Our neighbours in Bowes and Bounds Green awoke one day last week to find that it wasnt the birds that were tweeting (though we do not doubt the mellifluousness of B&B’s streets), but its roads.
So here I am, on twitter. But why am I here, after all I am just a road? Well I will tell you…
I am more than a road. I am the heart, the lung, the brain and the soul of a community. This may sound pretentious, but hear me out.
If you cut me do I not bleed? No, I am a road. But if I am hurt then a community shares my pain. If I am abused then we abuse ourselves.
And I have had enough. No more. I will share my secrets so that the people who live here, love here and rule here can see what is done to me
And maybe something will be done. Or maybe it won’t but at least people will know. Know what? Of the abuse that brings me down.
Subsequent tweets have formed a diary of hopes, indignities, disappointments and calls to action occasionally broken by a rhyme and proud boast about a swanky passing Ferrari. Near the knuckle, risky and often brilliant, its worth checking out.
Now PGJITN is no fool, and suspects, like our partner website Bowes and Bounds Connected, that it is not in fact the road which is tweeting, but a person.
But who are they? And what would Palmers Green’s roads say if they could only tweet? Are some twittering away already? Tell us!
Christmas may be over, the leftovers becoming a public health risk, and your Christmas tree droopy, but there is a whole New Year ahead….
2013 sees the 400th anniversary of the opening of the New River. Discovering London’s Peter Berthoud will be leading a two-day walk along the full length of the river (which isn’t a river and isn’t new) in September. It’s also the 100th anniversary of the opening of Grovelands Park – celebrations are planned in May – watch this space!
The Palmers Greenery café in Broomfield Park is hopefully due to open soon (check their Facebook page for updates) and we shouldn’t have to wait too long either to find out the result of the Heritage Lottery Fund bid for Broomfield House.
Annabelle Dawson’s Hampstead Ponds – exhibiting in February
The SPACE Art Gallery has its launch night this weekend, and looks set to be amazing. The programme of exhibitions and events already reaches into early 2014, and includes Ross Ashmore (currently on a quest to paint every London Underground Station), Russian painter Alexander Bessanov, Ann Lunden Jakoby, and Conrad Mecheski . In February there is a group exhibition of more local artists including Annabelle Dawson, Samantha Lesley and Helen M Ryan. Meanwhile, the wonderful Southgate and Palmers Green Open Studios and art trail event runs again on the weekend of 8-9 June.
The Talkies Community Cinema is going from strength to strength. The next event, a showing of Strictly Ballroom, is sold out, but there are tickets on sale for the next event, Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi in The Blues Brothers at the Fox on 20 February. Give them some lovin’….
Peter Brown of the Broomfield Museum Trust will be giving a talk on Broomfield Park at Trinity at Bowes on 24 January at 2pm. Peter is a really fascinating man – go along if you can.
If you are feeling energetic, or indeed sluggish, why not join the Grovelands park run every Saturday at 9. Its free, and a mixed ability group – just join them next to the lake opposite Grovelands House. More information (and registration for your bar code so you can track you times) at www.parkrun.org/uk.
Poetry in Palmers Green will meet again on 27 April with a line up that includes Grevel Lindop, Martha Kapos, Nancy Mattson, Graham High and Lynda How. The venue is St John’s Church and tickets are £5(£3.50 concs).Further details from myrarschneider@gmail.com mail@katherine-gallagher.com
Finally, for you theatre goers, Finchley and Friern Barnet Operatic Society will be returning to the Intimate Theatre on 5- 9 March to perform Anything Goes.
Its been a busy October for us Palmers Greeners. A few of the things we learned this month …
Enfield Council, together with the Broomfield House Trust and Friends of Broomfield Park put in a £4 million bid to the Heritage lottery fund to restore Broomfield House. There is a new website to accompany the bid. We should find out whether it has been successful in February 2013 … David Burrowes MP could be getting his edges tweaked in the new constituency boundary changes prop0sed by the Boundary Commission. The changes are currently subject to consultation … Theresa May announced that Palmers Green hacker Gary McKinnon will not stand trial in the US after a long national campaign. David Burrowes threatened to resign as PPS if McKinnon was extradited … Well over one thousand people in people in Enfield had already signed up to the petition about local control of GP services as part of the campaign being run by 38 Degrees – sign and view the latest total visit http://action.38degrees.org.uk/ccg_postcode. A meeting was held at the Harvester in Arnos Grove to discuss how to ensure the Clinical Commissioning Group being established for Enfield takes into account the wishes of local people …
Worried about neighbours building a sky scraper in their back garden and overshadowing your dahlias? Enfield Council said no how, no way, were they going to implement the government’s changes to the planning system, while in another part of the forest, delegates at the recent conference of Civic Voice also called on the government to scrap the proposals … The North West London Waste Authority began a charm offensive, with a stall in Morrisons and local leafleting. There, a massive incinerator on your doorstep at Pinkham Way doesn’t seem nearly as bad now, does it? …..
If you are planning a Sunday trip up town, First Capital Connect provide some advice on how you can get there in only an hour and a half – pretty much no direct trains to Kings Cross until Christmas on a Sunday, unless you get up early. ……. heading the other way up the railway line, a new farmers market opened at Crews Hill. Good reports so far and we wish them wellbut it is a little bit naughty to say on their website that they are the first and only farmers market in the borough of Enfield. It would be lovely if a few more people could visit our long established farmers market in Palmers Green – Sundays, station car park. There have been a few new stalls recently, and with more footfall it could expand further.
This month we also learned that …
Image reproduced by kind permission of James Birtwistle
in the old days, you could crash your plane into a roof in Palmers Green, and calmly smoke a cigarette before even bothering to climb down …. Myddleton Road was once paved with wood …. Southgate Town Hall is featured in the new Morse prequel Endeavour … The Duke of Chandos may once have lived at Broomfield House, and the Lanscroon murals currently reputed to be languishing in the basement of the Town Hall could have been created to impress a monarch. We also heard about the charms of the long gone Broomfield House Museum… but could it live again?
And finally
David Waumsley of the wonderful Palmers Green based Art Cove cards (sold by Anita at PG station cafe) challenged us to a Smiths lyrics stand off a la Chris Packham, and got bored before we did. I am sure that a common experience among PGJITN’s readers. Without the Smiths bit.
Anyway, enough wittering. If there is a topic you would like to write about, why not get in touch, especially if its about history and people? We would love to hear from you. There is a huge knowledge about Palmers Green out there … lets try and put it all together.
May November bring you great good fortune.
Sue, Palmers Green Jewel in the North
Coming soon
Friday 2 November Bob Mills at the Electric Mouse Comedy Club at the Fox. Ricky Grover will also be performing in December.
Sunday 4 November Preparing the Garden of Remembrance in Broomfield Park for Remembrance Sunday. If you have some time to come and help park staff, please come to the Garden between 10 and 12
Friday 9 November Big Green Bookshop Bookswap featuring special guest the Rev Richard Coles Great Northern Hotel Hornsey (new bigger venue for this regular event from the fantastic independent Wood Green bookshop)
Sunday 18 November Herbs and their uses at the conservatory Broomfield Park
The Boundary Commission has published its revised proposals for Enfield Southgate as part of its national review.
In March, the Commission proposed that Haselbury ward should be added to the constituency, while Bowes ward was to be shunted into Hornsey and Wood Green, currently a Liberal Democrat constituency (Lynn Featherstone is the current MP there).
The latest proposals, published on Tuesday, bring Bowes back into Enfield Southgate constituency, which is currently represented by Conservative MP David Burrowes. Bush Hill Park, currently in Labour leaning Edmonton, also moves into Enfield Southgate.
Following disagreements and deals within the (‘still very much a’) coalition, it is unclear whether the changes will happen, as the Tories will need Lib Dem support to get them passed. The Lib Dems are of course still smarting from the Conservatives failure to back their proposals for changes to the Lords.
But it is interesting to speculate what impact the changes could have on the constituency’s representation.
A competition run by the Mayor of London, the Garden Museum and the Landscape Institute has generated some new ideas about a possible future for the New River.
The New River runs from Amwell in Hertfordshire right down into Stoke Newington, with a further now non flowing sections running all the way to its original destination at Saddlers Wells. Though easily one of the oldest remnants of Palmers Green’s past, the New River (neither new, nor a river) is often forgotten as it meanders past hundreds of back garden fences and snakes along its ancient – though oft amended – path.
London Landscape architecture practice Place Design and Planning’s idea was to reveal, re-connect and diversify the historic waterway as a way of drawing communities along the route together, stimulating business in the area and managing water in a sustainable way.
One of the images from Place Design + Planning’s shortlisted entry for the New River Image Place Design + Planning
The competition was inspired by New York’s High Line, the aim to generate new ideas for bringing hidden, forgotten and abandoned places into public use. While the ideas may perhaps never be implemented, the aim is to stimulate new thinking.
The winner from Fletcher Priest | Pop Down was to create an urban mushroom garden lit by sculptural glass-fibre mushrooms in the old ‘Mail Rail’ tunnels beneath Oxford Street.
Other entries closer to home included an idea from Andres Briones for a Lea Valley Rain farm to store run-off and rainwater to serve the local neighbourhood. Our recent summer suggests that that idea could be very successful.
Award winning tour guide Peter Berthoud of Discovering London repeats his Bizarre Bowes Park walk at the weekend
Peter promises that the tour will take in “Ovi the dinosaur, an odd collection of eagles, London’s most interesting underpants, and a ramshackle “pop-up” church that has recently been saved and look at some interesting late Victorian and Edwardian architecture.” It will also include a stop off for a drink in one the area’s most interesting bars, an exploration of Bowes Park’s musical links and a chance to view the most disturbing window display in the entire city.
Peter has introduced an entertaining pricing system for this walk, and that alone is worth clicking through to make a booking.
The walk is on Sunday 30 September from 11-2 and starts at Bowes Green tube station.
