Latymer, Chichester, Winchester

Latymer Road and the Latymer Road Estate

Latymer Road today is about half a mile long, running north from Church Street and then dog-legging north-west to link up with Harrow Drive. Most of the road seems to my eyes to be 1930s build though things are a lot more interesting at the southern end.

The 1894 OS Map shows Latymer Road as approximately 200 yards long and coming to an abrupt end a short distance past Cyprus Road which was yet to be developed (though it was marked out). The first eighty yards or so of the road on either side were the back gardens of large semi-detached houses on Church Street.  On the west side there was only a single deteched house south of Cyprus Road and the area north of the junction appears to have been given over to nurseries. On the east side of the road there are two semi-detached houses an empty plot and then a terrace of seven more houses. These ten houses are known to have been occupied by 1893.  Cyprus Road was occupied by 1899.

A 1902 directory, which may not be comprehensive, shows numbers 1 to 9 on the east side plus four more named houses and still just Cromwell House on the west side.

Contributions to the message board reporting the memories of a resident of Latymer Road from 1917 to the 1940s suggest that there wasn't too much more development until the Latymer Estate was created in the 1930s. A pair of houses appeared on the southern corner of Cyprus Road and presumably this would have been in the 1920s unless the lady was a remarkably observant infant! She herself lived in a house which stood at the end of the road with a large front lawn, grounds going back as far as Salmon's Brook, and access from Church Lane. This house was demolished in 1935 so the road could be extended.

The two pairs of houses that were on Church Street east of Latymer Road are still standing (picture right) though the back garden of that lining the road has been truncated to make room for a medical practice. I believe this may date from the 1970s though I could be making that up. 

The surgery (number 2a) is now followed by numbers 2 and 4 which are a pair of semi-detached houses in the same design of those lining the road north of Salmon's Brook.  There is then number 4a, a one-off oddity with something of a mock-Tudor look to parts of the frontage. Number 6 is another one-off and abuts two late C19 houses which will be those shown on the 1894 map. Number 6 also carries the name Eastdene but I don't know if there is any real history to that.

The photo on the left gives a slightly better view of numbers 4a and 6 and the pair of older houses which have plaques on the front on the bays naming them Percy Villas. Next to these two houses another one-off house has been shoe-horned in and there is then another terrace of seven late C19 houses, exactly as shown on the 1894 map.

Over on the west side of the road there stood six pairs of houses lining Church Street but these were demolished in the 1960s (presumably they were similar to the remaining two pairs shown earlier). The corner plot is now an RSPCA centre and then there is the entrance to the 1970s built Wyldfield Gardens (I am struggling with the justification for "Gardens"!).  The 1894 map shows a couple of largely empty plots and then a single detached house and more empty plots before Cyprus Road. Today they are two pairs of semi-detached houses that I wouldn't care to date (I tend towards early 1970s) and then there is an older building.

This older building is the detached house shown on the 1894 map and it still carries the name Cromwell House. It is followed by a pair of houses which I initially thought were pre-Great War but I am now minded to say they are likely to be 1920s (especially since an 86 year old lady remembers them appearing!). There is then Cypress Road (centre photo). Apparently back in the 1920s the Mayor of Edmonton lived in the first house of the left. The modern houses seen at the end of Cyprus Road are on Streamside Close which is a 1990s (?) development leading down to and alongside the brook.

The other corner of Cyprus Road has a rather impressive looking house which I know very little about unfortunately. It is definitely one of those "where did that spring from?" buildings you find dotted around. I feel sure I once read something about in the local rags but I have no idea what. I was tending towards thinking it was a 1930s building as the colour of the bricks and the look of the windows reminds me of some of the schools built around that time. However it doesn't trigger any memories in a former resident so the chances are it could be later, perhaps even much later.

The above was probably written a little after the photo was taken in December 2003. At the end of March 2015 a photo captioned 'Queens Nursing Association, Edmonton' appeared on a Facebook group and it was this building. The building appears on the 1935 O.S. Map but doesn't seem to be on the 1920 one so it seems the dating of the building probably was pretty reasonable and the 'former resident' just didn't remember it. Between those two dates Bury House was replaced by Cambridge Terrace and that was the home of a Nursing Institute. Would it be adding two and two to make five to link the two?

Having mentioned Cyprus Road, it is worth a quick look in itself. The first house on the left seems a bit of a mix with the right hand side looking very turn of the 19th/20th Century but the left hand side looking newer. I didn't check if the bit to the back on the left side is connected or a separate property but it was suggested that the mayor of Edmonton once lived on this site and the house had grounds going back some way and looping round back onto Latymer Road. I seem to remember seeing the name Norton on this house in the foreground of the photo.

I somehow contrived to miss getting a proper photo of the next house along so I may need another look but it looks like it may be relatively modern by the wood panelling (they seemed to be into that in the late 60s and 70s). The next one then seems to have a 1930s sort of origin and then number 10 is called Kenwood House and is a block of 12 flats. There was once a house called Kenwood in this road so maybe we can link the names together.

Kenwood House is followed by some 1930s looking properties and then number 24 at the very end is Edmonton Community Day Nursery and I couldn't really date that. Opposite it is the start of the Streamside Close development which leads up to Salmon's Brook. The photo shows about half the length of the road.

Looking at the 1902 directory, the only properties mentioned are Cyprus House, The Meadows, Belmont, Westleigh and The Hawthorns, followed by Lyme Villas. The photos show that apart from number 1b at the east end (the post code database has 1 to 24 and 1a but not 1b), all the houses here look pretty old and I certainly remember seeing Belmont and Westleigh on two of the properties (but I can't remember which two!). Again I can't remember if there were any more houses to the left of those shown in the photo on the left which themselves are interesting because they seem to combine some of the older styling of the pair next to them with slightly cleaner looking 1920s/30s features. For example the bays look 1930s but the roof looks much fussier and older (not that I know what I am talking about!).

Back over on the east side of Latymer Road itself and it seems that there are at least four older houses to look out for as the 1902 directory follows the nine numbered properties with Fenella, Bloomendaal, Barton Villa and Lionel Villa. As it happens, there are indeed two pairs of older semi-detached houses still present in the road though I couldn't see any sign of any name plates or anything remaining.

The photos above show the end of the terrace of seven houses mentioned earlier, another one-off house jammed into a free space at some stage, and then two semi-detached houses of a unique style for the road. These remind me of some of the housing stock in Winchester Road which I believe was turn of the Century (19th to 20th!) or Edwardian.

The semi-detached houses are shown again in the above (right). There is then another pair of 1930s houses of the same style as number 2 and 4 and then numbers 40 and 42 which seems to me to date from the 1895 to 1910 period. This last pair lie just beyond the junction with Cyprus Road so seem likely to mark the extent of the original Latymer Road. Number 42 was being extended in late 2003 and I was quite impressed to see that on the corners they had made the effort to pick up the brick detailing of the houses next to it.

My memory of the houses running up to the junction with St Joan's Road (which crosses the road) was that they are semi-detached properties with two storey curved bay windows but the photo on the left above shows that they aren't :)  Oopsy! The frontage of the houses on the west side of St Joan's Road (right) does look like it might be similar but these have distinctive attic rooms and I don't think I've seen anything like that elsewhere in Lower Edmonton.

The east side of St Joan's Road, which runs to Church Lane, and the terraces leading up to Salmon's Brook on both sides of Latymer Road share a common style and can be seen (just about) in the photo (above left). Notable features are top storey bays for the master and third bedrooms (I assume - I've never seen inside one), some brick ornamentation at eaves level between houses, and the exposed brick decoration on the ends. This brick decoration also features on the semis mentioned previously so it looks like we can probably group them together as part of the same development.

The photos in the centre shows the entrance to Churchfield School (which runs behind the houses off to the right, and yes it really is singular despite most reference to the area being as Churchfields). Salmon's Brook enters a culvert about thirty yards back from the road here (behind the railings in the centre of the photo).

The photo on the right then shows the start of the terraces of houses that line the road for the remainder of its length.  As mentioned previously, a couple of pairs of houses in this style sneaked in further back down the road. Compared with the terraces previously mentioned, these just have a single upstairs bay windows with the third bedroom window on brackets like a triangle and do not have the exposed brickwork.

The end of Marlborough Road, leading to Winchester Road, can be seen in the earlier photo and this has a two bedroom variant of the housing. This has a single picture window for the master bedroom, no upstairs bay, and a plain roof line. The back also doesn't have the double storey bay the larger houses have. These smaller houses are also featured in Stowe Gardens which is the cul-de-sac shown in the photo on the right with the rear of houses in Winchester Road in the background. Just past Stowe Gardens the road bends to the left to head off in a north-westerly direction.

I believe it is only the two small side roads that have the smaller houses as the next cul-de-sac up, Malvern Terrace (photo left), has the larger terraces and these also seem to feature in Lancing Gardens, Rugby Avenue (which runs from Lancing Gardens to Harrow Drive parallel to Latymer Road) and Harrow Drive. There is also a terrace of them on Winchester Road next to the junction with Lancing Gardens. I haven't checked on the housing stock on Darley Road and Tranmere Road which lie between Harrow Drive and Bury Street.

Winchester Road

The Church Street page illustrates the area near the junction with Church Street featuring Beechwood Mews on the east side and a green space with a seat on the west side. This is followed by a parade of shops at the south end running up to Lichfield Road and this actually has the address Market Parade. It is quite an interesting looking building when you look above street level and the design of the top storey windows reflects that of the first floor of terraces much further up the street.

On the east side Beechwood Mews is followed by Lambs Close which looks like it probably dates from the 1930s and something about the look of the front wall suggests that perhaps it was once a small cul de sac.

I left it rather too long between taking photos and writing this text and have lost track of what photo is what but I believe the first photo illustrates the housing stock that lines both sides of the road up to Salmon's Brook (which is actually culverted so you just see a footpath). I believe it is the east side around Durham Road. Lichfield Road (centre photo) has a terrace of different style housing on the south side which is more like that much further up the street. I am not sure what point I was making with the photo (right) of Wimborne Road with Church Lane in the background. Maybe something about the rooflines.

North of Salmon's Brook there was clearly once a big gap left before the older housing started and this was later filled with semi-detached houses. Those on the west side are like the 1930s Latymer Estate housing (two bedroom style I think, offhand). On the east side (photo left) there is a pair that doesn't seem to match anything else around and the photo also shows the style of housing changes to one with an extra window above the door, but still rather like that south of the brook. This style is repeated on the west side and continues until the road bends to the left (I think that is just one terrace each side).

The housing changes again in the run up to Glastonbury and Marlborough Roads. On the west side you can see the top floor windows protrude just as they did on Market Parade (sorry, I have no idea on the architectural terminology!), and on the right hand side there two short terraces (centre left) of a style seen in other places around town (e.g. south end of St Edmund's Road).

The next two photos show the shops on the east side of the road around the Glastonbury Road junction. Number 138 was converted to residential use from a shop around 1990, give or take a few years. I seem to remember that before conversion it was a dry cleaners or a launderette. The vacant site next to number 136 had been a car wash for a number of years but was in fact trading illegally as there was only planning permission for housing. For many years before that there was a petrol station here. As of March 2004 it was boarded up and it appeared construction work is underway. There had been rumours of a small block of flats being built.

Number 128 on the other side of the road is an interesting building as it is different to anything else around. The lack of a number 130 and 132, which would have been where Glastonbury Road is, makes one wonder if it was once a wider building or at least one intended to be wider. When you look at it from the side the front half, with its precarious looking chimney stack, supports that theory. On the other hand the back half presents itself on the road well and doesn't look like it was meant to be hidden away. The theory also isn't helped by the house next to it being number 120!  Number 128 was an off-licence (though not exclusively) for many years but closed down in 2003. It seems there were plans for some kind of eaterie with takeaway service downstairs and sit down upstairs but in fact what we got is Hilal's unisex hairdresser (this has since changed name)!

I don't have a photo of the filling station but 'Ron' sent me a photo of an earlier garage on the site. Winchester Garage was run by Ben Mason and Fred Rice and specialised in Daimler and Lanchester spares. Ron's dad is filling his car in the photo and Ron suggests the other man is named something like Feakin. The owners moved on to open a garage called 'Masons' in Balfour Mews c. 1967.

The suspicions about the plot on the corner of Glastonbury Road being turned into flats were proved accurate as that is exactly what started shooting up above the hoardings in June and the end result was quite pleasing as there was some attempt to pick out the architectural styles in the surrounding houses.

North of the junction with Glastonbury and Marlborough Roads the housing stock on both sides continues with that previously mentioned south of Marlborough Road. On the west side (photo left) this quickly gives way to a different style (centre left) running all the way to Lancing Gardens, but on the east side it continues almost to the junction with Chichester Road where the Rising Sun pub occupies the corner site. There is one house in a differing style just before the pub which seems to have rather a high roof, not unlike that of the pub itself.

On the west side things change after the junction with Lancing Gardens where a terrace of Latymer Estate style housing escapes onto the road and beyond that there are some much largers houses running across Harrow Drive into Bury Street (photos right).

Chichester Road

Chichester Road starts at the south end with a junction with Durham Road and Ruskin Walk. Ruskin Walk (left) leads to Lion Road but there are barriers across the road. On the south side is a terrace of small rather boxy houses, behind which is Redford Lodge, and on the north side a small block of flats. Both have that 1960s/70s look which is heavy on the weatherboard. The west side of Chichester Road then continues with the same style of housing as Winchester Road (and Durham Road) as far as the brook. As with Winchester Road a different style of housing fills the plot immediately north of this point which I am not sure I can date, and then there is a bungalow and then a much more modern looking block (photo centre right). There is then a terrace of 1930s looking houses and then a small block of flats on the corner with Glastonbury Road which dates from something like the late 1980s or early 1990s (right).

Back over on the east side of the road the site between the road and the railway running up to Salmon's Brook (under a footpath remember) was once a tobacco factory. I remember it as the London Tobacco Company but it seems to have changed name and owner a few times. It is now a housing estate dating from something like the late 1980s and named Milestone Close. This is an interesting choice of name. I am wondering if it acknowledges the milestone that was in Church Street not to far away and Milestone Alley which was an old name for the first bit of modern Victoria Road. It would have been more interesting to name it after Oates Alley which once ran diagonally across this site and was part of a footpath that used to link Church Street to Bury Street via the railway bridge and what is now Junction Road.

This time the housing immediately north of the brook doesn't look like it came along later and seems to be a variation of the housing back on the west side with the extra window above the door. This is followed by a number of bungalows running up to the Glastonbury Road junction.

North of Glastonbury Road the housing in the east side (right) has something of a late 1920s or 1930s look about it (and matches that on the other side of the junction on the west side), while that on the west side (left) has a much different style with the interesting top floor roofline.

Chichester Road turns abruptly west at the northern end to link up with Winchester Road. On the east side here there would once have been a level crossing as it was the original line of Bury Street until the railway overbridge came along and in this area the uniform style of the housing gives way to a bit of an assortment.