Pymmes Brook - Edmonton
Pymmes Brook
Pymmes Brook continues to flow eastwards albeit out of sight
Busy urban and industrial area
Post to the east Angel Road industry
Post to the north Edmonton Green
Post to the west Tanners End
Angel Close
Close of 1930s local authority flats
Angel Place
Plaque marks the site of the turnpike and the Angel Inn
Angel Pub demolished to widen the North Circular Road. It had been originally built on land belonging to Latymer's charity at the crossing point of the London-Ware road and the Lea to Palmers Green. It was rebuilt in the 1930s
185, 187 - 189 terrace of 18th houses, altered in the mid 19th and extensively restored in the 1980s to include the formation of an arch at 187 with gardens behind.
187 Edmonton Law Centre
193-195 Edmonton Trades Hall. Also home to Apostolic Christian Church (Sheepfold). Established in 1996 and was founded by The Archbishop, †The Most Reverend Dr. Abraham Evangelou and Angel Place Nursery. Hall added at the back in the early 20th
Hockey ground to the rear in the 1930s
Angel Road
Pymmes Brook runs under it – and it is now the route of the North Circular Road.
Hippodrome Cinema. This was on the south side of Angel Road, at the corner of Cross Street. It was opened as The New Public Hall in 1888. In 1889, it was re-named Theatre Royal and was a playhouse. In 1896 it was the Theatre Royal of Varieties. The building was modified in 1907 re-opened again and by 1909, they were showing films. In 1916 it became the Hippodrome Cinema, equipped for sound in 1930. It closed in 1947, and became a snooker club, then a furniture store. It was demolished in 1961 and became an empty site to be swallowed up under the North Circular Road.
Brettenham Road
Brettenham School. This was the first Edmonton School Board School built in 1882 and enlarged 1885-9, 1892.
School Board Offices 1900. In the centre of the rambling group Brettenham School group by Henry W. Dobb.
Fleecefield Primary School. Opened in 1957.
Granville Park Works. 1935-1955 Knight Piano Company. The works is now partly Spencer House. With a number of businesses, and partly apparently derelict.
Granville Paper Works. Home of the Hy-G-Nic Paper Handkerchief Co in 1947
Sinclair’s Laundry – the laundry is owned by the Imperial Hotels of London group based in Russell Square.
College Gardens
Presumably this is the area, or near the area, of the College House Academy, a Victorian boys school in the area.
Large area of local authority redevelopment in the shape of big slab blocks by Edmonton Borough from 1956. Pleasingly brutalist. One fourteen storey tower.
Craig Park
Local park with a youth club in it
Dysons Road
St Mary with St. John. Built 1905-6 by C.H.B. Quennell in brick. Inside is an organ from Christ's Hospital, Newgate Street. There are also clear glass windows by Paul Woodroffe. The various craftsmen are named on the foundation stone. It is now partly in use as an infants' school.
Church Hall - ridiculous, looks like a railway station. It is home to the Hanlon Centre which helps young people.
Edmonton
It is listed as ‘Adelmetone’ in the Domesday Book and the spelling varies over succeeding centuries but it seems to mean ‘estate of a man called Eadhelm'. It was also the name of the smallest Hundred of Middlesex. – it covered Enfield, Tottenham and South Mimms. In the middle ages this was mostly woodland used for pannage, etc.
Fairfield Road
The name commemorates the Edmonton statute fair held annually for three days from 14th September starting in 1680. Intended to be a place to hire servants it became a popular attraction in the late 18th and was eventually closed down because of their behavior in 1823.
Fore Street
This was once the main road from London to Ware and Hertford and the settlement grew up along it. The road crosses Pymmes Brook slightly to the south of the junction with the main east-west road – making what was John Gilpin’s wash. It became a turnpike road in 1713 but ceased to be the main road when it was bypassed in the 1920s;
Pymmes Brook flows under the road slightly to the north of Silver Street, culverted in 1921.
50-54 Gilpin’s Bell. Vast great Wetherspoon's pub in a new block. The original Bell Pub, mentioned in the poem about John Gilpin, was opposite at 135.
56 LT’s pub. This was previously the Phoenix with ornamental panels and half-timbered gables.
60-64 19th houses converted to shops and offices. With lower floors extended into the street.
75-77 19th houses converted to shops
79 shop in a 19th detached house with a set back frontage used for parking.
79/81 St James’ Church, built in 1850 by Edward Ellis of Angel Place in Kentish ragstone. This became a parish church in 1851 and was first dedicated to Saint Pancras but this was later changed. The church originated in mission work by the curate of All Saints, John Snell left he left some of his park as a site for a church in 1847. Converted to housing in 1982.
83 St. James Vicarage 1868. This is also now flats.
103-105 White Horse Pub a 1950s reworking of the end of a lost Georgian terrace
134 a house from a terrace survives with a shop south.
135 site of the Bell Inn
158 with a hexagonal turret,
164 Three Crowns pub with a rounded corner,
166-8 1907,
169-171 Burton shop – now a supermarket. Characteristic Burton's menswear store in Portland stone building.
170-72 late 19th century commercial buildings, with double-storied shop front 20th
180 originally one of a pair
186-92 terrace of four probably 18th houses of brick
192 an early 18th terrace behind later shops,
196 corner house once part of a terrace with a 19th century shopfront
198. This was built as a bank. Tall narrow building with a stone ground floor. Now a mosque and Islamic cultural centre
202 This was the Globe Pub – and there is a globe sign on the gable. Now part of the Islamic centre.
205-239 these were built by the local authority in the early 1950s on the site of the Alcazar Cinema which was bombed flat in 1940.
Alcazar Cinema. This was opened in 1913 as part of a complex which also had a Winter Garden, a palm court, a roller skating rink and an outdoor garden where films were shown in good weather. The building was designed as Moorish palace, with a colonnade stretching 140 feet along the façade. It was re-built in 1933 but was badly damaged by a bomb in 1940 and then took a V1 in 1944 and had to be demolished.
Leather works opposite Alcazar Cinema in the 1930s
222 Crown and Anchor Pub.
234 Edmonton Medical Centre
236-238, 18th houses in brown brick with red brick features.
258-260, mid-c18
271 Golden Fleece Pub. Late 19th red brick
273 three-storey display warehouse with continuous glazing in a classical frame, 1930.
283-7 late 19th houses with front gardens now concreted over.
Flats on the site of St.Mary’s Church. Corner of Brettenham Road. St Mary's Church, was an Anglican church designed by Butterfield, in 1884 and demolished in 1957.
300 Methodist Church. Built 1927 in arts and crafts style. Earlier hall at the back. This existing building was formerly the Sunday School and meeting rooms associated with the Central Hall which opened in 1911 and stood next door. In 1829 a chapel had been built here and in 1911 a Central hall. The chapel was demolished in 1929 and Sunday-school buildings built on its site. Central hall was demolished in 1971
320 Station House. Flats converted from old police station. Built in 1905 by D. Butler.
Lawrence Road
St.Mary’s Centre. Built in 1970 with an amazing sculpture on the wall. Looks derelict though.
Leeds Street
Post Office Sorting Office.
Montague Road
Footpath to Plevna Road. This follows the trackbed of the Angel Road to Edmonton Rail line. This opened in 1849 and closed finally, after an interrupted life, in 1964.
Park Avenue
Fabric factory listed 1930s
Raynham Road
Raynham Road School, dates from 1896, with infants' school of 1901.Built by Edmonton School Board it in 1% of the largest primary schools in the country.
Sebastopol Road
Housing from 1950 a 'mixed development' By the Borough of Edmonton Architect R.D. Kain, after an outline plan by F. Gibberd & Partners. Six-storey point blocks; maisonettes and decorative garden walls.
The Britannia Pub
Sterling Way
2 Crease Busters. Is this some remains of the old frontage of the Regal
Lidl. built on the site of the Regal Cinema. This was a cine-variety theatre built for by A.E. Abrahams, by Clifford Aish. In opened in 1934 with films and stage shows. There was a revolving stage, 16 dressing rooms and a Christie 4 Manual/15 Rank theatre organ. There was also an associated restaurant and ballroom. It was taken over by Gaumont Super Cinemas in 1935 and then became part of the Rank Organisation but was always owned by the Abrahams family who insisted on the stage remaining – so both the Beatles and Frank Sinatra appeared there. It closed in 1972 and became a disco called Sundown. It briefly re-opened and closed as a cinema in 1974. It then became Top Rank Bingo Club until demolition in 1985. A Safeway supermarket was built and now it is Lidl.
Wakefield Street
Heavy Current Electrical Accessory Company was set up in 1923 a purpose built factory by Charles Arnold with Charles Belling as his partner to manufacture and sell the Multy Kontact socket. This company became MK Electrical Accessories – makers of MK plugs.
John Huxley – company making and selling casino equipment. They have been world leaders in a particular sort of roulette wheel and much else
Woolmer Road
Scott House. Built 1965 by the Edmonton Direct Labour Organisation. It is an 18-storey block made of precast units produced by a vertical battery casting system, developed by the borough with the Buildings Research Station and the Reinforced Concrete Steel Co. It was opened by Bob Mellish and was originally called Angel House
Sources
British Listed Buildings web site
Stevenson. Middlesex
Pevsner and Cherry London. North
Field Place Names of London
Clunn. The Face of London
Walford. Highgate to the Lea
Cinema Theatres Association Newsletter
Lewis. London’s Best Kept Secret
Graces Guide web site
Brettenham Primary School web site
Middlesex History web site
Fleecefield School web site
London Railway Record
Imperial Hotels London web site
Hanlon Centre website
Edmonton churches web site
London Borough of Enfield web site
Cinema Treasures web site
Anidea web site
John Huxley web site
Raynham Primary School website
Pymmes Brook continues to flow eastwards albeit out of sight
Busy urban and industrial area
Post to the east Angel Road industry
Post to the north Edmonton Green
Post to the west Tanners End
Angel Close
Close of 1930s local authority flats
Angel Place
Plaque marks the site of the turnpike and the Angel Inn
Angel Pub demolished to widen the North Circular Road. It had been originally built on land belonging to Latymer's charity at the crossing point of the London-Ware road and the Lea to Palmers Green. It was rebuilt in the 1930s
185, 187 - 189 terrace of 18th houses, altered in the mid 19th and extensively restored in the 1980s to include the formation of an arch at 187 with gardens behind.
187 Edmonton Law Centre
193-195 Edmonton Trades Hall. Also home to Apostolic Christian Church (Sheepfold). Established in 1996 and was founded by The Archbishop, †The Most Reverend Dr. Abraham Evangelou and Angel Place Nursery. Hall added at the back in the early 20th
Hockey ground to the rear in the 1930s
Angel Road
Pymmes Brook runs under it – and it is now the route of the North Circular Road.
Hippodrome Cinema. This was on the south side of Angel Road, at the corner of Cross Street. It was opened as The New Public Hall in 1888. In 1889, it was re-named Theatre Royal and was a playhouse. In 1896 it was the Theatre Royal of Varieties. The building was modified in 1907 re-opened again and by 1909, they were showing films. In 1916 it became the Hippodrome Cinema, equipped for sound in 1930. It closed in 1947, and became a snooker club, then a furniture store. It was demolished in 1961 and became an empty site to be swallowed up under the North Circular Road.
Brettenham Road
Brettenham School. This was the first Edmonton School Board School built in 1882 and enlarged 1885-9, 1892.
School Board Offices 1900. In the centre of the rambling group Brettenham School group by Henry W. Dobb.
Fleecefield Primary School. Opened in 1957.
Granville Park Works. 1935-1955 Knight Piano Company. The works is now partly Spencer House. With a number of businesses, and partly apparently derelict.
Granville Paper Works. Home of the Hy-G-Nic Paper Handkerchief Co in 1947
Sinclair’s Laundry – the laundry is owned by the Imperial Hotels of London group based in Russell Square.
College Gardens
Presumably this is the area, or near the area, of the College House Academy, a Victorian boys school in the area.
Large area of local authority redevelopment in the shape of big slab blocks by Edmonton Borough from 1956. Pleasingly brutalist. One fourteen storey tower.
Craig Park
Local park with a youth club in it
Dysons Road
St Mary with St. John. Built 1905-6 by C.H.B. Quennell in brick. Inside is an organ from Christ's Hospital, Newgate Street. There are also clear glass windows by Paul Woodroffe. The various craftsmen are named on the foundation stone. It is now partly in use as an infants' school.
Church Hall - ridiculous, looks like a railway station. It is home to the Hanlon Centre which helps young people.
Edmonton
It is listed as ‘Adelmetone’ in the Domesday Book and the spelling varies over succeeding centuries but it seems to mean ‘estate of a man called Eadhelm'. It was also the name of the smallest Hundred of Middlesex. – it covered Enfield, Tottenham and South Mimms. In the middle ages this was mostly woodland used for pannage, etc.
Fairfield Road
The name commemorates the Edmonton statute fair held annually for three days from 14th September starting in 1680. Intended to be a place to hire servants it became a popular attraction in the late 18th and was eventually closed down because of their behavior in 1823.
Fore Street
This was once the main road from London to Ware and Hertford and the settlement grew up along it. The road crosses Pymmes Brook slightly to the south of the junction with the main east-west road – making what was John Gilpin’s wash. It became a turnpike road in 1713 but ceased to be the main road when it was bypassed in the 1920s;
Pymmes Brook flows under the road slightly to the north of Silver Street, culverted in 1921.
50-54 Gilpin’s Bell. Vast great Wetherspoon's pub in a new block. The original Bell Pub, mentioned in the poem about John Gilpin, was opposite at 135.
56 LT’s pub. This was previously the Phoenix with ornamental panels and half-timbered gables.
60-64 19th houses converted to shops and offices. With lower floors extended into the street.
75-77 19th houses converted to shops
79 shop in a 19th detached house with a set back frontage used for parking.
79/81 St James’ Church, built in 1850 by Edward Ellis of Angel Place in Kentish ragstone. This became a parish church in 1851 and was first dedicated to Saint Pancras but this was later changed. The church originated in mission work by the curate of All Saints, John Snell left he left some of his park as a site for a church in 1847. Converted to housing in 1982.
83 St. James Vicarage 1868. This is also now flats.
103-105 White Horse Pub a 1950s reworking of the end of a lost Georgian terrace
134 a house from a terrace survives with a shop south.
135 site of the Bell Inn
158 with a hexagonal turret,
164 Three Crowns pub with a rounded corner,
166-8 1907,
169-171 Burton shop – now a supermarket. Characteristic Burton's menswear store in Portland stone building.
170-72 late 19th century commercial buildings, with double-storied shop front 20th
180 originally one of a pair
186-92 terrace of four probably 18th houses of brick
192 an early 18th terrace behind later shops,
196 corner house once part of a terrace with a 19th century shopfront
198. This was built as a bank. Tall narrow building with a stone ground floor. Now a mosque and Islamic cultural centre
202 This was the Globe Pub – and there is a globe sign on the gable. Now part of the Islamic centre.
205-239 these were built by the local authority in the early 1950s on the site of the Alcazar Cinema which was bombed flat in 1940.
Alcazar Cinema. This was opened in 1913 as part of a complex which also had a Winter Garden, a palm court, a roller skating rink and an outdoor garden where films were shown in good weather. The building was designed as Moorish palace, with a colonnade stretching 140 feet along the façade. It was re-built in 1933 but was badly damaged by a bomb in 1940 and then took a V1 in 1944 and had to be demolished.
Leather works opposite Alcazar Cinema in the 1930s
222 Crown and Anchor Pub.
234 Edmonton Medical Centre
236-238, 18th houses in brown brick with red brick features.
258-260, mid-c18
271 Golden Fleece Pub. Late 19th red brick
273 three-storey display warehouse with continuous glazing in a classical frame, 1930.
283-7 late 19th houses with front gardens now concreted over.
Flats on the site of St.Mary’s Church. Corner of Brettenham Road. St Mary's Church, was an Anglican church designed by Butterfield, in 1884 and demolished in 1957.
300 Methodist Church. Built 1927 in arts and crafts style. Earlier hall at the back. This existing building was formerly the Sunday School and meeting rooms associated with the Central Hall which opened in 1911 and stood next door. In 1829 a chapel had been built here and in 1911 a Central hall. The chapel was demolished in 1929 and Sunday-school buildings built on its site. Central hall was demolished in 1971
320 Station House. Flats converted from old police station. Built in 1905 by D. Butler.
Lawrence Road
St.Mary’s Centre. Built in 1970 with an amazing sculpture on the wall. Looks derelict though.
Leeds Street
Post Office Sorting Office.
Montague Road
Footpath to Plevna Road. This follows the trackbed of the Angel Road to Edmonton Rail line. This opened in 1849 and closed finally, after an interrupted life, in 1964.
Park Avenue
Fabric factory listed 1930s
Raynham Road
Raynham Road School, dates from 1896, with infants' school of 1901.Built by Edmonton School Board it in 1% of the largest primary schools in the country.
Sebastopol Road
Housing from 1950 a 'mixed development' By the Borough of Edmonton Architect R.D. Kain, after an outline plan by F. Gibberd & Partners. Six-storey point blocks; maisonettes and decorative garden walls.
The Britannia Pub
Sterling Way
2 Crease Busters. Is this some remains of the old frontage of the Regal
Lidl. built on the site of the Regal Cinema. This was a cine-variety theatre built for by A.E. Abrahams, by Clifford Aish. In opened in 1934 with films and stage shows. There was a revolving stage, 16 dressing rooms and a Christie 4 Manual/15 Rank theatre organ. There was also an associated restaurant and ballroom. It was taken over by Gaumont Super Cinemas in 1935 and then became part of the Rank Organisation but was always owned by the Abrahams family who insisted on the stage remaining – so both the Beatles and Frank Sinatra appeared there. It closed in 1972 and became a disco called Sundown. It briefly re-opened and closed as a cinema in 1974. It then became Top Rank Bingo Club until demolition in 1985. A Safeway supermarket was built and now it is Lidl.
Wakefield Street
Heavy Current Electrical Accessory Company was set up in 1923 a purpose built factory by Charles Arnold with Charles Belling as his partner to manufacture and sell the Multy Kontact socket. This company became MK Electrical Accessories – makers of MK plugs.
John Huxley – company making and selling casino equipment. They have been world leaders in a particular sort of roulette wheel and much else
Woolmer Road
Scott House. Built 1965 by the Edmonton Direct Labour Organisation. It is an 18-storey block made of precast units produced by a vertical battery casting system, developed by the borough with the Buildings Research Station and the Reinforced Concrete Steel Co. It was opened by Bob Mellish and was originally called Angel House
Sources
British Listed Buildings web siteStevenson. Middlesex
Pevsner and Cherry London. North
Field Place Names of London
Clunn. The Face of London
Walford. Highgate to the Lea
Cinema Theatres Association Newsletter
Lewis. London’s Best Kept Secret
Graces Guide web site
Brettenham Primary School web site
Middlesex History web site
Fleecefield School web site
London Railway Record
Imperial Hotels London web site
Hanlon Centre website
Edmonton churches web site
London Borough of Enfield web site
Cinema Treasures web site
Anidea web site
John Huxley web site
Raynham Primary School website
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