Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Harringay house colour
What's with all the burgundy coloured houses is Harringay? There must be a reason...Are they council owned?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rachella on
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Believe in or not, this ugly "brick colour" is one of the council-approved colours to paint council-owned properties and homes made of red brick in conservation areas--if they have already been painted.
An English Heritage bigwig once told me that paint could be removed from brick with a high pressure cleaner. That's the tactic I would take if my house had been painted by a misdirected decorator.
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Permalink Reply by Bethany on
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We have some of the red paint above our windows, I still can't understand why, it looks awful! But it was probably the same person that clad all the doors and staircase in plywood.
But the builder advised us that jet washing could take out all the mortar and damage the bricks. Because it's a small area I think you have to use special products to chemically strip it. If it's a whole house I think something else is used.
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Permalink Reply by Elan on
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You can definitely have the paint removed and the original brick restored. It looks nice and there is a trend to do this kind of restoration work to period houses that have been painted, rendered or clad. You can get it done properly for £5,000 and in my observation it adds to the value and appeal of the property. Well worth doing and eventually the streets become more uniformed and as they would have looked when the terrace was originally built.
Add energy efficient double-glaze timber-framed sash windows, restore the original front door and stained glass panels (choose an individual paint colour that you like), an encaustic tiled pathway, and you'll have the perfect looking Harringay Ladder house.
Curb appeal!
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This would be lovely to see the area back as it was intended but I doubt many people would be able to afford to stretch to £5000 plus the cost of new windows.
Surely painting the houses in some kind of matching scheme like the candy coloured houses in camden or notting hill would look better?
I'm interested in how this look comes about:
Does the street come together and decide which house will be which colour or does it just happen?
If the burgundy harringay house colour is just down to personal choice and people copying their neighbours then maybe another more appealing trend could be started?
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It would be interesting to see color photos of when the houses began to change and when. Does anyone know if there's a local archive?
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The local archive is in Bruce Castle. They have loads of photos, organised by street name.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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'organised by street name' - really? When I've been up there I'm given a few boxes to sort through that they think might include some Harringay ones. Have they reorganised recently?
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Not to my knowledge. That's how they were organised when I was working on an historic photography exhibit a couple of years ago. They're organised alphabetically by street name, which means more than one street may be in a box. Also - the streets are not known with some photos so they may be categorised differently: people, schools, churches WW2 -- you get the picture, no pun intended.
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Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on
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I bought my house from the son of a Greek Cypriot in 1979 and it had already been painted the burgundy colour mentioned above. I don't know whether his parents did it but, if so, it was probably in the mid 1960s. The same owner also painted the front garden wall blue and white, which are also popular Greek colours and may have had some political significance given the cause of the Cypriot exodus. The house has never been owned by the council. Believing that getting the paint off would not be worthwhile, I have had it redone in the same colours periodically (front and sides only).
I noticed several other houses treated in similar ways and often wondered about it. In the case of my house, the bricks under the paint at the front are red while those round the side and back are yellow London stocks. Yellow stocks do not seem to have returned to their original colour since we stopped burning coal and, if the dirt was cleaned off with high pressure water, I am not confident that they would retain their nice light yellow colour for long. I suspect that diesel particulates (or some such) are having the same darkening effect. I use high pressure water to clean the front yard twice a year and the lightening effect is dramatic.
Of course, not all houses in any ladder street are the same and there is a lot of variation in the details from one group to the next including in the use of brick colours. I notice that there is one house on Wightman Road where brick paint has been matched to the underlying colour (red and yellow) and that the pointing has been picked out in black.
My guess is that this is partly about pride in ownership, partly a desire to brighten up brickwork that was dark (especially in comparison with the Mediterranean experience) and partly a way of protecting the surface and extending the life of brick pointing. I tend to agree that cladding a single house can spoil the appearance of a terrace. This may become a more common issue now that we are encouraged to improve the insulation of our solid walled houses. So far, we haven't seen much in the way of successful external insulation techniques but, given the size of the potential market, I guess it must be coming.
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Permalink Reply by Madeline on
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Some time ago, on my way back from Morrisons in Hertslet Rd, I passed a three story house that was painted bright pink, and I mean BRIGHT, almost day-glo pink. It looked good in a weird way but not in keeping with the rest of the road. The following week it had been repainted navy blue.
Time passed and then one day whilst sitting in my local, there on the TV was a music video featuring this same pink house in the background. All was explained, almost.
I later found out that the home owners had allowed the music company (with payment) to paint the house for the video but they'd had to seek council permission which was only given on the proviso that the house would be immediately repainted after filming to a more neutral colour. Now it's a sort of grey colour.
My point being is that the council do have a say as to what colour a house is allowed be painted.It had been just a normal brick house but now that it had been painted once it would have to be repainted on a regular basis to keep it looking smart and tidy.
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