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New website for BHORA

Broomfield Home-Owners and Resident’s Association (BHORA) have announced the launch of their new website this month.

Established in 1929, BHORA is the longest standing residents association in the London Borough of Enfield.  It was set up to serve the interests of the local community organising social events, as well as tackling aspects of local life such as health, transport, and so on.

The association covers the area from (south to north) the Haringey boundary at Bounds Green up to Broomfield Park and from (east to west) Green Lanes over towards Arnos Grove.

To find out more about current activities and how to join, visit http://www.bhora.org.

 

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Art and Culture Community History Palmers Green Planning and open spaces Uncategorized

£4 million bid to restore Broomfield House

Following our story a few weeks ago, Enfield Council has now formally announced its intention to submit a £4million bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund to save Broomfield House.

Cllr Del Goddard, Cabinet Member for Regeneration said in a press release on Enfield Council’s website on Monday, “A tremendous amount of effort has gone into producing this HLF bid, particularly from the Broomfield Trust and Friends, but it has been worth it because working together we have produced an exciting vision that we think can work in practice.”

The house has been derelict too long, say the Broomfield House Trust and the Friends of Broomfield Park, who have been working together on the bid with Enfield.

“The current plans represent a real opportunity to save one of Palmers Green’s few remaining heritage properties, and restore it as a much needed community asset for the enjoyment of future generations. Many people have already expressed a wish to become actively involved with the project, and the approach to the HLF is taking this into account.

“If the HLF bid is successful and we are able to deliver the House restoration, then we would want to turn our attention to a Parks for People bid to improve the Park at some point in the future ”

If you are interested in hearing more about the plans, a reminder that the next open meeting of the Friends of Broomfield Park is on Wednesday 17 October at the Ruth Winston Centre. The meeting starts at 7.30.

 

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A Palmers Green idyll

A wonderful local picture from Enfield Museum Services collection, now made viewable by the BBC’s Your Paintings website which is cataloguing paintings in public collections…

Bourne Hill by Charles Yardley. Image reproduced by kind permission of Enfield Museum Service

Painted by Charles Yardley, it shows a rural idyll looking up Bourne Hill, past The Pound and towards the Woodman in playful, skewed perspective. Delightfully there are more animals outside the pound than in. Does the gate to the left  right lead into Winchmore Hill woods ie present day Broad Walk? And what is it that the man in the foreground is carrying?

Little seems to be known of Yardley but Enfield Museum Service holds a number of his paintings, including views of Wood Green’s first fire station in 1873 (but, says the site, painted in the 1930s), a forge in Southgate (dated 1900) , and a view of the New River as it crosses Myddleton Road painted in 1935 but depicting the scene in 1870.

The date given on the site for Yardley’s Bourne Hill painting is 1875, but again, the style seems later. Does anyone have any information about Charles Yardley, or even have some more of his local views sitting on their wall?

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Art and Culture History

Town Hall of many disguises

First its Sheldrake Hospital

Over the summer it was the Sheldrake Hospital…and now its Cowley Police Station…

Southgate Town Hall in Green Lanes Palmers Green is becoming firmly established as a film location of choice.

Now its Cowley Police Station

The current Cowley Police Station incarnation is part of the filming for Inspector Morse prequel Endeavour (a programme title which forever ends the pub quiz favourite “What was Inspector Morse’s first name”). Starring Shaun Evans, Endeavour is set in 1965, and  follows the early career of the temperamental classical music and real ale loving Morse, originally created by Colin Dexter. A pilot episode was shown on TV in January.

About Sheldrake Hospital, I can regretfully tell you no more. Does anyone know?

Unfortunately yesterday the town hall was in the press for another reason, when confidential social services papers were found on full show in the building. According to the Evening Standard, these included papers from the Climbie child abuse investigation and details of adoption applications. David Burrowes MP has made a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner. For more information see http://www.standard.co.uk/news/secret-council-files-containing-private-personal-data-found-on-morse-set-8195506.html

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History Palmers Green Uncategorized

New air terminal for Palmers Green?

Jean de Manio on the roof of 75 Derwent Road in his Bleriot monoplane. Image by kind permission of James Birtwistle

This was the scene in a recently built Palmers Green street on 6 December 1912.

Pilot Jean de Manio had been on his way from the aerodrome at Balls Park (on the outskirts of Hertford, now part of the university campus) to Hendon in his Bleriot monoplane when he lost his way before getting into engine touble. He aimed for Broomfield Park, but fell short and crashed into the roof of no 75 Derwent Road, at that time the residence of a Mr Andow. Sustaining only cuts and bruises, he was thence rescued by two schoolboys, who went and got a ladder from Southgate County School while de Manio calmly puffed on a cigarette. Those, indeed, were the days of aviation.

The spectacle was reported on by the Recorder on 19 December 1912

All ways led to Derwent Road, and the inevitable crowd gathered. I think it may he said that the majority of the inhabitants of this usually peaceful suburb felt the importance of the occasion, and I verily believe that they were even imbued with a feeling akin to pride that the first aeroplane to fall—I beg pardon, to fly—on to a house-roof should have performed that feat in their own neighbourhood.

Sadly, de Manio died in a further accident a year later, before the birth of a baby son, also called Jean. As Jack de Manio, Jean Jnr became one of the most famous and controversial radio presenters of the 50s and 60s.