Local knowledge with a purpose
Understand the building before changing it
Enfield’s appraisal calls Southgate Green the historic core of the suburb known as Southgate, and records that the opening of Southgate’s own station in 1933 stimulated further house building. Knowing whether you own a Georgian or 19th century building, a house of the 1930s or a flat, and how later owners altered it, shows what a survey must record and which consents to check.
Enfield’s appraisal places the Southgate Green Conservation Area in the south-western corner of the borough, as the historic core of the suburb called Southgate. It covers 31.7 hectares and about 160 buildings, centred on The Green and the three roads radiating from it, the High Street, Cannon Hill and Waterfall Road, with Balaams Lane and Cannon Road also included. A restored group of Georgian houses at 23–32 and 38–41 The Green, generally flat-fronted and of yellow stock brick, mixes tripartite and twelve-pane sash windows with a variety of doorcase designs.
Enfield: Southgate Green Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF)
The appraisal shows the character changing from street to street. The High Street has tightly packed two- or three-storey terraces set close to the road, interspersed with groups of modern flats, while Cannon Hill has widely spaced, large detached properties in substantial gardens along a wide, tree-lined road. On the south side of The Green, individually designed houses of about 1930, with mock Tudor dominating, share casement picture windows and large, steeply pitched tiled roofs, with widespread use of brown brick. Flats also sit above the Edwardian and interwar shops at 22–56 Cannon Hill.
Enfield: Southgate Green Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF)
South-east of Southgate Circus, the Meadway Conservation Area follows Meadway, Greenway and Bourne Avenue between the High Street and Bourne Hill, with Grovelands Park as its immediate neighbour. Its management proposals describe brick-and-burr front garden boundaries and unpainted timber gates, and its appraisal finds houses that keep both their original form and a substantial proportion of their original features rare. Nos. 1–17 (odd) Abbotshall Avenue, a separate conservation area, are nine 1930s moderne houses, which Enfield’s Local Heritage List describes with flat roofs, curved projecting front bays, porch canopies and horizontal metal-framed Crittall windows.
Enfield: Meadway Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Meadway Conservation Area Management Proposals, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Abbotshall Avenue Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Local Heritage List, December 2024 (PDF)
The first local check
Check the property, not the place name or postcode
Neither the name Southgate nor an N14 postcode tells you which council decides, whether a home is in a conservation area, whether it is listed or locally listed, whether an Article 4 direction covers it or which consent route the work takes. Enfield’s Southgate ward is served by N13, N14 and N21, the Southgate Green Conservation Area takes in addresses in more than one ward, and some addresses using the Southgate N14 name are in Barnet, which made tree preservation orders at Osidge, 151 Chase Side, and at Ashmole School, Burleigh Gardens. Confirm the council with the official lookup, then check the conservation area boundary, the Article 4 schedules, any list entry, the title or lease and the planning history of the property itself.
