Category: Spooky stories

New asset application highlights what The Fox means to Palmers Green

Post author By Suzanne Beard
Post date April 9, 2015
1 Comment on New asset application highlights what The Fox means to Palmers Green

The Fox - at the heart of PG — The Fox – at the heart of PG

These are tough times for pubs. This week we learned that the Carlton Tavern in Kilburn was knocked down without warning and without planning permission – and apparently also without warning the incumbent landlady, who was told that it would be closed that day for an ‘inventory’.

Meanwhile, up in Winchmore Hill, the Green Dragon was boarded up early this year, only to be reopened in March as a ‘bargain shop’. Its long-term future as a pub, and as a landmark building, seems uncertain.

Not everyone is a pub goer, so why do we care so much? Perhaps it’s because whatever our personal habits, pubs are an important part of our streetscape, an old friend, something intrinsic to area’s bone structure and community. They are often the oldest buildings for miles, the ones with deep, tangible history. We’d like to be able to go in them even if we don’t (which of course is part of the problem).

Here in Palmers Green there were rumours last year that The Fox was about to close, thankfully firmly quashed by landlord Joe Murray. But what if the Fox were to be threatened in the future?

Following concerns, a group of local residents and community groups (including local councillors, this website, Palmers Green Community, Jaywalks, the Southgate District Civic Trust, and the Catanians) has been working on an application for the pub to be recognised as an Asset of Community Value under the Localism Act. The application was formally submitted to Enfield Council by Southgate District Civic Trust this week.

If successful, the application frankly gives scant protection for the Fox, but it does mean that if the building were ever to be sold, SCDT would need to be informed, and the community would be given time to come up with a counter bid for the premises.

Anyone fancy an historic pub with extensive grounds? Perhaps not, but it means that if The Fox were ever threatened, developers should be under no illusion that they would have an easy ride from the community.

The main text of the application is below.

If you think there are other important buildings which should be protected as an Asset of Community Value in Palmers Green, please contact Southgate District Civic Trust. For more about Assets in Enfield and the application process visit http://www.enfield.gov.uk/info/1000000236/property/2756/assets_of_community_value

The Fox stands in a prominent position on the corner of Green Lanes and its namesake, Fox Lane. Tall and imposing, for those coming to Palmers Green from the north, it acts as a gateway into Palmers Green’s main shopping area.

The Fox has a number of accolades. It is the oldest remaining pub in Palmers Green to have continuously stood on the same site – there has been a Fox on the site for over 300 years. It is also the only purpose-built public house still remaining open on the main route between Wood Green and some way north of Winchmore Hill, the others being shop conversions with little architectural or historical merit.

The current building, of 1904, was built as part and parcel of the Edwardian development of Palmers Green. The size and grandeur of the building is a reminder that Palmers Green was once a place of enough significance to require a hotel and associated dining for travellers. Before the coming of the car, the Fox was the terminus of the horse-drawn bus service into London, run by the Davey family of publicans who had stables at the back. Once the trams came, it was a major landmark on the journey from London. All taxi drivers still know the Fox.

The Fox, then, holds a position of huge cultural significance in an area which tends to think of itself as having a short past. It is a well-loved landmark and social hub. If Palmers Green were ever to lose its landmark pub, and this landmark building, it would lose part of itself.

As a former bus and train terminus, and a hotel, the Fox has always been at the centre of Palmers Green’s social and community life. June Brown, Dot Cotton from Eastenders, ran her theatre company from it, bands, including big names like Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band, have played in it, famous comedians perform in it to this day, and the famous have drunk in it – locals like Rob Stewart and Ted Ray and visitors including the famous names who trod the boards at the Intimate Theatre.

Today, as the only remaining live performance venue in Palmers Green, the Fox host a monthly comedy night attracting top Perrier nominated comedians. It hosts a community cinema, Talkies, desperately needed now that there are no cinemas for several miles. It hosts exercise and dance classes, and until recently bands and Irish music. As the only town centre room-for-hire, it has hosted wedding receptions, christenings, parties and bar mitzvahs, giving it a special place in many local people’s personal histories.

The loss of the Fox, in its current form as a public house, would leave the community impoverished; the loss of the building itself would take something beloved and iconic for local people.

For this reason, we wish to make an application for the Fox to be recognised as an Asset of Community Value, so that, should it ever be threatened, it will be clear that this is a both building and social hub valued in the local area, and that local people might have some kind of option to intervene.

Art and Culture Community Enfield History Palmers Green Spooky stories Uncategorized

A (not so) ghostly reminiscence of Broomfield House

Post author By Suzanne Beard
Post date January 22, 2015
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Guest writer Jason Hollis tells how a childhood visit to Palmers Green inspired a life long interest in ghostly goings on – and a book about the spooky side of Enfield

In 1981 I went on a school trip to Broomfield House. This was a few years before the first of the fires that sadly reduced the once fine building to the shell it is today and had I known its fate that day I might have paid more attention, for I don’t remember much about the visit.

One recollection I do have however was that our guide led my class down into the cellars, which were accessed via an exterior door at the front of the house. Once we had all filed down the narrow steps and into the corridor at the bottom, our guide proceeded to tell us a story.

Many years ago, we were told, sheep grazed in the fields around the house and on one occasion a stray lamb found its way into the cellars and was accidentally locked in. Its lifeless body was discovered some days later and it is said that sometimes you can still hear its sad bleating, calling for its mother.

That was the end of the tour and we all turned around to file back along the corridor towards the bright sunlight awaiting us at the top of the stairs. As we did so the desperate call of a lost, lonely sheep began to call out from somewhere behind us, causing a stampede of suddenly worried children running up the stairs. I was close enough to our guide to realise that he had one of those toys that make an animal noise when turned upside down. It was a marvellous moment although I was somewhat disappointed that the ghost story was not genuine, for that’s what made me tick… and it still does.

I live in Hertfordshire but was born and lived in Enfield for over thirty years. The Borough is full of locations said to be haunted but few have ever been featured in books and it always annoyed me that I couldn’t read about those places in any of the books I had collected about ghosts. I eventually decided that the only way I would get to read about Enfield’s ghosts would be to write the book myself and I started my research in 2000, never thinking that it would take thirteen years to complete it. That’s not to say I spent thirteen years writing my book. I gave up a number of times and life had a habit of taking precedence. In that time I courted and married my lovely wife, faced the uncertainty of redundancy and re-employment and became a father to two beautiful children.

Haunted Enfield was published in October 2013 and I have been very pleased by its positive reception over the past year. I believe it will appeal to people with an interest in Enfield’s history, even if they have no interest in ghosts, as I have included a lot of little known historical information throughout. Featured locations include Trent Park, Forty Hall, Myddelton House, Capel Manor and Salisbury House. There are a collection of pubs, a couple of grisly murders, an examination of ghost stories from around Edmonton and tales of witchcraft and devil worship in Winchmore Hill. Sadly, I could not find any real ghost stories connected to Broomfield House, except for a vague report of strange lights in the park and stories from the rest of Palmers Green were also thin on the ground. The only story I did include was of the Intimate Theatre, where a dressing room is said to be haunted by an actor who suffered a fatal heart attack in the 1930’s.

Stories that didn’t make it into the book include the man who was tapped on the shoulder in the theatre behind The Fox pub when there was nobody sitting close enough to do so in the row behind him. Another story tells of the apparitions of a woman and boy seen in a house somewhere in Palmers Green. According to an Enfield Gazette article from 1998, the tenants of the house went to the council’s Local History Officer who confirmed to them that a widow and her teenage son had been killed in an air raid during the Second World War. If I ever have enough material for a second volume I may well include these stories and would therefore welcome any further information about them or any other hauntings.

Haunted Enfield is published by The History Press and may be ordered from them direct or via all the usual book stores and on-line sites.

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How the ghost of Geoffrey de Mandeville was de-moated (a sort-of Christmas story)

Post author By Suzanne Beard
Post date December 24, 2014
2 Comments on How the ghost of Geoffrey de Mandeville was de-moated (a sort-of Christmas story)

If you are thinking of a winter’s Sunday walk, you could do worse than spend a few moments on the tube to Cockfosters, and take a wander around the beautiful undulating and Repton designed grounds of Trent Park, once part of the Royal Hunting Forests of Enfield Chase. Head past the café on the path that goes north of the lake and you will eventually come to the mysterious green waters of Camlet Moat, a scheduled ancient monument.

It may be centuries old but the C shaped enclosure, full of ancient trees, has a kind of unknowable life of its own, with letters carved into trees, charms and tokens wedged and tied into the branches, and tinsel and streamers laid over the limbs of the ancient trees. Druids say that it’s a spiritual place, where one can experience the earth’s energy. It’s certainly eerie as the low winter sun slowly sinks and the shadows grow longer, a place where anything might happen.

But our story begins, not in Enfield, but in Egypt in 1923 when manicured socialite Sir Philip Sassoon was invited by Lord Carnarvon and Harold Carter to witness the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun. Returning home, unaffected by the famous curse of King Tut but excited by the prospect of hidden treasure, Sassoon’s thoughts turned to the ancient monument on his own property, Trent Park, where he regularly entertained the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Rex Whistler, and George Bernard Shaw in tasteful opulence. Before many months had passed, Sassoon’s team had started to dig.

Camlet had for some centuries been reputed to have been the home of Sir Geoffrey Mandeville, the first Earl of Essex and Constable of the Tower of London, though some say it was first the home of King Arthur. In ancient times it was right at the centre of the Royal Forest: the moat made it capable of defence, and so Camlet was ideally placed to manage and police the forest. The earliest records show that permission was granted to crenelate an existing house on the site in 1347, but that the house was demolished 100 years later so that the materials could be sold to pay for renovations to Hertford Castle.

And so, Sassoon drained the moat while the locals watched and waited.

Within a little while, the remains of a huge drawbridge were found, and a long wall, in some places 5 feet thick, plus Roman sandals, ancient daggers and horseshoes. Remarkable though these finds were, press reports soon began to focus not so much on the finds, but of the risk of disturbing the ghost of Sir Geoffrey Mandeville, who, as legend had variously described it, had buried treasure under the paved bottom of a well on the site to keep it from his many enemies or alternatively had fallen in with his treasure and drowned, his spirit lingering to ensure its eternal protection. The remains of an ancient well were indeed found, in the north east corner of the area enclosed by the moat.

Well might the naysayers have worried.

There were no sightings during this excavations, but this may have been because Geoffrey had apparently forgotten about his treasure – perhaps his hard currency was no good in the spirit world – and flounced off. According to a local writer calling himself the Philanderer, he had moved to East Barnet, first to a stable, which was unfortunately then pulled down by the council, and then to the house of Nora O Callahan and her sister, where he set to terrorising them by knocking on the door, thumping around, rattling their letterbox and generally terrifying their normally fearless dog. Next, he was seen by persons unrecorded, in full regalia of red cloak and spurs.

The national press descended, and by all accounts, Barnet became a place of ghost hunting bedlam and police had to be brought in to regulate the traffic. One William Stutters complained of the racket that Sir Geoffrey was making and warned that local building work was waking the dead. Paranormal activity was now also bedeviling the building which is today the Prince of Wales pub. Curiously though, by 1930 the Philanderer was saying that Sir Geoffrey was back stalking around Cockfosters at Christmas time though in December 1932 he was seen in full armour in East Barnet by the members of the local psychic research society, which was lucky, because they just happened to be staking the place out at midnight. By this time, it was being said that Sir Geoffrey made an appearance on Christmas Eve every six years.

Sightings of Sir Geoffrey have continued intermittently, though they haven’t occurred at 6 year intervals as specified or even in the same place – he has been spotted in Hadley Woods and at East Barnet church. If the legend is correct, he is next due to appear at Christmas in 2016. Who knows where he will have moved to by then?

If your interest is piqued by the story of Sir Geoffrey, do read Jennie Lee Cobban’s brilliant, hilarious and entertaining Geoffrey de Mandeville and London’s Camelot. Currently out of print but available in libraries.*

This article originally appeared in the December 14 issue of Palmers Green and Southgate Life

*Addendum – new edition available at Barnet museum.

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Gabriel Haynes and the ghost of Deadman’s Bridge

Post author By Suzanne Beard
Post date October 30, 2014
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We have a four hundred year old man made waterway, a five hundred year old house that keeps burning down under strange circumstances, a spooky overgrown house by the main road and a railway that until the 50s knew the atmosphere and smuts of steam…And yet, after more than 100 years of modern-day Palmers Green, dripping with requisite potentially spooky Edwardiana, ghost stories about the area are very rare.

But there are a few.

It was during another production in November 1996, according to Gary Boudier in his 2002 book, A-Z of Enfield Pubs (part 2), that a Mr Sullivan from Archway felt himself being tapped on the shoulder but turned to find no one there. Bar staff and customers also reported unexplained noises, only some of which were attributable to the effects of alcohol.

The Intimate Theatre also reputedly has its ghost, according to the BBC’s Doomsday Reloaded project of a few years ago, though it’s not much of a story, only a ghostly presence in the auditorium.

But my favourite story concerns the appropriately named Dead Man’s Bridge.
If you don’t know Deadman’s bridge, it’s the second bridge you cross as you head down Green Lanes towards the north circular. The story of the bridge dates from when Palmers Green was a rural area and comes from E Ploton’s long out of print Tales of Old Middlesex.

In those days, London imported food for people and livestock from miles around the surrounding area, Essex, Middlesex, Hertfordshire. Carts loaded high with straw made their way along Green Lanes, winding their way into a then more distant London.
One such carter was Gabriel Haynes, who had done the journey so many times that his old horse knew the way off by heart. Days were long and the gentle rocking of the cart meant that Gibby had got into the habit of catching a few moments sleep on the return journey as night began to fall and he drew his coat around him.

It was in this state that Gibby atop his cart, and drawn on home by his trusty horse approached the bridge over Pymmes Brook one night in early November, when a large black dog came running out from the side of the road.

Startled, the horse swerved to the side of the road. Thrown from the cart, Gibby was pitched onto the bank of Pymmes Brook and rolled into the water. He might have emerged from the shallow waters with just some bruises had cart and startled, flailing horse not come tottering after. Hauled from the water, a badly injured Gibby was carried to the Cock Inn, where he died a few hours later. Strangely it is not Gibby who E Ploton tells us was often seen in the shadows by the bridge – but the black dog who caused the death of Old Gibby.

I am not aware of any recent sightings – unless of course you know different.
There is one more local tale which is set around Christmas. You are going to have to wait until December for that one.

This article first appeared in the October edition of Palmers Green and Southgate Life

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A year in Palmers Green

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.

We discussed the origins of the word Broomfield, only to learn of news that another bid for funding for restoration of the house had failed, though some of the feedback was promising and hopes remained that a way forward could be found.

February

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 80^th 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

An anarchist cell was discovered taking direct action in Winchmore Hill. We learned a little more about the mysterious history of Truro House, and rare footage was discovered of a carnival in Palmers Green in 1931. We also found out, as if we didn’t already have an inkling, that PG is one of the busiest stations on First Capital Connect’s Great Northern Route.

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.

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 150^th 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.

Finally, an excellent film was launched to promote the restoration of Broomfield House. Created directed and produced by Christine Lalla, the film celebrates Broomfield’s unique history and heritage in the words of local people. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really should.

August

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.

December

With the sad death of Nelson Mandela, we explored the role of Alexandra Park in the fight against apartheid. The BBC screened a follow up to the programme it filmed 10 years ago on the buildings at risk in London, including Broomfield House. And Palmers Green featured in an award winning feature film writtenby local lads Sam Bourke and Stefan Georgiou, Dead Cat, screened at Talkies Community Cinema.

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.

Here’s to a great 2014. Happy New Year!

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Where are Palmers Green’s ghosts?

Post author By Suzanne Beard
Post date October 31, 2013
No Comments on Where are Palmers Green’s ghosts?

After more than 100 years of modern-day Palmers Green, dripping with requisite potentially spooky Edwardiana, you would have thought that Palmers Green would be groaning with ghosts. But we seem to have just two ghostly sightings to my knowledge.

The first concerns the Fox. In the 1980s and 1990s the back rooms of the Fox (as The Fox Theatre) became home of several theatre companies in succession, including in 1996 the Fact and Fable Theatre Company, whose performance of Pin Money by Malcolm Needs was directed by June Brown, Dot Cotton of Eastenders. It was during another performance in November 1996, according to Gary Boudier his 2002 book, A-Z of Enfield Pubs (part 2), that a Mr Sullivan from Archway felt himself being tapped on the shoulder but turned to find no one there. Bar staff and customers also reported unexplained noises, only some of which were attributable to the effects of alcohol.

The Intimate Theatre also reputedly has its ghost, according to the BBC’s Doomsday Reloaded project of a few years ago, though it’s not much of a story, only a ghostly presence in the auditorium.

You have to go slightly further afield for a proper ghost story, courtesy of Henrietta Cresswell’s Winchmore Hill, Memories of a Lost Village (you can read the book in full on N21.net).

In 1800 a common was enclosed which lay between Vicarsmoor Lane and Dog Kennel Lane, now called Old Green Dragon Lane. It was known as Hagfield or Hagstye field, on account of a witch who infested it on stormy nights with her proper accessories of a broomstick and a black cat! The right-of-way across the common was left as an enclosed footpath. In the sixties there were five stiles in it marking the field boundaries. This is still called Hagfields, and not long ago was strictly avoided after dark. The Clapfield Gates, now Wilson Street, had also a bad name. They were said to be haunted by a black bull.

And here’s another

At the top of Bush Hill is a footpath which avoids the long bend of the high road. It used to pass slightly to the west of its present position and was known as “The Poet’s Walk” or Stoney Alley. It passed under an avenue of limes which met overhead, and on its left was a black and sullen looking pond. Towards the Enfield end there was a high red brick wall, overhung by ancient yew trees, which made it exceedingly dark at the close of the day. It was reputed to be haunted, and few people would go through it after dusk. The ghost was said to be a lady in full bridal costume, who appeared on the top of the wall, gave a piercing and unearthly shriek and vanished. After a time it transpired that a white peacock found the wall under the trees a pleasant roosting place, and when disturbed it uttered its unmelodious cry and flew away.

Further afield, in Green Street, Brimsdown, was the site of the manifestation of the Enfield poltergeist. This really isn’t one for those of a nervous disposition. The story is taken up by London teacher turned Taxi driver Rob in his excellent View from the Window blog – click here. I don’t recommend watching the video clips but it’s up to you…

If you know a Palmers Green spooky story, please tell us!