“Once upon a time…” is the title of Alan Dumayne’s charming book on Palmers Green….and once upon a time Palmers Green amounted to little more than farmland, estates belonging to wealthy brewing families, and a little gathering of houses around what is now the intersections of Hazelwood Lane, Green Lanes and Fox Lane. Just north of the Fox, between the pub and what is now Bourne Hill, was the original Green. There were no churches to speak of – the nearest were in Enfield and Edmonton.
Broomfield House and the New River aside, nothing much in Palmers Green is particularly old, in the sense that old can mean very old in England. In the first years of the twentieth century, what had essentially been a rural hamlet, changed, if not quite overnight, certainly at a galloping pace. But the old hamlet of Palmers Green has not been completely erased, and over 100 years of suburbia has brought it own fascinations and new landmarks.