Jewson's Hornsey Station land being measured for development

Walking up to Crouch End earlier today, I spotted the Jewson's site just south of Hornsey Station being surveyed. One of the surveyors confirmed that the site was being surveyed for development.

The site actually has a relatively stable history. From 1805 when, amongst other fields, Upper Pond Field and Upper Hollam Beech were bought by Edward Gray, it became part of the Harringay House Estate. Shortly after Gray's Death in 1838 the fat end of the triangle, what was part of Upper Hollam Beech ceased to belong to the estate and was used for outbuildings for the Railway Hotel. The thin end, part of Upper Pond Field, remained part of the estate till it was sold for development. In the estate's heyday, the carriage track from the back of the house finished up here by where the Railway Hotel was built. 

After the demise of the estate, the land was taken on by the railway and was used mainly for part of what was called 'Ferme Park Down Sidings'.

In the decades following the end of the war, as the sidings land was sold off, by the late 1980s the site had become the home of Harcros Timber and Building Supplies. When the company was purchased by Jewson in 1997, the site became Jewson's Hornsey.

The last application by Jewson to redevelop the site, in this instance for their own use, was refused by Haringey Council, in part because of the presence of the locally listed former Lotus showroom.

The smart money for the new development might be thought to be on use for housing. However, the site is part of a "Locally Significant Industrial Site" which, according to the most recent local plan I could find for Haringey have "strong protection to ensure that sites are protected for B class uses" (Storage and distribution). Quite how strong this remains under the current situation is not clear to me.