Galliard Road

I may be biased by having been brought up there, but to me the Galliard Road area is classic terraced suburbia. Row upon row of 1930s terraced and semi-detached houses, older terraces and semis, council housing, scattered 1960s and 1970s housing, bungalows, flats, a parade of local shops, a school and a park. A railway line with a footbridge running close by, allotments behind the school, and there was even an air raid siren and a police box at one end (they've both gone now). Heck these days there is even a bus running along it too :-)

This is the south end of Galliard Road. The first photo shows the first terrace on the east side between the off-licence and the recreation ground end of Jubilee Park. These are numbers 2-8 and I think that refers to Galliard Road. Either side Jubilee Crescent disappears around the back. I don't think I have ever looked there, or perhaps I did once as a kid. It always seemed very forbidding to go there. The photo on the right shows Jubilee Crescent from the other side of the recreation ground and I don't think I'd ever noticed it was three storey blocks of flats before and also a much bigger development than I thought.

Numbers 2-8 have the look of houses built before about 1910 about them to me and don't relate to any others in the road though I seem to remember thinking they matched one terrace on the other side of Bury Street. The 1894 O.S. map shows hints at a tiny stub of road just here so it could be they do date from the last years of C19.

Above left is the terrace on the west side between Bury Street and St Edmunds Road with a 1990s build house tacked on the end. These are the only houses like this on the road. The third photo shows semi-detached houses which run up to Hamilton Road. Most seem to have been converted into flats. The last photo shows examples of the bungalows which run from Hamilton Road to Hamilton Avenue on one side and the recreation ground to the park keeper's house on the other (I guess it is probably a private house now). Note the two different styles of bungalow with one having the large gabled roof over a shared bay.

Apparently the south end of Galliard Road had been laid out by 1912 (not sure how long it was then) though wasn't developed until after the war and certainly the first terrace does look like it could easily be 1920s. I also think the semi-detached houses could be too as the heavy triangular shapes remind me of The Hyde Estate which was definitely started on in the 1920s. The bungalows would be 1930s though along with the rest of the road.

On the east side of the road Jubilee Park and the grounds of Galliard School (pictures right) then run to almost opposite Woodstock Crescent.

Galliard Primary School was opened in 1935 as separate Infant and Juniors schools on the same site which were merged into the one school in 1980. The school is expanding to three form entry and has had new buildings grafted on to the north side and the main entrance moved further along Galliard Road. The zebra crossing has also moved about five yards or so south which keep it clear of the construction works and also further away from the entrance and Savernake Road (it always was rather too close, thinking about it). Sadly no attempt has been made to make the new buildings fit in with the elegant architecture of the old buildings. Would it have been so difficult?

I was also quite suprised to notice that, despite all the new building, the nursery school is still in the same old prefabricated HORSA hut that looked tatty over thirty years ago and may well date from the 1940s when such huts were widely constructed. I guess appearances may be deceptive. I am told that they are hoping a new nursery will be forthcoming.

At the very end of Galliard School's playing field a patch of land was taken to build the local Air Cadet's hut (above left) in the 1970s and I see it has expanded slightly. The gate at the side leads to the allotments that run from behind the school field all the way down to the Hertford Road.

I came across some strange footprints (above left) on the pavement from the end of Galliard School's playing field to the main entrance to Jubilee Park. I didn't know what they were all about at first though I did see a very small notice on the railings outside the school with some comment about walking on the pavement so thought perhaps they were there to remind or encourage the kids to keep off the road. I later noticed that the footprints extended beyond the junction with Oaklands Avenue. I am not sure that was always the case.

In January 2003 I spotted two or three "Walking Bus" signs (above right) on lamp posts on Galliard Road in the area where the above footprints are and then in September 2003 one on the corner of Mayfield Crescent. I assumed these were related to the footprints and so it must be one of these schemes where the kids meet up at certain places and are then walked to school in a group. I have since been confirmed that this is indeed the idea. Parents vounteer to meet the children at the "bus stops" and then escort them to school. The idea is to relieve congestion around the school gates. There is however one flaw in the scheme. As of April 2004 there aren't any volunteers!

Back on the west side of Galliard Road, from Hamilton Avenue (opposite the entrance to Jubilee Park) there are rows of two bedroomed semi-detached council stock houses (no doubt mostly in private ownership these days) and St Edmunds Road follows suit. These are illustrated in the first photo above and note how one or two of each row have been given the gabled roof, which breaks the monotony and also matches the bungalows. These houses run beyond Savernake Road up to the the buildings in the next photo.

This photo shows Galliard Court on Galliard Road opposite the school playing field. The entrance is around the back accessed via Mansfield Close just off camera to the right and there is at least one more block of flats tucked behind these. To me the shops were simply referred to as 'round the corner' and there was a greengrocer on the right, a grocers in the middle (generally only used when a loaf was required) and on the left was 'the sweetshop', which was in face the usual newsagents / confectioners / stationers combination. The sweetshop was called Pollentines (-ish) and known as 'Pollies' to many. My old neighbour reminded me the greengrocer's shop was called "Eileen's" and it was run by the eponymous Eileen together with Fred. I feel sure I once knew what the grocer was called, though it was just 'the middle shop' to me.

Next to Galliard Court is a small patch of railed in grass and then Mansfield Close. There are bungalows running from about halfway up the north side and round the corner into Galliard Road as shown in the third photo. I can't recall the exact nature of these homes but I think they are basically for infirm elderly people.

St Edmunds Road meets Galliard Road towards the south end and then runs parallel to it right up to Mansfield Close. It tends to mirror changes in housing style. The first photo glimpse the houses in St Edmunds Road from the rec opposite. This pattern housing is also seen elsewhere in Lower Edmonton in two short terraces in Winchester Road south of Glastonbury Road. It runs up to Hamilton Road together with a two bedroom variation shown in the second photo.

Just as Galliard Road changes style (to bungalows) up to Hamilton Avenue, so St Edmunds Road switches to the houses in the photos on the right in 3-bedroom form on the west side and 2-bedroom on the east side.

One of the earlier photos shows a sign for "Hickory Close" and this is shown in the first photo above. An estate of houses was built in the 1980s/90s (I forget which) in the unused land next to the railway line and leads round to the junction with Bury Street. One road atlas I have (based on the 2000 O.S. data) uses the name Galliard Crescent for this road so I'm not sure what has happened there. Seems very quick for a name change, especially as not a lot seems wrong with the old one.

Moving past Hamilton Avenue there is a footpath to "the iron bridge" which has somewhat changed since I used to use it. In fact I rather suspect it is a 100% new bridge that must date from sometime around the 1990s. The bridge between Croyland Road and Chichester Road is also known as "the iron bridge" to many (and the same no doubt applies to bridges across the country!) but to me *the* iron bridge is this one and any other one has to be qualified by stating its location.

Beyond this footpath, and from Hamilton Avenue on the east side, the housing switches to council stock as on Galliard Road but as a terrace rather than semi-detached style. There is one semi-detached house though, situated more or less opposite the footpath, and that has a big plaque on the gabled roof saying "E.U.D.C. 1936" so I think we can have a good crack at dating the estate. Finally past Savernake Road a couple more blocks of flats can be seen here too.

Returning to Galliard Road itself, from just before Woodstock Crescent on both sides of the road the housing switches to classic 1930s terraced and semi-detached housing running all the way to the Hertford Road and also taking in Woodstock Crescent, Mayfield Crescent, Elmcroft Avenue and Oaklands Avenue. There are some variations to the style of housing though. The first photo (corner of Woodstock Crescent) shows a semi-detached property which is distinguished by the gables above the bays when compared with the terrace in the second photo (just past Mayfield Crescent). Note that both have canted bays and the window for the third bedroom is flush with the wall. If you look at the extreme right of the first photo you may notice the two-bedroomed properties which have shared bays (except when there are odd numbers of houses in the terrace). The three bedroomed properties have inset doors with a hall window inside an arched porch, the two bedroomed houses have a door flush with the walls, no hall window and a canopy thing above the door.

The third photo (Mayfield Crescent) shows a terrace where the bay is bowed rather than canted (canted means flat front and angled sides) and the window above the door is a bay supported on brackets. This style is also seen for one terrace in Woodstock Crescent, on the junction with Galliard Road and for a terrace or two on Elmcroft Avenue (and I haven't gone exploring elsewhere). Just to the right of this terrace (and shown in the next photo) is a classic two bedroom pattern with the exception that the nearest house has a V-shaped window on brackets above the door. I haven't seen any others like this and it could even be a later conversion.

Here we see a 3-bedroom terrace but with a bay window on brackets above the door instead of the flush window. There are lots of these about and they seem to be intermingled with the others. There are some terraces where both window styles are seen but I suspect these have been modifield.

At the very end of the road the house style does change significantly as can be seen by the photo of Elmcroft Avenue and the last terrace of Galliard Road before the high road. Note the triangular design in the centre of the terrace which seems to echo the houses at the other end of the road.