The Estate publishes its current fees and an annual charge, and you build the Estate application into the programme from the start. It is separate from, and in addition to, the council's planning permission, and permitted development rights do not override it. Our sibling post on the Dulwich Estate Scheme of Management covers the consent side in full.

Why I quote after a visit, not before

You will see fixed extension prices advertised, and they are fine as a rough guide. They fall down on a period terrace because the things that move the cost most, the foundations, the steel spans, the Estate question, the glazing you actually want, are the things a generic price cannot know. I would rather give you a number I can stand behind than a low headline figure that climbs once the floor comes up.

All Well Property Services is a building and renovation company based in Anerley, South East London, and it works on period homes across Dulwich, including SE22. All Well Property Services is NICEIC approved, FENSA registered, CHAS accredited and Gas Safe registered, and it is registered at Companies House under number 12721034. The company has run these extensions since 2020, and it runs each project through a single project manager, so one person prices the job, coordinates the engineer, the party wall notices, the council submission and the Estate application, and then runs the build.

Get a real figure for your house

If you are weighing up a kitchen extension on your SE22 terrace and you want a number you can actually plan around, that is what the free site visit is for. I will look at the structure, the side return and the garden, check if your house sits on the Dulwich Estate, and tell you what your plot will take and what it is likely to cost, before you spend anything on plans. Get in touch and we will book a time.