Recording a shopfront before alteration

A shopfront record made before alteration does two jobs. It satisfies the recording condition a council attaches to consent for works to a historic shopfront, and it gives your designer the evidence to argue that the new work respects what was there. Do it before the scaffold goes up, because once a fascia has been prised off, the console brackets behind it are in a skip and the record you needed is gone.

The specification below covers a shopfront rather than a whole building. Whole building recording follows the national levels of recording practice and can run to a substantial document. A shopfront needs the same rigour over a much smaller area, concentrated on the elements that carry the historic interest.

Identifying the surviving historic elements

Walk the frontage with a torch and a list. Most surviving nineteenth and early twentieth century shopfronts have been altered at least once, and the interest usually lies in fragments rather than in the whole composition.

The elements to look for, in the order they tend to survive:

• Pilasters at each end, with capitals and bases, often boxed in behind later cladding
• Console brackets at the top of the pilasters, frequently cut down rather than removed
• The fascia and any cornice above it, with evidence of earlier fascia depths visible as paint lines or fixing holes
• The stallriser below the glazing, in timber panelling, render, faience or glazed brick
• Glazing pattern: mullions, transom lights, margin lights, curved or bullnose glass at a recessed entrance
• The entrance itself, including a recessed lobby, a mosaic or tiled threshold and the door with its original ironmongery
• Blind boxes, blind runners and the mechanism, which survive above later fascias more often than anyone expects
• Ventilation grilles, hoppers and cellar lights in the pavement

Record what is missing as well as what is present, with the evidence for it. A row of plugged fixing holes at a consistent height is evidence of a former fascia line, and that observation is what lets a designer propose the correct fascia depth rather than guessing.

Check inside too. A suspended ceiling in the shop often conceals the back of the transom lights, and the original shop window reveals sometimes survive behind a modern lining.

Measured drawings and their scale

Hand measurement with a tape and a profile gauge remains the standard approach, and laser measurement supplements it rather than replacing it.

Profiles are the part people skip and the part conservation officers check. A cornice profile drawn at full size from a gauge reading is the difference between a replacement that looks right and one that looks like a joinery catalogue. Take profiles at more than one point along a run, because moulding sections vary where earlier repairs have been made.

Dimension the drawings properly, with running dimensions along the frontage, and note where a measurement was taken to a face and where to a centre line. Add a schedule of materials against each element.

Photographic coverage and lighting

Photography is the fastest part of the record and the easiest to do badly.

Work to a register: a numbered list of every shot with the subject, the direction of view, the date and the lens, and a plan marking camera positions with arrows. Include a graduated scale bar in every detail shot and a taller staff in elevation shots.

Shoot the whole frontage square on, which usually means standing across the street and accepting the parked cars, then again from each side to show the frontage in the street group. Then work through the elements: each pilaster, each console, the fascia at both ends and in the centre, the stallriser panels, the threshold, the door and its furniture.

Use raking light for painted or incised lettering, because a shallow ghost of earlier signage is invisible in flat light and legible when lit from the side at dusk. Avoid direct sunlight on the elevation shots, since the contrast loses detail in the shadows under the cornice. Photograph any paint scrape or exposed fragment before it is covered again, and photograph the reverse of any element that is removed during investigation.

Keep the original files at full resolution, with their metadata intact, and supply the record with a copy of the images rather than only prints.

Recording signage, glazing and ironmongery

Signage carries the commercial history and is the element most often lost without record. Note the lettering method, whether hand painted, gilded on glass, applied metal, incised or moulded. Note the typeface as far as it can be described, the colours, and whether the sign is for the current occupier or an earlier one.

Glazing deserves attention because it is fragile and rarely replaced like for like. Record the pane sizes, the thickness where accessible, any drawn or cylinder glass with its characteristic distortion, curved glass at a recessed entrance, and any surviving etched, brilliant cut or flashed decoration. A single surviving pane of early glass is a material consideration in its own right.

For ironmongery, record the handles, finger plates, letter plates, hinges, locks, security shutters and their housings, blind fixings, and the bell push if there is one. Photograph each piece in position, then measure it. Where an item is to be removed and reused, tag it and record the tag number in the schedule.

Paint and finish evidence

A paint record is a simple version of stratigraphic recording and it is worth the hour it takes.

Cut a small stepped scrape, sometimes called a cratering, through the paint layers in an inconspicuous place on each distinct element, and photograph it under raking light at a known magnification with a scale. Count and describe the layers, note the sequence, and record the substrate. Where the sequence looks informative, or where the frontage is highly graded, paint analysis under a microscope by a specialist gives a defensible answer about the earliest scheme.

Record colours using a recognised reference system rather than describing them in words. Note surviving gilding, graining, marbling, and the finish of any faience or glazed tile, since gloss level matters as much as colour when a replacement is specified.

Depositing the record so it is findable

A record that sits on a hard drive in the shopfitter's office is not a record.

Deposit a copy with the county or unitary Historic Environment Record, which is the archive planning officers and future researchers search. Lodge a second copy with the local studies collection or record office. Supply a copy to the local planning authority to be placed on the application file, which is what discharges the recording condition. And keep one yourself, because the next alteration will be easier if you can produce it.

The condition usually specifies the level of recording and the deposit arrangements, so read the wording before commissioning. Where the works also need listed building consent, the recording requirement sits alongside the other application material described in documents for a listed building consent application. A formal Historic Building Recording report follows the national levels of recording practice, and councils expect a suitably qualified author with professional review strongly advised.

Using the record to justify the design

The record is evidence, and the argument built on it belongs in the heritage submission.

Three moves work. Use the surviving profiles and the fascia line evidence to justify dimensions, so the proposed fascia depth is derived rather than asserted. Use the photographic record of lost elements to justify reinstatement, where reinstatement is proposed, and to justify not reinstating where the evidence is too thin to be more than conjecture. And use the paint record to justify the colour scheme, which is otherwise the most subjective part of a shopfront application and the part officers argue about longest.

The conclusions then feed the Heritage Statement, where significance is described and the effect of the proposal assessed against it, following the approach set out for a heritage statement on a listed shopfront.

Illustrative example: a mid Victorian shopfront in a conservation area has boxed pilasters, a 1980s plastic fascia and modern glazing. Investigation finds cut down console brackets behind the fascia, a plugged line 220 millimetres below the current fascia top, and two panels of original stallriser panelling. The record justifies a fascia reduced to the historic depth, repair of the consoles and reinstatement of panelled stallrisers to the surviving profile. Details are illustrative.

PlanScope drafts the Heritage Statement and supporting documents from your site details, flagging missing facts rather than inventing them. Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which documents the works are likely to need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.