From open fields to crowded streetBy Enfield IndependentEDMONTON was very different 200 years ago. It was all open fields, until a private Act of Parliament was passed in 1801 which was to change the landscape of the area for good. Edmonton had been an agricultural area since the Norman Conquest but the new law's purpose was to divide those fields. The land was then to be reallocated into compact holdings rather than in strips scattered over a wide area, to achieve more efficient agriculture. The Edmonton enclosure was mirrored in other parts of London and the countryside, with similar Acts passed in Cheshunt in 1799, Enfield in 1803, Finchley in 1810 and Hornsey in 1812. At this time, Edmonton began to take on a shape with which we are now more familiar and is evident in early maps from the time. Lower Edmonton was built up around The Green, with development north along the Hertford Road and south along Fore Street. In Upper Edmonton, settlement followed a linear pattern with a long, straggling village which strung out along Fore Street from the Tottenham boundary to just north of the Silver Street junction with Water Lane now called Angel Road. There were more settlements elsewhere in Edmonton. On the border with Enfield lay the remote rural hamlet of Bury Street, on the edge of the Lee marshes. This part of Edmonton remained remained stubbornly rural into the 1920s. In the Montagu Road of today was a settlement called Marshside and along Silver Street was a cluster of cottages called Tanners End. On the western side of the parish was a large settlement at Winchmore Hill, centred on The Green with homes in Hoppers Road, Middle Lane, Winchmore Hill Lane and Wades Hill. At the time, Palmers Green was a tiny hamlet at the junction of Green Lanes and Fox Lane which contained no more than a handful of cottages and a pub. South of that was the tiny settlement of Bowes which was situated at the junction of Green Lanes and Bowes Road. Southgate consisted of a cluster of houses and a pub at The Green along with other dwellings in High Street and Chase Side. New Southgate had no significant population and was then known as Colney Hatch or Betstile. 15:27 Wednesday 31st July 2002
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