The Guardian is calling for insider info on the delights of Bounds Green for it’s ‘Let’s Move To…’ feature in Weekend magazine.
You will have to move fast though. The deadline is today (and be careful what you say or you may never get a table in the Ranelagh again…). Email lets.move@guardian.co.uk.
PG next?
The fate of Southgate Town Hall is now decided, according to reports from the local press this week.
The building is to be redeveloped by Hollybrook Homes in 2014-15 following a deal with Enfield Council which will also include the refurbishment of Palmers Green Library. Hollybrook will be extending the Town Hall main building to create between 30 and 40 one, two and three bedroom flats, to include a mix of private and affordable housing. The façade will remain, but the interior will be extensively remodelled.
Palmers Green Jewel in the North wrote to Enfield Mayor Choudhury Anwar MBE in July asking if Palmers Green residents could be given a chance to look around parts of the Town Hall one last time before developers move in, with a view to opening the building as part of this year’s Palmers Green Festival or Open House day.
Though the letter was circulated to other counsellors by Counsellor Ingrid Cranfield, and reforwarded to Mayor Anwar a few weeks ago, unfortunately as yet no reply has been received.
It seems that time is now running out if we are to see the fantastic council chamber one last time – before the Town Hall changes forever.
More about Southgate Town Hall:
Its use as a film set http://www.palmersgreenn13.com/2012/10/04/town-hall-of-many-disguises/
Betty Wright nee Walton’s account of her childhood growing up in the town hall where her father was a fireman and the Council’s mace bearer http://www.palmersgreenn13.com/2013/01/03/born-in-the-town-hall/
Enfield Council’s archive of documents related to the Town Hall redevelopment http://www.enfield.gov.uk/downloads/download/1352/southgate_town_hall_eqia
The Christmas lights are on and the festivities are drawing near with unstoppable inevitability. Why not ease yourself into the festivities with a a lovely day out on Sunday at the Open Studios Autumn art and craft fair at St Monica’s Parish Centre?
30 designers will be selling their wares directly to the public from 10-6. Forget Christmas gifts, I am going to buy something for myself!
And if you cant wait til tomorrow, you can get a sneak preview of artists work by popping into Anthony Webb estate agents this afternoon.
And this year, Palmers Green’s tree is real.
So why call this site Palmers Green Jewel in the North?
Perhaps, I sometimes ponder, it should have been called something different. I don’t believe that in every respect PG is a jewel of course (though I don’t see why we shouldn’t love it anyway).
The truth is, I chose the name for two reasons.
First of all, after novelist Paul Scott, who lived in Palmers Green when he was growing up. Scott was born at 130 Fox Lane; his writing career began at 63 Bourne Hill, where the family moved in 1939, having rallied after a period of financial difficulty. Scott took the themes of his childhood – class, financial precariousness, and the feelings of being an outsider they caused – and relocated them to India, to the fictional town of Mayapore and the last days of the Raj for his 1966 novel Jewel in the Crown, the first of the Raj Quartet.
But there is another reason, and perhaps this is the most important but personal one.
It was October when we first arrived in PG. The nights were drawing in. Many was (and is) the time I nearly collided with a tree, walking along looking at all the beautiful stained and coloured glass, shining out of cosy interiors in the falling dusk. I was giddied by the colours, shapes and the sheer variety of designs, and the fact that, one hundred years after they were installed, so much of it is still here.
Soppy I know. Not everything in Palmers Green is a jewel but just maybe these are ours.
So here is an idea. Could we create an online gallery of the stained and coloured glass in the area, so that we could all look at them without walking into trees.
If you would be interested in contributing pictures, please email me at palmersgreenn13@btinternet.com or get in touch via the Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/PalmersGreen.
Renovations at the Triangle mean that this year Palmers Green celebrates Christmas with a real tree.
The lights will be switched on on Thursday at 3.30 by Mayor Anwar Chaudhury MBE and David Burrowes MP.
Free mince pies and singing from the children of Hazelwood School and the choir of St John’s church are promised.