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Bush Hill Park EN1 · House refurbishment

House refurbishment in Bush Hill Park

Hipped slate roofs, twin gables and later infill

Enfield’s appraisal of the Bush Hill Park Conservation Area looks at its houses group by group and names the changes it thinks have helped or harmed them. This page covers what it says about the Wellington Road and Queen Anne’s Place houses and the infill of 1914 to 1960, how the council has decided recent window applications here, and what the council approved for one scheme near the Saddlers Mill Stream culvert.

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House refurbishment in Bush Hill Park at a glance

Before refurbishing a Bush Hill Park house, know how closely its outside will be read. The council’s appraisal picks out a group of first-phase houses on Wellington Road for their red brick, simple symmetrical fronts and low-pitched hipped slate roofs with wide bracketed eaves, unlike the rest of the area. It then faults one house in that group: aggressively repointed in bright white cement, with its massive boundary wall rebuilt to the same detail and a modern sliding gate, it gains what the appraisal calls an undue and inappropriate prominence in the street. Plan pointing, the front wall and any gate as design, not upkeep.

Enfield: Bush Hill Park Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF)

For the whole area, including conservation areas, permissions and working hours, read our Bush Hill Park renovation guide.

Approved guide prices

What does a house refurbishment cost in Bush Hill Park?

Cost in Bush Hill Park depends on depth of work. A cosmetic refurbishment that keeps the existing layout runs £650–£1,250/sqm (typically £90,000–£180,000), while a back-to-brick renovation runs £2,250–£3,250/sqm (typically £275,000–£475,000), excluding VAT. A written scope and site assessment are needed before any project price can be fixed.

Scope of workGuide rateTypical total
Cosmetic — existing layout retained£650–£1,250/sqm£90,000–£180,000
Back-to-brick renovation£2,250–£3,250/sqm£275,000–£475,000
Typical programme16–32 weeks on site

Guide rates exclude VAT and are set by depth of work, not by postcode. Compare scopes in our London refurbishment cost-per-square-metre guide or try the cost calculator.

The buildings

House groups on Wellington Road, Queen Anne’s Place and Dryden Road

The appraisal describes the houses here in groups, picking out the roofs, brick or details of each. Knowing which group a house belongs to shows what a refurbishment should keep, repair or match.

On Queen Anne’s Place the appraisal describes a striking first-phase group: virtually identical detached houses whose twin gables set up a strong regular rhythm, unusually closely set on small plots and marked out by baroque-style timber porches. Enfield’s Local Heritage List praises No. 24 Dryden Road, a very large Arts and Crafts house, for bright red brickwork and bold massing with prominent white-painted gables, and singles out its semi-circular side bays. On houses like these, the gables, porches and bays carry the design, so repairs and repainting are planned around them.

Enfield: Bush Hill Park Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Local Heritage List, December 2024 (PDF)

Houses and bungalows of 1914 to 1960 fill the gaps. The appraisal finds most of them typical of their era, relatively simple in design and detail, with large prominent tiled roofs and timber casement windows, and says their size and large gardens mean they mostly fit in well. Enfield’s 2011 Characterisation Study, evidence rather than policy, gives classic suburbs and urban terraces as the primary types found in Bush Hill, and describes Bush Hill Park as a mature suburb stretching from the Great Cambridge Road in the east to the Bush Hill Park Golf Course in the west.

Enfield: Bush Hill Park Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF) · Enfield Characterisation Study, Final Report, February 2011, Parts 5 to 6 (PDF)

The estate’s bricks were made on site, the appraisal records, from a deposit of brick earth found where Bagshot and Amberly Roads now run, south-east of the conservation area. Its list of pressures adds that modern machine-made bricks, often with crudely designed railings, give frontages a hard urban character at odds with the informality of the rest of the streetscape. A repair, a rebuilt front wall or an extension therefore starts with a brick and mortar match, not with whatever the merchant has in stock.

Enfield: Bush Hill Park Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF)

Permissions and local rules

Windows, extensions and drainage: what Enfield has decided here

Replacement windows: two Wellington Road decisions

Will Enfield accept new windows on a house in the conservation area?

Enfield decides each application on its own facts. In June 2026 it granted householder permission for uPVC windows and doors at a house on Wellington Road, because its report treats the house as a negative contributor, citing the appraisal, and similar changes had already been made to neighbouring houses; the report adds that such alterations are not generally supported in heritage terms. In December 2024 it granted uPVC windows on the upper floors of another Wellington Road house, on condition that section and elevation drawings of the new front windows, with their colour, were approved before above-ground works.

Enfield: Find a planning application (the council’s online planning register)

Side extensions, garages and gravel

What does the appraisal say about side extensions?

The appraisal praises a side extension of about 2000 to a Wellington Road house, on its Dryden Road boundary, as particularly well designed and contextual, and says a 2012 garage with a crude parapet in imitation of a pitched roof, sitting in a sea of gravel, does the neighbourhood few favours. Besides its side-gap test, Enfield’s adopted DMD 14 requires a side extension on a corner plot to keep a distance from the back edge of the pavement on the return frontage, judged against factors including the building line and local character. Outbuildings face separate DMD 12 tests.

Enfield: Bush Hill Park Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014

Building near the Saddlers Mill Stream

Does building near the culvert raise drainage questions?

It did on one site. For a care home scheme on the former repair garage site near Abbey Road, outside the conservation area and allowed on appeal, Enfield granted approval in 2008 of details for distancing the development from the Saddlers Mill Stream culvert and for flood storage works, and in 2009 of details including floor levels and surface water drainage. Separately, the council’s 2012 surface water plan recommends temporary floodgates for homes in the local flood risk zones of the area it calls Third Avenue through to Chatsworth Drive, Bush Hill Park. It is a recommendation; check the address.

Enfield: Find a planning application (the council’s online planning register) · Enfield: Bush Hill Park Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Surface Water Management Plan (Drain London, final v3.0, 5 January 2012; a model-based study whose options are recommendations, PDF)

Two flats becoming one house

Can two flats be made into a single house?

Enfield has allowed it at least once. In March 2024 it granted permission, with conditions, to convert two self-contained flats in a building on Queen Anne’s Gardens, which the register places in the conservation area, into a single family house, with changes to the front door. Where such a merger needs permission, the council’s adopted DMD 4 allows the loss of existing homes that can still be used, particularly family homes, only in set cases, the first being no net loss of residential floorspace. Ask Enfield how that applies to your building before design starts.

Enfield: Find a planning application (the council’s online planning register) · Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014

Working hours, skips, parking and the conservation area maps for the whole area are in our Bush Hill Park guide. Local guidance checked ; requirements depend on the address, the building and the complete proposal.

What the work covers

What a Bush Hill Park house refurbishment covers

Brick, pointing and the front boundary

The outside work begins with a record of the brick, the mortar’s colour and joint, the boundary wall and any gate or railing. Repointing follows a trial panel matched to the original mortar, and new brick for repairs or an extension is chosen to match the house. Where the house is on the 2006 Article 4 schedule, the drawings for any change to the front wall or gate go in with the planning application, not after it.

Enfield: Enfield Borough Conservation Areas Article 4(2) Direction 2006 (as confirmed), sealed 27 June 2006

Roofs, eaves, porches and bays

Roof work is surveyed as a whole while the scaffold is up: slates or tiles, ridges, any wide bracketed eaves, gable boarding, chimneys and rainwater goods. Timber porches, bays and oriels are repaired in place wherever they can be, with new timber only where decay demands it. Taking out a chimney breast is designed together with the stack above it, so the roof and the room below are planned as one.

Inside: structure, services and insulation

Inside, a whole-house scheme usually replans the services: rewiring, heating, plumbing, bathrooms and a kitchen, with insulation where the fabric allows it. Opening up a load-bearing wall is engineered before work starts and checked by building control. If the work goes through a Building Notice rather than Full Plans, Enfield’s notes say the notice lapses three years after it is given unless the work has started by then.

Enfield: building notice notes and checklist (PDF)

How we work

How we run a Bush Hill Park house refurbishment

  1. Free feasibility visit

    We walk round the house with you and discuss what is feasible.

  2. Survey

    Rooms, levels and features to keep are measured, with opening-up or asbestos checks where needed.

  3. Design and consents

    Our own architects and structural engineers design the layout and structural openings, plan the service routes with them, and identify which consents and party wall notices apply.

  4. Price and contract

    A fixed written price and a JCT contract follow the survey, scope and specification. It records allowances, exclusions and how changes are priced.

  5. On site

    Work is inspected before it is covered, and a director reviews key decisions.

  6. Handover

    Testing, commissioning and snagging. Completed work carries a 12-month defects-rectification period under the JCT contract terms.

Real projects, clearly located

Examples of our house refurbishment work elsewhere in London

None of these projects is in Bush Hill Park. Each card names where the work was done, so you can judge the finish and the approach before you brief your own.

Your brief

Before you ask for a quotation

  1. Tell us which kind of house it is

    Give the street and say whether the house is an early detached house, one of the twin-gabled Queen Anne’s Place type, a second-phase semi-detached house, or a house or bungalow of 1914 to 1960. Send photographs of the front, the roof, the porch, the boundary wall and gate, and any brickwork that has already been repointed or rebuilt.

  2. Gather the house’s planning history

    Search Enfield’s online planning register for the address and send any decisions, conditions and approved drawings you find, especially for windows, extensions or a garage. Check the 2006 Article 4 schedule for your house number and the Local Heritage List for any entry, and say if the building is, or has been, divided into flats.

  3. Describe the extensions and the garden

    Say whether you are thinking of a side, rear or garage extension or a garden building, and how the front garden is used now. Mention any standing water after heavy rain and whether the house is near Abbey Road or in the streets around Third Avenue and Chatsworth Drive, because drainage can then shape the design.

Ready to take the next step? Send the address and a short outline of the work.

Book a free feasibility visit

Questions before you begin

House refurbishment in Bush Hill Park: questions

Can a rear extension go as deep as my neighbour’s?

Not automatically. Enfield’s adopted DMD 11 measures a rear extension from the original house, however deep the neighbours’ extensions are, although greater depth may be permitted where it secures a common alignment of rear extensions. A single-storey extension must also stay within a 45-degree line from the mid-point of the nearest original ground-floor window next door, or secure that alignment. Second-phase houses here are mostly semi-detached, so the neighbouring window goes on the survey from the start.

Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014 · Enfield: Bush Hill Park Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF)

What does a householder application here need besides drawings?

Enfield, as lead local flood authority, requires a sustainable drainage strategy with every planning application; for a householder application it uses its minor SuDS pro-forma, and in a flood risk area it also requires a flood risk assessment. Its sustainable drainage page points to the council’s geology map and borough watercourse map, worth checking where a garden lies near the line of the Saddlers Mill Stream. DMD 49 requires a Sustainable Design and Construction Statement too, its scale set site by site through the local validation list.

Enfield: sustainable drainage systems (page modified 12 February 2026) · Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014

Could a basement or deep foundations cause groundwater problems?

Enfield’s 2021 flood risk assessment, prepared as evidence for the new Local Plan and not adopted policy, links some recent groundwater flooding to nearby buildings designed with wide, deep strip foundations or basements. As groundwater risk cannot reliably be read from geology, it recommends groundwater flood risk assessments across the borough for any development with usable space below ground, and that basements are not permitted where there is fluvial or surface water flood risk in the 1 in 100-year plus climate change event. Check the address on GOV.UK before any excavation is designed.

Enfield: New Enfield Local Plan 2041, Level 1 Strategic Flood Risk Assessment, December 2021 (evidence for the plan at examination, not adopted policy; PDF) · Check long-term flood risk in England

Which refurbishment items does building control charge for separately?

Enfield’s Building Control Charges 26/27, in effect from 1 April 2026, list removing a load-bearing wall, removing chimney breasts, replacing windows and re-roofing as separate standard domestic items, with a discount for each additional standard charge where the plans show several. The standard scheme covers work up to a published estimated cost, and larger schemes are priced individually on request. Work started without approval can be regularised, but the council says you may need to lay it open and alter it to comply.

Enfield: Building Control Charges 26/27, effective 1 April 2026 (PDF) · Enfield: building control applications

Do I have to tell the council when the work is finished?

Yes, where the work went through building control. Enfield’s Regulation 16(4A) form says that whoever had to give a building notice or full plans application must give the council a completion notice not more than five days after the work is completed. On it the client confirms that, as far as they know, the work complies, and each principal contractor and principal designer confirms they have met their Part 2A duties. Keep the completion certificate with the house’s papers.

Enfield: Regulation 16(4A) completion notice form (PDF)

How much does a house refurbishment cost in Bush Hill Park?

It depends on scope. In Bush Hill Park, a cosmetic refurbishment keeping the existing layout runs £650–£1,250/sqm (typically £90,000–£180,000); a back-to-brick renovation runs £2,250–£3,250/sqm (typically £275,000–£475,000), excluding VAT. A written scope and site assessment come before any fixed price.

Book a free feasibility visit

Talk to us about your Bush Hill Park house

Tell us the address and what you want to change in your Bush Hill Park house. We reply within one working day, Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.

Or call 020 7101 3168. We serve Bush Hill Park from our studio at Unit 3, Palace Court, 250 Finchley Road, London NW3 6DN.

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