Monthly Borough News September 2026 – our online newsletter
Planning policy in Kingston is becoming something of a moving target.
The Regulation 19 Local Plan, the consultation for which just closed, proposes around 19,000 homes to 2043, based on the current London Plan requirement of 964 homes a year. Yet, while the consultation is still running, the Mayor’s new draft London Plan proposes just 687 homes a year for Kingston, almost 29% fewer.
Kingston cannot simply substitute the new figure: the draft London Plan is not yet adopted, and the Local Plan must work within the current policy framework. But such a large reduction surely cannot be ignored, particularly where the Plan proposes development on Green Belt or Metropolitan Open Land. If the housing requirement is changing so significantly, should some of those allocations be tested again?
And that is before adding the revised NPPF into the mix. National policy, the London Plan, housing targets, site allocations and Kingston’s own Local Plan are all shifting at once. They may eventually form a coherent hierarchy; for those of us being asked to comment now, it feels rather more like trying to hit several moving targets at the same time.(Longer explanation here)
Our next public meeting, on Wednesday 16 September, looks at Kingston’s biodiversity challenge with Dr Georgina Fauconier, the Council’s Biodiversity Officer. She will explore what is being done to restore the Hogsmill, protect wildlife and habitats across the borough, and make room for nature as Kingston continues to grow.
I’d be delighted to see you at the Judge Lecture Theatre, Tiffin School, Kingston upon Thames KT2 6RL. Wednesday 16th September 7.00 for 7.30 pm. Click here to see a map of the area.
Tony Lancaster
Editor and External Communications Manager
1. PLANNING and RELATED ISSUES
These planning matters have caught our eye:
Regulation 19 Local Plan consultation Kingston’s emerging Local Plan has now reached Regulation 19, the final consultation stage before submission for independent examination. This is rather different from the earlier Regulation 18 consultation. We are no longer being asked broadly what we would like the Plan to say. The central questions are whether it has been prepared legally and whether it is sound. The Kingston Society response is here
Soundness has four specific tests. The Plan should be positively prepared, addressing the development needs of the borough. It should be justified, with its choices supported by proportionate evidence and reasonable alternatives properly considered. It should be effective, meaning that its policies and development strategy can actually be delivered. And it should be consistent with national policy. There are separate questions about legal compliance and the Duty to Cooperate with neighbouring authorities and other bodies. These are ultimately the matters an independent Planning Inspector will consider.
Tall buildings remain one of our strongest concerns. We welcome the attempt in Policy KD9 to identify areas where taller development may be appropriate, but we do not think the Plan yet gives sufficient certainty about where tall buildings should go, how tall they may be, or how they should relate to surrounding streets, heritage and townscape. Indicative heights and broad areas are useful, but qualifications allowing other heights to be agreed risk turning a strategic policy into something negotiated development by development. A Local Plan should make the important spatial decisions rather than postponing them until a planning application arrives.
Design and character are closely related to this. There is much in the Plan that the Society supports, including its greater emphasis on design, heritage and place. Our concern is whether some of those ambitions have enough force behind them. Design codes, clear height parameters, protected views and area-wide guidance can establish expectations before land values and development proposals become fixed. Good design should be part of the Plan’s framework, not something hoped for at the end of the process.
Housing and the choice of sites also require scrutiny. We support the need for substantially more housing and recognise the difficulty of accommodating it in a constrained London borough. But that makes the evidence supporting the spatial strategy especially important. We have questioned aspects of the methodology used to select development sites, including proposals affecting Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land, and whether the justification remains sufficiently robust as housing requirements and higher-level planning policy continue to change.
There are also some decidedly less glamorous but important technical questions. We have examined whether the sustainability and impact assessments properly reflect the final Regulation 19 Plan, whether environmental and habitats evidence is adequate, and whether the housing trajectory, infrastructure requirements and delivery assumptions demonstrate that what the Plan promises can realistically happen. These matters may sound procedural, but they go directly to the tests of whether the Plan is justified and effective.
The Society is not arguing that Kingston should somehow be frozen in its present form. The borough needs new homes and will change considerably over the life of this Plan. Our concern is that this change should be planned rather than negotiated piecemeal, with enough certainty about height, density, design, infrastructure and the protection of valued places to give residents and developers alike a clear idea of the Kingston we are trying to create.
The Council will consider the Regulation 19 representations before the Plan proceeds to examination. The Society has indicated that we are prepared to participate in that examination where necessary. The objective, however, is not opposition for its own sake. It is to identify problems now which can be resolved before they become embedded in the development decisions of the next fifteen years.
Lever House 26/01505/FUL Lever House: the Society remains opposed. The formal planning application for Lever House is now in. The latest scheme could be seen as an improvement from February's in one important respect: the second block has been reduced by five storeys. But, the main tower remains 18 storeys high and would contain 255 compact co-living studios and yet the reduction in the second block means the social-rented housing offer, comes down from 48 homes to just 27 homes.
Any new social-rented homes are welcome, and it is positive that some are proposed as family-sized homes. But this is a significant loss of genuinely affordable conventional housing within a scheme dominated by private co-living accommodation. We remain concerned about the tower’s height and its impact on Kingston’s skyline and heritage. This is a prominent gateway to Kingston: “better than before” is not necessarily good enough.Our objection is not simply that the tower is tall. It is the combination of height, extraordinary density and a housing model based predominantly on very small private rooms. Lever House already has consent for 115 conventional homes in a building of up to 16 storeys. The new proposal replaces that with 255 co-living rooms plus 27 flats. Some of the private studios are around 18 square metres. Calling the resulting buildings “slimmer” does not alter the intensity of development being proposed or its effect on the town.
Nor are these concerns ours alone. Kingston’s own design review process questioned the amount of development being squeezed onto the site. The Panel considered the massing excessive, found the skyline and treatment of the upper floors unresolved, questioned whether the architecture had enough specifically Kingston character, and called for the heights and massing to be reconsidered. A landmark building may sometimes be justified here. But a landmark carries an obligation to be exemplary. Height cannot itself be the landmark quality.
The wider townscape consequences matter enormously. Lever House does not stand in isolation. It would join a growing collection of tall buildings around the edge of Kingston’s historic centre. Each may be argued for individually as an exception, a gateway or a landmark. Taken together they begin to redraw the silhouette of the town. We have described this before as the danger of a ring of towers. One tower opens the door. A succession of individually justified towers can fundamentally change the character of Kingston without anyone ever having made the strategic decision that this is what we want.
The claimed public benefits are not borne out by the submitted proposals. The reduction in social-rented housing from 48 to 27 homes materially diminishes the scheme’s affordable-housing offer. Nor does the application genuinely open up the Hogsmill to the public. The principal pedestrian movement is acknowledged to remain on the existing public footpath around, rather than through, the site. The purported north–south route is primarily an access road, while the space between the two buildings is private and does not provide public access to the river. The proposed riverside path also zig-zags in a way that restricts clear sightlines and is unlikely to create an attractive, direct or welcoming public route. These limited benefits do not outweigh the harm arising from the scale and intensity of the 18-storey co-living tower.
There has also been a significant late development concerning the existing outline permission. The Council has now agreed that its detailed Design Code may be submitted at the same time as the first Reserved Matters application, rather than having to be approved beforehand. Both must be submitted by 2 December if that permission is to remain alive. The Council stresses that no Reserved Matters application can actually be approved until the Design Code itself has been approved. But the Society opposed the change because it removes an important sequencing safeguard. The whole point of a Design Code is, surely, to establish the rules against which detailed design is then prepared and judged, rather than allowing the rules and the proposal they are supposed to govern to arrive on the same desk together.
There is an uncomfortable irony here. At precisely the moment national planning policy is placing greater emphasis on design codes and design-led development, Kingston has relaxed the requirement that the code for one of its most consequential town-centre developments should come first. The Council says this should not create a precedent. We very much hope it doesn’t.
Lever House is a brownfield site , but brownfield does not mean anything goes. Before demolishing an existing eight-storey building and replacing it with development of this scale, the applicant should be able to prove the case for demolition, prove the case for this height and density, and demonstrate that what replaces it will enhance Kingston rather than simply impose itself upon it. At present, we do not believe that case has been made.
Guildhall One: well intentioned consultation, bad building. Last month we reported on proposals by Kier Property to redevelop Guildhall One, the office block beside Kingston’s historic Guildhall, with around 100 homes in a building rising to 16 storeys, together with commercial uses and new public space.
Since then, the Society has met with Kier and its design team to discuss the proposals in more detail. It was, in one important respect, an encouraging meeting. Kier made clear that the scheme is still a work in progress, listened seriously to criticism and appeared genuinely open to change. That is not always our experience. Some developer consultations amount to little more than presenting a finished answer and asking whether we like the colour of the wrapping. This did not feel like that.
We also told them, however, that they should have spoken to civic and community groups before the scheme had reached this stage. On a site of such importance, beside the Grade II listed Guildhall, the Coronation Stone, Clattern Bridge, the Hogsmill and the Old Town Conservation Area, the conversation should begin with the place and what it needs, not with a largely formed building.
And unfortunately, however constructive the meeting, our view of the building itself remains very different. We think the proposal is far too tall, too bulky and architecturally far too ordinary for one of Kingston’s most sensitive civic sites. Its repetitive elevations and heavy massing have the character of generic large-scale development rather than a building shaped by this extraordinary location. Kingston does not need an architectural object that merely occupies the site efficiently. It needs something with enough skill, restraint and civic presence to stand beside the Guildhall without overwhelming it.
The problem is therefore larger than whether two floors might be removed or the façade improved. This is a site where height, massing, public realm, heritage and architecture have to be considered together. A redevelopment could repair a rather neglected part of the civic centre, reconnect it with the Hogsmill and Market Place and give the Guildhall a much better setting. Done badly, it could instead diminish the very place it claims to improve.
There is also a wider lesson here. The Council is set to sell one of Kingston’s most important civic sites without first establishing a sufficiently clear public vision or site-specific design framework for what should replace the existing building. That leaves the developer trying to discover the civic brief after purchasing the land. Kier deserves credit for being willing to listen and for its (self-created) aspiration for a ‘Guildhall Estate Masterplan. But openness to consultation cannot by itself rescue an inappropriate starting point.
So, an unusual verdict from the Society: we rather liked the consultation. We still very much dislike the scheme. The next version will tell us whether the first of those has had any meaningful effect on the second. The developer’s consultation is now closed and is expected to be refined before a formal planning application is submitted. Online consultation link here
Bryson House 26/01352/FUL Bryson House: an attractive scheme with some awkward questions
Oakford Homes is proposing to redevelop the former Frederick W Paine funeral directors site at the northern end of Horace Road with 48 flats in a C-shaped building rising from four to six storeys. The site lies between the Hogsmill and Kingston University’s Middle Mill site to the west, and the smaller-scale residential character of Horace Road to the east.
At first sight, this is not an obviously poor scheme. The building steps down towards Horace Road, the river edge is treated as an asset rather than a service boundary, and the proposals include a landscaped courtyard, riverside park, woodland planting and play space. The housing mix is also better than many recent schemes, with 13 three-bedroom homes among the 48 flats.
The architecture has been through substantial design scrutiny, including two Kingston Placemaking Panel reviews. The revised proposals were received more positively, with broad support for the general height, massing and architectural approach. However, several concerns should not be lost in that overall positive assessment.
There are questions about whether the architectural language is sufficiently distinctive for this prominent riverside site, or whether it relies too heavily on a familiar palette of brick, projecting balconies and recessed openings. The relationship between the C-shaped block and the river is also important: the building should contribute positively to the public realm rather than turning private or service-oriented elevations towards the waterside.
The transition from six storeys down towards Horace Road needs careful consideration. Although the stepping is welcome in principle, the upper storey and roofline could still appear dominant from nearby streets and views across the Hogsmill. The access decks and circulation spaces are another concern, particularly where they could create dark or visually inactive areas at ground level.
These are not merely aesthetic points. The applicant’s own daylight work indicates that only about 67 per cent of rooms achieve the full daylight target, with bedrooms performing particularly poorly. The design should not be judged only by its external appearance: the quality of the homes, the courtyard and the daylight reaching internal and external spaces are equally important.
The site is also predominantly within Flood Zone 3a, and the development would be effectively car-free despite relatively modest public transport accessibility. The riverside landscape therefore needs to be more than a visual backdrop. Its planting, maintenance, flood resilience, public accessibility and long-term management should be clearly secured.
Most striking of all is the proposal for no affordable housing whatsoever. The applicant argues through its viability assessment that the scheme cannot support any affordable provision. Given the value created by replacing a low-density commercial site with 48 new homes, that conclusion deserves particularly careful scrutiny.
There is much to admire here, but also much that needs proving. The Society will be looking closely at the architectural treatment, the six-storey element and its transition towards Horace Road, the riverside relationship, daylight, flood risk, parking and transport assumptions, affordable housing, and whether the promised landscape is genuinely secured and delivered.
Lovelace Gardens Lovelace Gardens: how much is too much? Plans are emerging for a substantial piece of infill development in Lovelace Gardens, Surbiton, where a pre-application consultation has proposed 40 flats in two five-storey buildings on land currently occupied by garages.
There is a reasonable planning idea at the heart of this. Large garage courts are not necessarily the best use of scarce urban land, and Lovelace Gardens is already predominantly an area of purpose-built flats rather than low-density family houses. The proposed housing mix also includes around 30 per cent three-bedroom homes, which is welcome.
But the scale of the proposal has provoked a strong local reaction. The newly formed Protect Lovelace campaign says the development would remove 69 garages and around 20 existing parking spaces, while providing no general parking for the 40 new homes. Residents are also concerned about five-storey buildings close to existing flats, with potential effects on privacy, daylight, overlooking and the quieter, landscaped character of the estate.
Those concerns deserve proper examination, although parking numbers alone should not determine whether housing is acceptable. The more fundamental question is one of fit. Five storeys may sound modest beside some of the towers currently being proposed elsewhere in Kingston, but context matters. A building can be only five storeys high and still feel overbearing if it is inserted closely between existing homes and communal gardens.
The consultation has now closed and no formal planning application has yet emerged, so the design may change. When it does arrive, the Society will want to look particularly closely at height and massing, separation from existing homes, daylight and privacy, trees and landscape, parking and servicing, and the level of affordable housing proposed.
This could be a sensible example of making better use of previously developed land. But successful intensification means adding homes without destroying the qualities that made the place worth living in to begin with. Forty homes may prove entirely achievable here. The current proposals still have to demonstrate it.
Thames Side Wharf Plans returns. After years as one of the most conspicuous vacant sites on Kingston’s riverside, Thames Side Wharf is coming forward again. Fenwick, working with development manager Define Land and architects Lyons + Sleeman + Hoare, is proposing around 140 one, two and three-bedroom homes in two buildings, with a riverside restaurant, other active ground-floor uses and new public spaces and pedestrian routes along the Thames.
The Society met the development team in August for an early look at the emerging proposals. Our initial impression was considerably more positive than of the much taller scheme previously promoted for the site. Splitting the development into two buildings and giving much greater attention to the riverside could produce a substantial improvement to this rather neglected stretch of Kingston.
But this is an exceptionally sensitive site. Kingston’s emerging Local Plan identifies it as suitable for redevelopment, but also places it within the setting of important heritage assets and the Thames Policy Area, requires a 16-metre setback from the river, and gives an indicative capacity of 95 additional homes. The site is also affected by significant flood risk.
The most obvious unanswered question is affordable housing. An earlier 2021 proposal advertised 35 per cent affordable housing, while the current consultation material so far makes no commitment at all. With around 140 homes now proposed on a site the Local Plan assesses at 95, that omission will need a convincing explanation.
For now, this looks like a scheme with real potential, particularly in repairing the riverside. But the eventual judgement will depend on height and massing, heritage and townscape impact, the quality of the public realm and, very importantly, what “affordable housing” actually means here.
Residents are invited to attend a public consultation event, or to visit the project website here. Consultation event details:
Tuesday 15 September, 4 – 7pm
Saturday 19 September, 10am – 1pm
Location: Anstee House, Wood St, Kingston Upon Thames, KT1 1TS (the building tucked under the pedestrian bridge connecting Fenwicks and John Lewis, next to the car park pedestrian entrance.)
A new London Plan enters the picture A new London Plan: where might the Society contribute? Last month we reported that the Mayor of London had published a new Draft London Plan, setting the strategic planning framework for the capital and proposing a ten-year target of 6,872 new homes for Kingston between 2027/28 and 2036/37.
Since then, the Society has begun looking more closely at where we might make a useful contribution to the consultation. We are unlikely to attempt a response to the whole Plan. It is vast, highly technical and ranges far beyond the Society’s particular expertise.
Instead, our thinking is turning towards a smaller number of questions that connect directly with what we see happening on the ground in Kingston.
One is height and density. The Plan seeks to make better use of urban land, but we will be looking carefully at how that translates into building heights, particularly in and around town centres. More homes are clearly needed, but greater density is not automatically the same thing as better places.
A second is design quality and design codes. National and London policy increasingly emphasise design-led planning. We want to know whether the new Plan gives boroughs strong enough tools to establish clear expectations about height, massing, character and public realm before individual applications arrive.
There are also important questions about heritage, townscape, Green Belt and Metropolitan Open Land, and about how London-wide housing ambitions relate to Kingston’s own emerging Local Plan and its site allocations. The fact that the strategic framework is changing while Kingston is trying to finalise its own Plan makes this particularly significant.
We have not yet decided whether the Society will submit a formal response, or how extensive it might be. For the moment, we are testing where a civic society can say something useful rather than simply adding another long submission to the pile. The consultation remains open until 15 October 2026.
2. AROUND THE SOCIETY • AROUND THE BOROUGH
MICHAEL DAVISON - 1932–2026
Michael Worth Davison, journalist, editor, author and long-standing member of the Kingston upon Thames Society, died peacefully at his home in St Alban’s Road on 18 August 2026, aged 94.
For many members of the Society, Michael will be remembered above all as a careful observer of Kingston: someone who noticed its buildings, monuments, streets and public spaces, understood the stories behind them, and believed those stories ought to be recorded and made accessible to others.
That instinct fitted naturally with his professional life. Michael was a journalist, editor and author whose work extended well beyond local history. He was involved in the production of substantial illustrated reference books, including Reader’s Digest publications on social history, world history and the natural world. It was a career founded on research, accuracy and the ability to turn a mass of information into something clear and engaging — qualities that he later brought with great effect to his work in Kingston.
His association with the Kingston upon Thames Society was a long and productive one. He served as Chairman from 1994 to 1997 and later became a Vice-President. He also continued to write for Society publications well into later life.
Two books in particular stand as lasting records of his contribution. Public Art in a Market Town: An Exploration of Kingston upon Thames, published in 2000, surveyed the statues, memorials and other works of public art that help give Kingston its particular character. Twenty-five years later, the Society was revisiting and updating that work — a measure both of its usefulness and of Michael’s eye for a subject that might otherwise easily be overlooked.
In 2012 he wrote The First 50 Years: A History of the Kingston upon Thames Society. Produced for the Society’s golden jubilee, it drew on committee records and local archives to tell the story of half a century of campaigning, conservation and civic involvement. It was an especially appropriate task for Michael: preserving the memory of an organisation whose own purpose was, in large part, to preserve the memory and character of a place.
He was also closely involved in the informal “Group of Four”. Formed around 1999, the original group brought together Michael and Tony Leitch from the Kingston Society with John Pink and John McCarthy; Brian Godding later became involved following Tony’s death. Their first major project grew out of a study of coaching in Kingston and led to the installation of an historical information panel in the Ancient Market Place, unveiled in 2003.
That was followed by a remarkable sequence of modest but enduring improvements to the town. The group worked on interpretation relating to the Market House, Old Kingston Bridge and its undercroft, Eagle Brewery Wharf, the statue of Queen Anne, historic passageways and other sites. They also produced material on figures such as James Squire and James Bloodsworth and on less celebrated pieces of Kingston history, including the old telephone exchange. Individually, such projects might seem small. Collectively, they did something important: they encouraged people walking through Kingston to stop, look and understand what had been there before them.
Michael’s historical interests did not stop at the borough boundary. He was an active member of the Friends of Richmond Park, where he contributed writing and photography, led walks and researched aspects of the Park’s history and buildings. His subjects ranged from the Isabella Plantation to the Park’s role during the 1948 Olympic Games. In 2010 he received a Richmond Park volunteer award in recognition of his contribution. His photographs also appeared in Friends publications and on its Christmas cards.
He was active too in local Probus societies and for many years helped with the public opening of Coombe Conduit, one of Kingston’s more unusual historic survivals. His interests were broad, but they shared a common thread: curiosity about place, and a wish to pass on what he had discovered.
There was humour and pleasure in his life as well as scholarship. In 1997, shortly after his 65th birthday, Michael wrote to The Independent after the unlikely feat of winning crossword prizes in both the Saturday and Sunday papers on successive days. He remained an attentive reader and occasional correspondent to the press many years after retiring professionally.
His daughter Isla Hobbs recalls that he died “…in his own home in Kingston upon Thames, with a glass of beer watching the cricket, as he would have wished.” She writes that although she and her brother Niall had moved away from their home town many years earlier, their father never wished to leave. Visits frequently meant outings to favourite Kingston landmarks and discussions about whatever new development had appeared since the last one.
Societies such as ours depend not only upon the people who chair meetings or campaign publicly, but upon those who steadily build up a collective memory: researching, writing, photographing, explaining and recording. Michael did all of those things over many years.
His books, articles, photographs, panels and historical notes remain around us. More importantly, they reflect a way of looking at Kingston that he helped to encourage: with curiosity about what survives, respect for what has gone before and a belief that understanding a place is an essential part of caring for it.
He made a lasting contribution to the Society and to the recorded history of the town he chose to make his home. (Image shows Michael at the What If? Urban Room exhibition last September - courtesy and thanks to Mediha Boran)
Sustainable September returns Kingston Council’s Sustainable September programme is back, with a month of events intended to turn climate concern into practical action. Activities include Repair Cafés, eco-home open days, a family cycle ride and screenings of The People’s Emergency Briefing.
The Council says around 37 per cent of Kingston’s emissions come from petrol and diesel vehicles, while another 35 per cent come from heating and powering homes and buildings. Borough-wide emissions have fallen by 21 per cent since 2018, while the Council’s own emissions are down 44 per cent.
That still leaves plenty to do. Sustainable September is essentially an invitation to look at the practical end of climate action, from repairing rather than replacing, to changing how we travel and improving the energy performance of our homes. The full programme runs throughout September on the Council website.
Kingston Council announces new Director of Planning and Regeneration Kingston Council has appointed Suzanne Parkes as its new Director of Planning and Regeneration. She joins from neighbouring Elmbridge Borough Council, where she was Head of Planning and Environmental Health, and has more than 20 years’ experience in local government.
Her new brief is a substantial one. She will lead Kingston’s planning and regeneration service, including its responsibilities as Local Planning Authority, while overseeing placemaking, infrastructure, regeneration and the use of Community Infrastructure Levy funding. Her previous work has included planning policy, strategic regeneration, developer engagement and major infrastructure delivery.
The timing is significant. Kingston’s Local Plan is approaching submission, the planning service is still responding to last year’s Peer Review, and the borough faces a succession of major development proposals alongside changing London and national planning policy. Councillor Andrew Wooldridge described it as “an important time” for the service.
For the Society, perhaps the most encouraging phrases in the announcement are the commitments to high-quality sustainable development, placemaking and working closely with residents and communities. We will look forward to seeing how those ambitions translate into decisions on the ground.
Seething Wells: running out of options? A new Council report (Surbiton Neighbourhood Committee 8 September 2026) gives a bleak update on Seething Wells Filter Beds, the former Victorian waterworks beside the Thames.
The site remains within the Riverside South Conservation Area and is a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC), but surveys have warned that its ecological value is at risk because of the way it has been managed.
Attempts to secure a nature reserve, public or community control, and stronger heritage protection have all stalled. The owners say they do not intend to sell and will not support a nature reserve unless some form of development helps pay for it. Four applications for statutory listing were also unsuccessful.
Most significantly, the owners have told the Council that they may pursue residential development and an appeal if there is no more positive engagement. The draft Local Plan does not allocate the site for housing.
The Council now proposes reducing formal updates from three times a year to one annual report, arguing that most available actions have been exhausted.
The danger is obvious. If neglect continues long enough, deterioration itself may become part of the argument for development. That is why Seething Wells cannot simply be allowed to drift.
3. UPCOMING EVENTS
Public meeting Wednesday 16 September, 7.30pm, Judge Lecture Theatre, Tiffin School - Making room for nature: Kingston’s biodiversity challenge. How can Kingston protect and restore nature while also accommodating the pressures of a growing borough? That question is becoming increasingly important as new housing, infrastructure and climate change place greater demands on land and water.
Dr Georgina Fauconier, Kingston Council’s Biodiversity Officer, will explore what is already being done to protect and reconnect wildlife across the borough. With a particular focus on the Hogsmill, one of London’s rare chalk streams, she will look at river restoration, wetlands, water quality, habitat improvement and the remarkable return of the water vole. She will also explain how Kingston’s Biodiversity Action Plan is being translated from policy into practical projects across parks, rivers, ponds and open spaces.
It promises to be a fascinating look at the sometimes difficult relationship between nature, place and development, and at how a densely populated London borough can make genuine room for wildlife rather than simply trying to protect what remains.
Members free. Visitors very welcome, £5. Doors open 7pm.
Before Tolworth was Tolworth: mansions, money and a remarkable survivor
Drive through Tolworth today and it is difficult to imagine quite what was here before the bypass, the Tower and the great spread of 20th-century suburbia.
But hidden beneath the familiar streets is another Tolworth altogether — a landscape of grand country houses, wealthy merchants, East India Company fortunes, royal connections, walled gardens and extraordinary characters. And one small, rather curious building has survived to tell the tale.
Kingston Society stalwart and local historian Dr David Kennedy will reveal the largely forgotten story of Tolworth Hall, Worcester Park House and the remarkable Tolworth Apple Store.
You thought you knew Kingston? Julian McCarthy is coming back to make you think again.
In June, Kingston author, historian and tour guide Julian McCarthy took us on the first instalment of Things you (Possibly) don’t know about Kingston.
There were castles which may not be quite as lost as we thought, vanished bridges, unexpected royal connections, a curious question to ask the Mayor, and even a Kingston link with Waterloo. But Julian only got as far as Part 1. So in November he returns with another collection of the stories, oddities, people, places and pieces of local history which have somehow escaped most of us.
Surely we know Kingston by now?
Probably not. That is rather the point of Julian’s talks. We walk past buildings without noticing what is above the shopfront. Street names survive long after the reason for them has disappeared. Familiar landmarks turn out to have unfamiliar stories, and occasionally something we thought we knew about the town turns out not to be quite right at all. Julian has a particular talent for finding those details in old maps, photographs, documents and forgotten accounts and turning them into stories.
Last Updated on September 25, 2026 by Kingston Society