Our long awaited clock arrived just in time for the Palmers Green Shopping Festival and Carnival last week. The new timepiece on the Triangle is the result of collaboration between the Green Lanes Business Association, Mark Leaver of the Enfield Business and Retailers’ Association, and graphic designer Kareen Cox, and is intended to evoke some of the motifs found in frontages on Green Lanes – many of which are now over 100 years old.
The body of the tower was manufactured by Dave Plummer, of Triangle Metal Works while the clock itself was made in Peterborough. For some fantastic pictures by Colin Younger of the clock being installed, visit the Palmers Green Community site.
Enfield is one of three outer London Boroughs to be awarded money as part of the ‘mini Holland’ cycling initiative, it was announced at a special press conference this morning.
Enfield described its mini-Holland bid submitted in December “as the centrepiece of the ‘Going Full Cycle’ vision for Enfield and a new integrated strategy for cycling, developed on Dutch principles and focusing on cycle safety, health, access to schools, social inclusion and access to employment.” Though much of the focus is on Enfield Town and Edmonton, Enfield’s proposals include a safe and continuous cycle lane to be provided along the A105 (Green Lanes) from Enfield Town to Palmers Green, linking into Haringey’s Quietway network – a change that means remodeling of main junctions.
Meanwhile, Palmers Green residents are also due to be consulted later this month on plans for the centre of Palmers Green between Bourne Hill and Broomfield Lane. A mobile consultation space will be stationed on Alderman’s Hill between 21 and 24 March, in which you will be invited to place cards on a 3D model of Palmers Green town centre constructed by pupils of St Anne’s High School. A flyer is being delivered to inform residents and invite them to take part.
One answer is contained in a new sound map produced by a fascinating London website, London Sound Survey. The map pays tribute to Beck’s iconic map of the underground, but instead of tube lines, the focus is on waterways, or more accurately, the sounds around London’s Waterways, including the New River at Palmers Green, and at other sites as the 400 year old man-made water course makes its way into the city.
In the Palmers Green recording, taken at the New River by Oakthorpe Road in September 2011, you can hear traffic, children playing outside the mosque, birdsong, airplane drone, and in a back garden a mastiff begins barking.
Elsewhere on the site there is a two-minute recording of Green Lanes at Palmers Green – mostly traffic, speech and the obligatory car horn. The sounds are somehow soothing, and make you wonder what Palmers Green might sound like in 50 years time and how strange the sounds might be to our descendents.
The map is part of a much wider website dealing with sound in the capital – now and in the past. There are some wonderful things contained therein and I really can’t recommend it highly enough.
Have you got an hour to spare on Saturday or Sunday?
This weekend people all over the uk will be taking part in the annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. The programme has been running on the same weekend in January for the last 35 years, and the data has grown into a fascinating record of bird populations in the UK.
To get involved all you need to do is make a note of the largest number of each species you see at one time in the period of one hour, and report your findings to RSPB. Not birds on the wing, we hasten to add– that way madness lies – but just those you spot in your garden.
Secretly we suspect that birds rather look forward to the Birdwatch weekend each January. Maybe a little more bird food gets put out, though its something RSPB advises we should be doing all through the year.
Up in the Northern reaches of Palmers Green, our birds like the usual bread, cake, suet, dried fruit, the odd leftover potato and rice. They turn up their beaks at niger seeds, which we optimistically put out in the home of luring in some finches. And they will only eat apples on sufferance. Maybe they go off them after the autumn glut.
The real mystery is what birds will turn up during the course of a year. In our first year in PG, we didn’t see a single sparrow or starling, only a standard lineup of robins, blackbirds, crows, jays, pigeons and various types of tit. But since then we have seen greater spotted woodpeckers, green woodpeckers, and, once, a redwing. We still haven’t seen any parakeets, though once they arrive we will probably loathe them.
What is the most obscure bird sighting you have had in Palmers Green? And did you take a photo?
Clock tower design – the pic illustrates the height relative to Costas Georgiou
Local residents are being asked to give their opinion on designs for the new clock tower at the Triangle in two consultations this month, one being run by the Green Lanes Business Association (GLBA), the other by the Palmers Green Community website.
The plans to erect the clock tower follow on from an application to the Enfield Residents Priority Fund by the GLBA. The longer term future of the Triangle area remains uncertain – a more fundamental make over could still be a long way away.
The design itself has been developed by GLBA Chairman Costas Georgiou, Mark Leaver of Enfield Business and Retailers Association working with Kareen Cox, a local graphic designer. Triangular in shape, it draws on the architectural motifs of neighbouring buildings. Once finalised the plan is for the new monument to be made by Palmer’s Green’s Triangle Metal Works.
Meanwhile Palmers Green Community’s survey takes a wider view, asking for residents’ views on whether there should be a clock tower at all, whether they like the clock design, what they like and dislike, whether they want the Triangle traffic island to remain, and ideas about how it could be improved. Palmers Green Community website has published some of the first responses, which make interesting reading. There is still time to take part by clicking here.
And so, we have made it to 2014. The New Year lies before us, full of unknown things and hopeful resolutions.
But before we move on proper, one last look at some of the things we covered on this website in 2013, including one or two stories you might have missed…
January
2013 kicked off with Betty Wright nee Walton’s amazing story of how she and her brothers and sisters grew up in Southgate Town Hall in the years leading up to and including the war – her father had been a fire officer and the Councils official mace bearer. Sadly letters to local councillors and Mayor Anwar suggesting that Enfield Council open the Town Hall to local people one last time before the developers moved in, and in particular to enable Betty and her family to see the place where she was born, were simply ignored.
Graham Dalling at work image This is local London
We heard the tale of Dr Alex Comfort, writer of the Joy of Sex and expert on ageing, who also grew up in Palmers Green, and lost fingers in a childhood experiment with fireworks. Sadly, we also learned of the death of much loved local author, historian and Enfield Archivist Graham Dalling, who once worked in the Town Hall.
Myddleton Road apparently became flesh and started tweeting about its unloved state and Enfield Council put on display a rare Constable drawing from its archives.
Space Art Gallery, a pop up venue on Southgate High Street, opened its second exhibition with work by Polish artist Maciej Hoffman. Wood Green’s Banksy was chipped and shipped to a US auction house, then withdrawn from sale at the 11th hour after a vociferous campaign, only to be put up for auction again later in the year. New artwork appeared in its stead, and in proof that you couldn’t make it up, we heard Poundland declare that they were fans of Banksy’s. Who knew? In the local corridors of power (also known as Enfield Council), Bush Hill Tory Councillor Chris Joannides hit the national press after being suspended from the party for making inappropriate remarks on Facebook.
There was news that PG could become better connected (though there could be disruption ahead for our neighbours in the south) – London First published its report on Cross Rail 2, this time linking North to South, and calling at Ally Pally. Still on transport, the third exhibition at Space Art Gallery featured 100 paintings of London Underground stations by Ross Ashmore. Broomfield Community Orchard embarked enthusiastically on the ancient ritual of wassailing.
March
Southgate underground station celebrated its 80th birthday and we looked at the story of its opening. We also learned about a wartime horsemeat scandal at Southgate Town Hall. A new local debating group was formed, and we heard Chas and Dave sing the praises of the long gone Empire in Edmonton. (There is a rumour that Chas and Dave first met in Palmers Green – does anyone know if it’s true?). There were long queues outside Palmers Green’s flagship branch of Laiki bank, as Greece announced a bank levy, but relief as it was later announced that UK customers would mostly be exempt.
April
Poor old soul – Truro house in a state of dilapidation May 2012
Palmers Green residents were distraught to be deprived of their burger fix when local Scottish brasserie MacDonald’s was closed for a number of days.
May
May saw the launch of a new website bringing together local community groups, news and activities for the whole area. Designed and managed by webmaster Basil Clarke, Palmers Green Community is an excellent source of news about local groups and issues, and includes a forum and an excellent ‘what’s on’ section. It’s a brilliant addition to Palmers Green life – please sign up and get involved!
The Thatched Cottage in 1903, image by kind permission of Enfield Local Studies and Archive
The Centenary Festival, a great programme and the kind weather brought thousands to Grovelands Park to celebrate over two days. We uncovered the story of a past Palmers Green tourist attraction – the flower bedecked Thatched House that once stood on the site of Westlakes and was famed for miles around.
June
Cameras were rolling again in June as the BBC made a pilot episode of a new drama called Family. Locations included the Fox and a house in Selbourne Road. Our neighbouring site Bowes and Bounds Connected told an amazing tale of the kinky cobbler of Myddleton Road, one of my favourite posts of the year.
Image: Dan Maier
Open Studios weekend saw the Creative Network team get last minute access to the old Blockbusters building in Southgate and use it to stunning effect. This year, thanks to an Arts Council grant, the weekend also included a number of free workshops, alongside the opportunity to view work by over 30 artists, designers and crafts people. A second craft fair in November was packed out and full of excellent work.
July
In July a few lucky ticket holders got an opportunity to travel the whole of the Piccadilly Line from Cockfosters to Edgware on a 1938 vintage train as part of London Underground’s 150th anniversary celebrations. By then we were in the grip of a summer heat wave, but learned that it was far from as hot as PG has ever got according to voodooskies.com. In August 2003, the temperature reached 100 degrees. The coldest temperature recorded was just 17 degrees on January 12, 1987.
Enfield Council consulted on plans to ‘open up the park’ and build a new school on an unused Thames Water site adjacent to Grovelands park, splitting opinion in the area, given the love of the park and the desperate need for school places in the area. Meanwhile Alexandra Park celebrated its 150th birthday.
Image by kind permission of Leithcote, Creative Commons
We investigated Palmers Green’s strong connections with the suffragettes and the Pankhurst family, including a riot in Palmers Green Triangle. Good thing then that July also saw news that spitting would be banned across Enfield.
August saw our neighbours in Winchmore Hill out on the Green again for the Summer Art Exhibition including work by some of the area’s most interesting artists, photographers, sculptors, ceramicists and jewellers. There was a UFO sighting in Enfield and we explored the story of how one man’s unofficial green belt policy shaped the future of Palmers Green
September
September’s Palmers Green Festival in Broomfield Park was the biggest and best for many years, and the park was positively buzzing. The Palmers Green Tales project – recording memories of local residents – was launched at Ruth Winston House as part of the festival, and Southgate Photographic society produced and excellent video showing how familiar views in PG had changed during the last 100 years. We also revisited the story of the Cuffley airship, and a world war one dog fight which was witnessed by thousands of people in North London’s skies.
October
And so the nights began to draw in. In October, a worrying PG betting shop shortage was averted with the news of the opening of another bookies; people danced in the streets. We investigated some of Enfield ghosts but found that although the borough has more than its fair share, PG itself just isn’t that spooky. Unless you know different.
Joe Studman launched the first local history course for 30 years at the Dugdale Centre, accompanied by six themed walks. The course was so successful that it will run again in April – book your place now, it’s selling fast. Palmers Green Triangle’s underground toilets were sealed off and the clutter in the triangle removed though there is still no news about how long we will have to wait for more substantial improvements to the area and the reinstatement of our lost tree. We told the story of the terrible night in 1941 when the Princes Dance Hall was bombed with great loss of life. Betty Walton’s father was one of the first on the scene.
November
In November, the library was closed for the first part of the changes to the Town Hall area, and hoardings were put up around the Town Hall itself. But on the upside, we had our first real Christmas tree in many a year.
On the subject of Talkies, it would have been difficult to mention all the great events that the Talkies team has run in the last 12 months; the programme has been varied and interesting and is becoming an indispensable part of PG’s social glue. As has Palmers Green Life, the new monthly magazine set up by Anthony Webb estate agents, featuring history, people, local groups and events. PG has needed something like this for years and now we have it.
Finally, a thanks to everyone who has been so kind about this website and the articles we have provided for Palmers Green Life. We had more than 10,000 individual visitors to the site this year, ad 34,000 ‘hits’ which is gobsmacking. I hope that you enjoyed what you read. If, perchance, you would like to contribute an article to the site, please do get in touch.
Our long awaited clock arrived just in time for the Palmers Green Shopping Festival and Carnival last week. The new timepiece on the Triangle is the result of collaboration between the Green Lanes Business Association, Mark Leaver of the Enfield Business and Retailers’ Association, and graphic designer Kareen Cox, and is intended to evoke some of the motifs found in frontages on Green Lanes – many of which are now over 100 years old.
