Case study

Arts-and-Crafts House, Hampstead

Two deep gables, a full chimney run and two mature firs — the tallest residential scheme we ran in 2025, all off a tracked platform.

HampsteadGables, chimney, two mature firsWarm white icicle and close-wound tree wrap

Large Arts-and-Crafts house in Hampstead with warm white Christmas lights along deep tile-hung gables, a lit chimney and two mature fir trees wrapped in lights

Property: Arts-and-Crafts house
Area: Hampstead, NW3
Height: Gable apex at 9.4m
Access: Tracked platform on grass mats

Schemes like this run £3,200–£4,800 for the season

The brief

An Arts-and-Crafts house on a Hampstead hill, NW3. Two deep tile-hung gables, a tall chimney stack, and two mature firs in the front garden that had never been lit because every previous quote came back with "we can't reach them."

What we installed

Warm white icicle along both gable verges, following the pitch
A vertical run picking out the chimney stack
Two mature firs close-wound to the leader, 9,000 lights between them
Path lighting low along the steps, for safety as much as looks

How do you light a nine-metre gable safely?

With a tracked spider platform, not a ladder. The apex here measured 9.4m and the garden is soft, so the machine went in on ground-protection mats and was set on outriggers on plywood spreader boards. Two IPAF-certified operators, one on the platform, one at ground level as spotter. It adds a day and a machine to the cost, and it is the only honest way to do the job — everything above about six metres on a sloping garden is a platform job or it does not happen.

Why it works

Gables are the strongest shape a house owns. Trace them and the building keeps its silhouette after dark instead of dissolving. The firs then give you the second layer: house in outline, trees in mass. That contrast — line against volume — is what stops a big scheme reading as an expensive blur.

Same treatment, your house