The Red Hedgehog was originally two derelict shops (255 and 257 Archway Road) which were knocked through and converted into the intimate concert venue as it exists today.

The lease was initially obtained on 257 at the end of 2003, but it took a full year before funds became available to start the building works, with the first phase of the redevelopment of 257 beginning in February 2005. By April 2005 the second site at 255 had become vacant.

With insufficient budget to hire an architect or building firm, the conversion project was devised and managed piecemeal, employing a labour team of mainly Polish and Romanian casual builders, with one notable exception: knocking through the supporting party wall between the two sites. 

First, a qualified structural engineer had to be engaged to research the site and plan the building works in detail.  Then the council had formally to approve the plans, then oversee the building works at various key stages, to make sure it was done by the book, and finally inspect, approve and sign off the completed works.  

The council had a list of firms approved for undertaking such work, all of whom quoted in the region of £7-£9K.  It was never going to be cheap.  Finally costs and timelines were agreed with a firm in Muswell Hill and some two weeks later the works began.

In the interim, I was beseiged by the other builders, each maintaining the structural engineer had come up with a plan that was 'overkill'; he was too 'young and keen' they declared, no box steel was required, it could be more cheaply done by themelves with just an RSJ.   Each firm was on best terms with the head poncho at Haringey, who regularly gave them all the top jobs.  I should ditch the Muswell Hill firm.  They could do the job at half the price.  

The clamour of matey builders’ voices, all insisting they wanted to help reduce the Red Hedgehog building budget, were ignored.  I had in mind the half-funny, half-terrifying Famous Green Lanes Incident, told to me with enormous relish by one builder. A Greek Cypriot man decided to knock out a wall in the basement, without plans or equipment, or, I believe, help - and just picked up a sledge hammer and got going on it.  With predictable results.  He fled the country, leaving all his business interests, his other houses, even his wife and family and hot-footed it out of town.  He remains, I believe, a wanted man to this day.

The knockthrough was completed by November 2005, and the bulk of the general conversion completed by April 2006, with many smaller building projects continuing on an ad hoc basis until the Autumn, when the venue formally opened.

It was absorbing to watch this large wall, supporting as it did two large 2-storey houses, being knocked through in careful stages.  It was done in this way: first, the wall was stripped back to expose the solid brickwork. Then a very few bricks were removed from high up in the wall, to enable steels to be inserted through the gap, to hold up the ceiling joists. The steels were held in place by 4 large trestles. Once this supporting structure was safely in place, the wall was removed from underneath the steels, then a box steel was inserted: 4 steel RSJs were inserted to form a square strucure, one along the top of the opening, one at each side of the opening and one sunk into the floor cavity buried in six feet of concrete. Once the concrete was set, the space above the top RSJ was filled in with new bricks. Finally, the supporting steels poking through wall were removed and the holes filled up with bricks. The final phase was to cover the visible steels with two layers of fireline plasterboard (which have special fireproofing qualities).

Other sizeable structural works were installing the floor in 255, which had to be level with 257. As the road is going decidedly uphill at at this point, the difference from one level to the other was a metre, so joists ahd to be laid, then chipboard, to create the basic sub floor structure.

Three toilets were installed. Originally there was one tiny cubicle in 257, too small to be of any use and with no basin. Two new toilets were installed in 257, backing onto each other to share plumbing, both with wash basins and extractor fans. In the 255 side, a much larger area converted into a disabled toilet, complete with handrails, with some decorative elements still to be completed.

The more ticklish part of the conversion was the problem of insulating what was to be the concert space against the traffic noise from the heavily-used A1 outside, one of the major arterial routes into London. I decided to take things in stages, to first install heavy double-glazed windows set in at considerable distance from the outside glass and the inside windows - then to see how that worked and add other solutions as I went. . My builder built the main structure then, as this was intricate work, I went to a very good specialist joiner I knew (Will Milne, of Caligari Cabinets in Hornsey), who designed and then fitted 7 large and thickly double-glazed windows. It worked impressively well. Then I padded all the gaps with special soundproofing rubber products and found the street noise was blocked out at around 85-95% (except for the inevitable police sirens, but there's nothing much to be done about them.

Somewhat counterintuitively, the venue fascia was painted green. At that time, the Indian restaurant next door was a virulent shade of cerise, the Boogaloo pub opposite a bright shade of orange and what was then the Rainbow children's toyshop next door was pink and purple. A red Red Hedgehog would have been a horrible clash, so green it was, a cheerful contrast. By early 2011 each of the former rivals for red have been redecorated into more decorous shades, When time and budget allows, the Hedgehog will become red at last.