Heritage Statement for the Grade II listed Bridgemaster’s House at Tower Bridge.

Office works in a listed building.

The offices needed refurbishing and rearranging on every floor: partitions taken out and put in, new doors and glazed screens, WCs and tea points, and one new opening through a section of solid wall on the ground floor. Nothing was proposed to the outside of the building.

Works of that kind need listed building consent wherever they would affect the character of a listed building, and a rear extension that is attached to a listed building is part of it in law, however recent. Under s.16(2) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 the council must have special regard to the desirability of preserving the building and any features of special interest it possesses.

To apply that test the council needs to know which fabric dates from 1906 and which is modern. On most of the scheme the answer was plain. On the solid wall it was not.

Reading the building against its own records.

We inspected the building inside and out in July 2026. We traced the site on Ordnance Survey maps from the 1870s to 1970 and on aerial photographs of 1922 and 1934, and went through the planning history, including the drawings approved for the 2013 extension.

Inside, almost everything visible proved to be modern stud partitioning and plasterboard. The survivals from 1906 were few and easy to list: a fireplace surround on the second floor, a run of brick arches at the lower level and a small area of exposed original brickwork. The staircase is modern.

The solid wall was settled from the 2013 drawings. Setting the present ground floor plan against them showed that the section of wall affected lies within the 2013 extension and is not part of the house of 1906.

The Heritage Statement.

Our Heritage Statement of July 2026 described the house and its significance, which lies in its connection with the working of Tower Bridge, its design by Perks and its well-preserved street front. It set out the map, photographic and planning evidence, went through the proposals floor by floor, and identified the ground floor opening as the one element needing closer assessment.

It concluded that the works were confined to modern fabric, that they would cause no harm to the listed building, and that with no external change the setting of Tower Bridge and the other listed buildings nearby would be unaffected.

Consent granted.

Southwark Council granted listed building consent in September 2026. No objections were received. The officer’s report reaches the same finding on the wall, on the same evidence: a review of the layout against the plans approved in 2013 “shows that the wall was built as part of the 2013 rear extension rather than the original 1906 building”.

It concludes that “No harm has been identified to the significance of Bridgemasters House”. The officer visited in September and confirmed that the works were confined to modern fabric. The consent carries only the standard conditions.