Loft conversion in Bush Hill Park

Test the roof space before settling on a layout.

Start with the loft conversion brief

A measured roof survey should establish headroom, structural spans and where a staircase could meet the floor below. Plan the stair, escape route, insulation and building services together before treating the loft as another room.

Compare the proposed roof shape with the address-specific design guidance below. Record chimneys, shared walls and neighbouring rooflines, then ask the appointed designers to identify the structural work and consents the proposal needs.

The local building context

The appraisal divides the conservation area into three character areas: the core, which includes Wellington Road, Queen Anne’s Gardens, Queen Anne’s Place, Dryden Road and Abbey Road; the gated Private Road; and the area around the station. First-phase houses are large and detached, influenced by Arts and Crafts, in brown stock brick with red dressings, with high pitched tiled roofs, tall chimneys and timber sashes. Second-phase houses are generally smaller and mostly semi-detached, with red-brick ground floors, rendered upper floors, casements and bays; the later ones, particularly in Abbey Road, often have mock-Tudor details.

Between 1914 and 1960 the remaining plots were filled with modest semi-detached houses and bungalows. After 1960 most of the larger houses in Village Road, at the south end of Wellington Road and on the north side of Private Road were replaced by blocks of flats, until designation in 1987 halted such redevelopment. The appraisal counts about 273 houses, most still in single occupancy, and 22 blocks of modern flats. Around the station, buildings stand at the back of the pavement without front gardens, with three-storey terraces with attics along Queen Anne’s Place.

Neither the name Bush Hill Park nor an EN1 postcode tells you which council decides an application, whether a home is inside the conservation area, whether it is listed or locally listed, whether the Article 4 direction covers it or which consent route the work takes. EN1 also covers Enfield’s Civic Centre in Silver Street, the Bush Hill Park ward also takes in N21 and N9 addresses, and Planning Data shows the conservation area overlapping three wards: Bush Hill Park, Grange Park and Southbury. Confirm the council with the official lookup, then read the appraisal’s maps, the Article 4 schedule and map, any list entry, the title or lease and the planning history of the property itself.

Local design and consent context

For the addresses in its schedule, the direction withdraws permitted development rights on elevations facing or visible from a highway or open space: alterations including replacement windows and doors, a roof covering in a different material, roof lights, guttering of a new design or material and rendering or cladding; roof additions or alterations; porches; hard surfaces; satellite antennas; gates, fences and walls, including their demolition; and painting exposed brickwork or unpainted render. Demolishing or replacing a chimney is covered on every elevation. Enfield explains that a planning application is then needed before those works.

The appraisal regards the street greenery as the area’s key characteristic and finds the large plots in relation to house size a particularly strong feature. It records new development as mainly side, rear and garage extensions, generally of a reasonably high standard, says the Article 4 Direction appears to have been effective, and makes reinstating lost features, as the opportunity arises over the medium term, the principal conservation objective.

Planning Data records 13 Village Road (list entry 1079515) and 2 Queen Anne’s Place (list entry 1392545) as grade II listed, and the appraisal also lists 8 Private Road at grade II, a stripped classical design of 1883 by A H Mackmurdo. The appraisal describes 13 Village Road as a substantial Arts and Crafts style villa, and 2 Queen Anne’s Place, built about 1905–6 as the Bush Hill Park Estate Company’s offices and a bank from 1911 until about 1990, as having baroque-style decoration and a corner tower with a cupola.

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The Bush Hill Park area guide · Loft conversion across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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