Removals in Hadley Wood

A suburb built around one station

Hadley Wood is the north-western corner of the London Borough of Enfield, about three and a half miles west of Enfield town centre, with Monken Hadley Common and the golf course separating it from the edge of built-up London, and Green Belt fields on its other sides. Until the 1880s it was parkland. Enfield Council’s Hadley Wood conservation area appraisal tells how Charles Jack, the tenant of Beech Hill Park, saw that the Great Northern main line already crossing his land could turn it into an upmarket suburb if trains stopped there. He took a building lease from the Duchy of Lancaster in 1884, put money towards a station, and it opened in 1885 on Camlet Way.

The houses came quickly. Crescent East and the south side of Crescent West were up by 1896, the year Jack died, and the trust that took over the estate completed the north side of Lancaster Avenue by 1914, by which time there were about 100 houses in the whole area. St Paul’s Church followed in 1911. There was never a high street: the only shops are the parade put up beside the cutting around 1960. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, lived at 33 Lancaster Avenue from 1903 to 1912, and an Enfield blue plaque marks the house.

The council designated the core of Jack’s estate a conservation area in 1989. It covers 13.4 hectares, 75 houses and the church, and has no listed buildings, but an Article 4 direction from 2006 means changes to front walls, windows and roofs need planning permission. None of that stops a move, though it is a good reason to treat the brick piers and low front walls with care when a sofa is carried past them.

Crescent West, Crescent East and Lancaster Avenue

The two crescents form a horseshoe leading off Camlet Way. Both fall gently from the ridge that Camlet Way runs along, down to a flatter stretch where they meet, and the houses on their north sides stand on higher ground than the road. For a removal that means front paths that climb, often with steps, and a carry that is uphill when it is loaded. We put a third person on most of these houses so that one of the crew can stay on the path while the others work inside.

The appraisal picks out three phases of building, and each loads differently. Crescent West came first: tall central wings with lower side wings, tile-hung upper floors, paired canted bays and large dormers, so there is usually a proper second-floor room under the roof as well as a loft. Crescent East came next, mostly pairs joined by a recessed link that makes them look detached, with slate roofs and sash windows. Lancaster Avenue was built last and is the most uniform, paired houses with rendered upper storeys. Behind 29 to 33 Lancaster Avenue, Douglas Close is a newer group reached from Duchy Road, not from the avenue, which matters when we tell the driver where to go.

On the north side of Crescent West, Nos. 34 to 40 are a row of white-rendered cottages with buttressed walls, smaller inside than the houses round them. Several plots on both crescents were filled after 1945 with plainer brown-brick houses, and some later ones copy the Victorian style. Whatever the date of the house, the furniture that comes out of it tends to be large: dining tables for ten, glass-fronted cabinets, beds that came in before the stair was boxed in. Our guide on packing antique furniture and paintings for a London move covers the pieces that need crating rather than blankets.

Drives, front gardens and where the lorry stands

Modest drives were part of Crescent East from the start; on Crescent West and Lancaster Avenue they were not, and the appraisal notes that many front gardens there have since been paved over for cars. So one house may give us room to back a lorry off the road while its neighbour, with a lawn and a low wall, means loading from the kerb. We ask for a photo of the front of the house when you book, and we tell you which it will be before the day.

The streetscape itself helps. Enfield’s appraisal describes generous roads and pavements, mature lime trees, no traffic calming, and road markings limited to parking-restriction lines at junctions. The trees are the one thing to watch with a high-sided lorry, so we look up as well as along the road before choosing where to stop.

Waggon Road, Beech Hill and the Greenwood roads

Most homes in Hadley Wood are outside the conservation area. The Victoria County History volume on Enfield records mainly detached houses in Waggon Road by 1929, and others on Cockfosters Road at the edge of the Beech Hill estate, most of which became a golf course in 1920. The Greenwood estate to the west was sold in 1925 and carried about 300 houses by 1939. After the war came Greenbrook Avenue in 1948, Duchy and Kingwell roads in 1954 and 1955, Broadgates Avenue in 1957 and Covert Way in 1958.

These are larger plots with gates, longer drives and, on many of them, extensions, double garages and outbuildings that hold as much as a room of the house. A five-bedroom house here rarely fits one load in a Luton; we normally send a 7.5-tonne lorry with a tail-lift, and for the biggest homes a second vehicle or a two-day pack. Our article on how many days a full house takes to pack gives a realistic timetable. Where there is an electric gate or a security system, we ask you to leave the gate open and the code with the crew lead on the morning, because a lorry waiting on the road for an intercom is how the day loses its first half hour.

Our house removal crews handle the larger homes, our packers can take two days over a big house before the van arrives, and our storage rooms hold furniture while a chain or a renovation catches up. Many Hadley Wood moves are downsizes after decades in one house; our article on fitting a family house into a smaller flat walks through deciding what goes.