Freezywater, Enfield

Also spelt as two words, Freezywater is a lacklustre resid­ential locality stuck out on a limb in the north-​​east corner of Enfield, south of the M25

A charac­teristic pair of houses in Freezywater

A farm was first recorded here in 1768, taking its name from a local pond that was lost when sewage works were built on Ramney Marsh. The exposed situation of the pond meant that it quickly froze over in cold weather, hence its name.

Freezywater was one of the last parts of Enfield to attract the interest of builders or house­buyers. To the west of Hertford Road, the United Counties Land, Building and Investment Society acquired an estate near Freezywater Farm in 1881 and laid out Holly Road, Oakhurst Road, and Holmwood Road. A few houses had appeared by 1897 but other plots remained empty for decades.

The parish church of St George and the neigh­bouring St George’s School were built in the early 1900s. The electric tramway route along Hertford Road reached Freezywater in 1907. Despite these amenities, growth remained slow and the estab­lishment after the First World War of a new nursery (for raising fruit and vegetables, not children) indicated the continuing absence of demand. Freezywater eventually filled out with terraced and semi-​​detached houses in the decades following the Second World War. The vast majority of residents are white although a growing minority come from black Caribbean and black African backgrounds.

Freezywater’s business area, on the eastern side of the locality, was defined as a ‘strategic employment location’ but the council’s proposals to improve its access­ibility via a new (indirect) link to the M25 from Mollison Avenue were rejected at a public inquiry in 2002. Ramney Marsh sewage works have been replaced by Innova Business Park, intended to be primarily a business park for science companies. After a stuttering start, the Innova plan was revised to include proposals for social housing units and the Oasis academy, which opened in September 2007 in temporary accom­modation and moved to a permanent building the following year. The academy’s name is not a glamorised version of ‘Freezywater’ but a reflection of its sponsorship by the Christian organ­isation Oasis.

Postcode area: Enfield EN3
Website: The Oasis Academy