DH Painter & Decorator paints shops, pubs, pharmacies, clinics and other business premises in Kingsley, about 1.5 miles north-east of the town centre. Most commercial property here lines Kettering Road, called Kingsley Park Terrace along one stretch, with further practices on Kingsley Road, and we schedule the work around when each business is open.
Who trades in Kingsley
Kingsley has no business parks. Its commercial life runs along Kettering Road, which estate agents describe as cutting through the middle of the district with shops, restaurants and bars along it. On the stretch named Kingsley Park Terrace, directory listings place West Chemist at No. 4, Allison’s Pharmacy at No. 56, the Lord Byron pub at No. 58, a Tesco Express at No. 102 and Kingsley Park WMC at No. 120. Kingsley Road has dental surgeries and an optician at No. 42, and the listed Racecourse Pavilion has a cafe and restaurant.
That mix shapes what commercial painting means here: small retail units with a lot of public footfall, clinical rooms that need cleanable walls, licensed premises with bars and toilets that take heavy wear, and a few buildings with heritage protection.
Pharmacies, surgeries and the optician
A pharmacy counter or a dental surgery cannot just close for a week. For premises like these we usually split the work into areas, so a consulting room or the dispensary is done while the rest stays in use, and agree the order with the practice manager. On walls that are wiped down daily we use scrubbable, low-odour water-based paints, and on door frames and skirtings a hard-wearing water-based satin that dries quickly with little smell.
The Kingsley Road premises are worth a particular note. The optician at No. 42 falls inside the even numbers 2-84 covered by the 1990 Kingsley Road Area Article 4 Direction, which removes permitted development rights for alterations to front doors, windows, porches and boundaries on those houses. Exterior repainting of a practice there should keep the existing scheme on the front. A change of door or window design, or new signage fixed to the frontage, should be checked with West Northamptonshire Council beforehand.
Pubs, clubs and a main-road frontage
Kettering Road carries a lot of traffic, and frontages along it pick up road grime on render, sills and window frames. Before repainting we wash those surfaces down, as paint over traffic film does not bond well. Pub and club interiors bring their own demands: bar backs and toilets need scrubbable finishes, and customer areas are usually done in phases or while the premises is closed, by agreement. Fascias, stallrisers and shop windows are a specialist area of their own, covered on our shopfront painting page.
Heritage buildings on the commercial streets
A few Kingsley business premises are protected buildings, and that changes how a repaint is approached:
- The White Elephant, built in 1883 as the Kingsley Park Hotel for racehorse owners, trainers and jockeys, stands at the Kettering Road and Kingsley Road corner and is on the West Northamptonshire local heritage list.
- Kingsley Park Methodist Church on Kettering Road, of 1898-99, is Grade II listed, in red brick with limestone dressings. The brick is meant to stay unpainted, and work on dressings and joinery should match what is there.
- The Racecourse Pavilion is Grade II listed, in two-storey stucco with cast-iron railings, external cast-iron stairs and a loggia of cast-iron colonnettes. Stucco needs a breathable coating and the ironwork needs rust treatment, primer and gloss.
For a listed building, the owner should confirm with the council whether listed building consent is needed before any change of colour or material. Like-for-like maintenance in matching paint is the usual starting point.
DH Painter & Decorator is fully insured for work on commercial premises. How we plan and price commercial jobs across the town is set out on our commercial painting page, and the Kingsley area page covers the district as a whole.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
