DH Painter & Decorator covers Semilong (NN2), the grid of terraced streets lying 0.8 miles north of Northampton town centre. Dean brings over 30 years in the trade to a neighbourhood shaped by cellared terraces, shared rented houses, parked-up streets and a conservation-area edge along Barrack Road.
Semilong at a glance
Semilong sits just north of Northampton town centre in postcode district NN2. We cover it from our Northampton base, about 0.8 miles away. The neighbourhood is a regular grid of east-west terraced streets running from Semilong Road down towards St Andrews Road and the northern arm of the River Nene, with Barrack Road (the A508) along its eastern edge and Kingsthorpe Hollow where the ground drops away at the northern end. Northampton railway station is a short walk to the south-west.
The road is older than the houses. Semilong Road appears on the 1778 New Allotments Map running between fields, and it was once the main road from Northampton towards Market Harborough and Leicester. The name is traced to “Southmyllewong” in medieval Kingsthorpe deeds, read as a meadow beside the South Mill on St Andrews Road. The streets themselves were built up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the growth was quick: St Paul’s School, opened in 1872 for 30 pupils, could take over 700 by 1906. Both that school and St Paul’s Church have since been demolished.
The terraced streets and what they need
Most homes in Semilong are two- and three-bedroom mid-terraces, some bay-fronted, with rear gardens, on streets such as Stanley Street, Cambridge Street, Gordon Street, Salisbury Street, Norfolk Street and Lower Adelaide Street. Larger three-storey terraces exist too, including on St Pauls Road. Estate agents note cellars under houses on Stanley Street, Cambridge Street, Gordon Street and St Pauls Road.
Those details drive most decorating decisions here:
- Old plaster. Walls a century or more old are patched and uneven, so filling and often lining come before paint or paper.
- Cellar damp. Moisture around cellar heads can push paint off hall and kitchen walls. Lower walls are checked with a meter and finished in breathable paint once dry.
- Bay fronts. Timber and painted bays weather faster than flat brick, so bay woodwork is a regular exterior repaint item.
- Sash windows. Timber sashes still survive in many terraces. Repairing and repainting them, then easing them so they open, is usually better than replacement.
- Old brick. Locally made 19th-century brick is hard to match, so painted brick repairs need blending across a whole elevation rather than patched.
Room-by-room interior painting covers most of this inside, and exterior painting deals with the fronts, bays and backs.
The Barrack Road edge and its rules
Semilong’s eastern edge meets the Barrack Road Conservation Area, designated in 1987 and extended in 1999. It is one of Northampton’s smallest, at about 8.5 hectares and around 150 properties, and it covers the Barrack Road and Kingsthorpe Road frontages and Marriott Street. The main terraced grid lies outside it.
Inside the conservation area, an Article 4 direction in force since October 2000 removes permitted development for houses fronting a highway. That includes painting the exterior of any street-facing part of a house, replacing windows and doors, and altering front gates, walls and fences. If you live on Marriott Street or a Barrack Road frontage, check with West Northamptonshire Council before changing an exterior colour. Some practical points follow from the appraisal:
- Painted stone sills, lintels, architraves and console brackets on the red brick terraces are a defined feature, so repaint them in the existing scheme.
- Squared rubble and ashlar fronts, such as Leicester Parade (1882) and St Paul’s Terrace (1884), are bare stone and should not be coated with masonry paint. Their bargeboards, windows and doors are the painted parts.
- Front boundary walls with iron railings and gates are protected, so railings are rust-treated and repainted rather than removed.
Notable buildings on this edge include the Grade II Roman Catholic Cathedral of St Mary and St Thomas, Nazareth House, Langham House at 5 Leicester Parade and the Neo-Gothic Bishop’s House on Marriott Street. Railing work is covered on our metal gate and railing painting page.
Rented homes and shared houses
Semilong is heavily rented. The Semilong and Trinity Neighbourhood Plan reports a high number of HMOs and private rented homes, says the loss of family houses to HMOs is a particular issue here, and cites a student population of over 4,000 across the plan area. Semilong ward also falls within the Northampton North and Central HMO Article 4 direction made in 2012.
For landlords and agents, that means turnaround decorating between tenancies, done to a schedule, in durable and wipeable finishes and consistent colours that can be touched up later. Shared halls, landings and stairs take the most wear in a house of several tenants and benefit from scuff-resistant paint. Our landlord and letting agent decorating page explains how that work is arranged.
Parking, pavements and getting the work in
Access is a real factor in Semilong. The Neighbourhood Plan describes Semilong Road as car-dominated, used as a rat run, with narrow, uneven footpaths and parking filling the street. Marriott Street has dense on-street parking, and parts of Barrack Road allow parking at certain times that takes up a lane of a busy main road.
Most terraces open straight onto the pavement with no side passage, so ladders, materials and dust sheets for both interior and rear exterior work go through the house. Floor, stair and banister protection is set up before anything else, and we plan deliveries and van stops to keep the footway clear and the time on a busy street short.
River, ground and weather
The land falls west towards the shallow valley of the northern arm of the Nene, beside the Paddy’s Meadow and Millers Meadow green spaces. The Neighbourhood Plan proposes riverside pocket parks there partly for flood management. On the lower streets towards St Andrews Road, damp-prone ground-floor walls need full drying time and breathable paints before redecorating. Elsewhere, Semilong is a dense, built-up area with little greenery along Semilong Road, and houses along Barrack Road face heavy traffic, which tends to dirty front sills and paintwork faster.
Shops and trade premises
Semilong Road is a designated Neighbourhood Centre with a Co-op, pharmacy, laundrette, betting shop and takeaway. There are also smaller shops on Stanley Street and Uppingham Street, an off-licence, fish bar and motor-trade units on St Andrews Road, and shops at Leicester Parade on Barrack Road. Trade units sit around Upper Priory Street and Grafton Trade Park. Small independent premises like these need hard-wearing frontage and interior finishes, covered on our shopfront painting page.
To see what affects the price of a job, read our painter and decorator cost guide, then call Dean on 07539 779 036 for a free quote.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
