Adelaide Road Headhouse and boundary wall: Design factsheet

Update on the wall design

With works due to restart at our Adelaide Road site this spring, we want to provide some clarification on the latest position on the wall design.

Public engagement and planning approval

In September 2021, we talked to you about the future Adelaide Road Headhouse and the permanent compound wall along Adelaide Road, and invited your comments. In November that year we explained that we planned to maximise planting trees at the site and use red brick – rather than grey – for the boundary wall.

We submitted a planning application for the headhouse design to the London Borough of Camden in April 2022, and it was approved in June 2023.

The HS2 permanent compound wall and Network Rail embankment wall on Adelaide Road

The HS2 permanent compound wall for the Adelaide Road Headhouse and Ventilation Shaft is shown in red in Figure 1.

The blue line in Figure 1 shows the location of the remainder of the former wall which will also need to be replaced. We will need to agree the future design of this section with Network Rail because it will be handed back to them when we finish construction. We will engage with the local community as the design progresses.

The HS2 permanent compound wall design

The permanent compound wall will be red brick. Railings are included in the design to increase visibility of the trees that will be planted.

The height of the wall will vary due to the gradient of the road, like the original wall did, but it will be no less than 2.8 metres high at any point due to security requirements.

The columns of the wall will be between 3.2 and 3.3 metres high. They will be spaced 3.8 metres apart with the brick and railings sections in between.

Between the columns, the brick face will be a minimum of 1.4 metres up to 2.6 metres in height. The railings, on top of the brick face, will be a maximum of 1.4 metres in height but less than this in some places. Overall, the combined brick face and railings sections will be a minimum of 2.8 metres in height.

Figure 2 shows the permanent wall design with dimensions.

Comparison with the original wall

The original wall was red brick with columns. The height of the original wall varied due to the gradient of the road, but its columns had an average height of 1.9 metres, and the main sections of wall between the columns had an average height of 1.7 metres.

Please contact us

If you have further questions about the design for the Adelaide Road Ventilation Shaft and Headhouse site, you can visit us at our information event on Wednesday 5 February 2025, or please contact us via the HS2 Helpdesk:

• Freephone: 08081 434 434
• Minicom: 08081 456 472
• Email: [email protected]
• Webform: complete our online form