Part 2: The high road

A look at the local shops on the high road (Hertford Road and Fore Street) away from The Green.

Continued from page 1

Hertford Road (local shops)

Having covered the lost shops at the south of the Hertford Road, which could arguably be considered as part of the main shopping centre of Edmonton, there is the rest of the Hertford Road up to the boundary to consider where there are lots of parades of "local shops".

It is perhaps a lot to read into the presence of absence of shops with certain numbers but my feeling is that, apart from the east side of the road between Forest Road and Tramway Avenue where I can only think of number 392 as a survivor, the architecture is pretty much as it was back in 1937. The only other obvious difference is the 329 – 337 is now a petrol station and I can remember that appearing so that is probably a 1970s alteration. I am also inferring that the parades either side of "the bottom of Galliard Road" and from Cleveland Road to Ripon Road were probably brand new and hence not fully occupied.

The area north of Forest Road leading up to Tudor Road dates back to the 1970s I think, though it could be a little earlier and may have been a vacant site for a while before that. There is a decent sized parade of shops there now where I believe it was probably a residential terrace in 1937, but it can be seen that in the area just to the south there were once even more.

The directory shows the London Co-Op with the address "Maton Hall, Hertford Road". Carole Jones on the message board tells me this was on the corner of the Hertford Road and Bury Street so it is the building that I have always assumed was St Michael's church hall (it may well have been once for all I know). Had I pronounced it properly my mum would have told me that ages ago ;-) These days Tom Clay's is number 171 but that building was also used by the Co-Op and the number 171 also seems to cover the hall and one or two other premises (perhaps out the back).

Fore Street

The west side of Fore Street from bridge Road down to Park Road does seem to be substantially unchanged since 1937. I have batched the entries below in groups reflecting different terraces and logical (to me) groupings.

I don't know where number 323 is now, unless it is down an alley somewhere (not impossible as there was once a farrier trading at the address), and similarly I am not aware of a modern number 289. 273 is Argos now but the building may well be a later replacement. 279-281 is the Enfield Foyer (old M.K. Electric offices) which is a c. 1980s building and probably replaced two of the detached houses as found on either side.

Between the Horse & Groom and The Steps pubs there are now the Mercedes Benz showrooms (which has changed hands a few times over the years and has been a petrol station too), the Community Mental Health Centre and Faith House with Community House behind it. The directory offers the electric company at 305 and Edmonton Day Nursery in this space at number 311 (which is used for Community House now) which is probably all there was as I believe the Day Nursery was converted from an old town house so there isn't much space umaccounted for.

I have only found one entry in the 365 – 373 terrace (that's the first of the three big terraces that lead up to Bridge Road) which makes me wonder if perhaps that terrace is later than I thought, though I should say 373 covers the three of the seven shops in the terrace.

As a complete contrast from the west side, the east side has long since been almost completely demolished and redeveloped. Fortunately I can provide some anchors to help make sense of things. The Town Hall was on the corner of Knight's Lane and Fore Street and next to this was, by the 1960s, another building whose function I can't recall and then a terrace of shops that I know started with 472 and went at least as far as 466 because of a photo of the area. As the Metropolitan Police station occupying this area now has the number 462 I speculated that this terrace ended with number 462 on the corner with Plevna Road. I speculated wrong though as checking a 1902 directory reveals Plevna Road between 454 and 452 ;-)

Further down the road there is a junction with Osman Road which occurs between numbers 408 and 414. The 1902 directory shows the same jump in numbering. I have seen a photo showing that number 408 was definitely a corner plot. Sebastopol Road is easy to anchor as the Albion pub was on the north side of the junction.

The police station at number 320 is still there, albeit as 1 Station Mews, and the Methodist Church is number 300. Brettenham Road has moved over the years so I can't say where it was in 1937 but I'll assume it was in the old location. The last point I use as a reference is number 262 which is now Lobo Fisheries fishmonger just south of the modern estate.

I have presented the shops as two columns for either side of the road but as with the others they are meant to be read vertically and not horizontally.

Just to help you relate to the above...

• 271 – 287 covers the Golden Fleece, Argos (273) and the five converted detached houses either side of the Enfield Foyer.
• 325 – 335 covers Recorder/Teleradio, a cafe (a handicrafts shop for many years), the Bottle & Basket off-licence, Hin Loon (is that a restaurant?) and Locke's motor cycle dealers.
• 353 and 355 are now the double glazing company, the electrical wholesalers and a play centre thing all in the old 1903 building, and the dry cleaners next door. 353 was once known as Shrubbery House.
• 361 and 363 are the Kimiz restaurant tacked on the side of the T.F.C. supermarket thingy (once the House Of Holland).
• 365 – 373 is the terrace with Cafe Mimoza, the Big Man's Shop, Hamilton's estate agents, a hairdressers, Roshan Tandoori, the Global Car Service and the Oriental Chef.
• 375 – 385 starts with the Thames Bookmakers and then the remainder of the terrace is now the Akin Supermarket. It is also called Salisbury Mansions and the flats above apparently still use that as their address.
• 387 – 405 is the last terrace with Studio Fore, AKSU Restaurant, Rise Up Fashion, ATS Carpets, Oz Gulizar Market, a newsagent, ATS Carpets in a double fronted shop, World Dial, and then the Texas Fried Chicken.

...as of January 2003. Recorder closed later in the year and the corner plot of Shrubbery House has changed to a hairdressers.

Fred Wade's shop later extended into number 401 on two storeys with mens wear and ladies wear and school wear. Rambotham's became a sports shop and opened up an additional shop as Edmonton Green Sports when the North Mall was built. Recorder is now just a single shop and also has Teleradio on the sign and still does sell assorted electronic sorts of things. Teleradio had a couple of shops elsewhere in 1937 and later there was a shop called Teleradio Supplies in one of the terraces nearer The Green (I forget which one).

I can't really add too much to the east side. There is a big gap between 262 (which is now Lobo fisheries) and 300 and back in 1937 the first part of that would have been accounted for by St Mary's Church. Brettenham Road would have been right next to it (it wasn't straightened until the 1970s) and that would have represented the boundary between Upper and Lower Edmonton. The directory does list a decorator, a plumber and a doctor in the addresses up to the Methodist Church but those sound like the sort of trades one could carry out from largely residential properties (there were certainly ten houses there, grouped as two, two, three and three goinf north).

Fore Street doesn't seem to have been numbered until the turn of the 19th Century. Comparing a couple of old directories and looking on the map for appropriately sized terraces, I can confidently suggest the following...

• Commercial Terrace is 325 – 335 Fore Street
• Frederick Terrace is 352 – 376 Fore Street
• North Place is 378 – 408 Fore Street

The stretch from Osman Road to Plevna Road just seems to be referred to as Lower Fore Street with no extra naming.