And this year, Palmers Green’s tree is real.
Category: Planning and open spaces
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.
From Guest writer, Palmers Green’s Undercover reporter
Palmers Green residents are breathing a sigh of relief this week at the appearance of a new betting shop at the Triangle. Previously, Palmers Green’s keen sportsmen had been forced to cross the road at the Triangle to get to the nearest betting shop by the 121 bus stop and there was widespread anxiety that some vistas remained on the main shopping street from which a betting shop was not to be seen.
Local residents recently petitioned the council with complaints about the number of ‘useful’ shops still remaining in Palmers Green.
“Some people were being forced into online betting,” one resident told the Palmers Green undercover reporter. “At the weekend, three Palmers Green residents were seen laying wagers on how many cars would actually stop for pedestrians attempting to cross at the Triangle by HSBC. Its pathetic. Every one knows the odds are against that.”
Rumours that the town hall is to be turned into a mega casino called the Rat Pack have so far not been confirmed.
Palmers Green library will close for 14 months for refurbishment, according to latest plans approved by Enfield Council this week. However, earlier proposals to establish a temporary library in the Lodge Road car park behind McDonald’s have now been shelved. Instead, residents will need to go to one of the other libraries in the area.
The main closure will take place between June 2014 and August 2015 but there will be a foretaste much earlier – the library will also be closed for two months from 23 November this year to early in February as work begins to segregate the library from the Town Hall ahead of the latter’s redevelopment.
On the positive side, the library will be refurbished, there will be a new room available for community events, and the plans include the creation of a new public square on the corner of Broomfield Lane and Green Lanes. There will be new trees, seating, and a new clock tower (it seems that Palmers Green will soon be awash with elevated timepieces – there is another planned for the Triangle). For more information about the plans visit the Palmers Green Community website where there is an excellent article on the plans.
On your way home this evening you might want to take one last look at Palmers Green Triangle’s long closed toilets.
The railings are being taken down and the underground space sealed off this week to make way for a less cluttered public space. The ragged concrete planters are also being removed and new seating installed. And the planters on Green Lanes and Aldermans Hill will be replanted.
The Green Lanes Business Association in conjunction with Enfield Council is intending to install a new clock tower as a focus for the Triangle – appropriately, it will be triangular with one face looking onto Green Lanes and the others facing Barclay’s and HSBC. They would like to hear from local designers who would be interested in taking on the commission, working with the Triangle Metalworks.
“The Triangle is a local landmark,” said Costas Georgiou, Association Chair. “We hope that the clock tower will be designed by a local person”.
If you are interested, please contact Costas on 07943 198198 or contact the vice chair, Tony Ourris, on tonyourris@anthonywebb.co.uk
One of the highlights of the recent 50 years of Palmers Green event at the Ruth Winston Centre was another chance to see the film about Broomfield Park by Christine Lalla, and a fantastic new montage created specially for the event by Southgate Photographic Society, showing the way in which Palmers Green’s streetscape has changed within living memory.
Artfully compiled by the Society’s Kevin O Neill, the film ‘Remembering Palmers Green’ brings together stills of Palmers Green from Enfield Local Studies Archive and recent shots taken in exactly the same spot by members of the society. Old merges into new with stunning, and occasionally heartbreaking, results. If only we could go back and walk these streets as they were. Thanks to this fantastic film, it almost feels as if you can.
If the film sets off memories, a reminder about the Palmers Green oral history project. We would love to hear from you; your story is yours only, and no one else can tell it.