About the site

Why the site?

The domain names for many towns were registered in bulk by companies who used them for pathetic sites based on standard templates and often provided little or no local information at all. I considered this an insult to those places and I decided to save lower-edmonton.co.uk from the same fate.

What is it about?

This site is about Lower Edmonton, a Middlesex town in the northern suburbs of London. I used my own definition of Lower Edmonton and I generally stuck to it but I occasionally strayed across the borders if I felt it was appropriate. Observant readers may notice that being appropriate had a tendency to coincide with my having a photo to add to the site.

I never had a great master plan for this site and it tended to be driven by my coming across new snippets of information or having some more photographs to include. I am aware that the site probably dwells more on the past than the present and might have less appeal for younger readers unless they have some interest in the history. Sorry about that but it is what it is.

Why Lower Edmonton and not all of Edmonton?

There are two main reasons:

1. Lower Edmonton and Upper Edmonton (which together form modern day Edmonton) are two different towns.
2. I don't feel I can do Upper Edmonton justice on a web site.

To expand on the first reason, it may seem very pedantic but I used to have a thing about referring to Lower Edmonton rather than just Edmonton (I am more relaxed about it now I no longer live there). It bugged me that the Post Office, or whatever they are called this week, had just Edmonton in the full postal address when they themselves have two postal areas - N9 for Lower Edmonton and N18 for Upper Edmonton - and indeed have probably defined it as a place in some ways. Historically Edmonton is a parish and as well as Lower Edmonton and Upper Edmonton and some smaller settlements, it actually included Winchmore Hill, Palmers Green and Southgate until 1881. Parts of Bush Hill Park were also in Edmonton and came under the Edmonton Urban District Council and municipal borough which lasted until the 1960s. So lumping just Lower Edmonton and Upper Edmonton together under the Edmonton brand isn't as straight forward as it may seem. As someone from Lower Edmonton I don't feel any particular tie to Upper Edmonton at all. It is just one of the adjoining towns like Ponders End or Winchmore Hill.

You hardly hear the name used these days. You still hear Upper Edmonton referred to but Lower Edmonton seems to be ignored. Edmonton Green is mentioned but you would barely know it was part of Lower Edmonton. And don't get me started on Lower Edmonton station being renamed Edmonton Green after only 100 years or so under the old name? Why? To help promote Edmonton Green Shopping Centre it seems. Did they consider making it a nicer place or encourage some decent shops? No they just stuck some flag poles up outside and renamed the train station.

It is interesting to note that Winchmore Hill and Palmers Green seem to have their own identities though they were part of Southgate and before that they were all part of Edmonton. Yet Edmonton remains as the name used for the smaller area at the expense of its constituent parts.

I should note that on the older maps I have seen (pre-19th century) it is often the case that Lower Edmonton isn't referred to by name. Rather it often seems to be left nameless as the obvious major settlement in the parish while the much smaller Upper Edmonton and Bury Street are clearly identified. Maybe 'Lower' is a relatively late addition to the name or an invention of map makers or administrators. I defer to those who are better informed.

Having said all that it is often easier to say 'Edmonton' than 'Lower Edmonton' and, whisper it quietly, I have even been known to concede it is part of 'Enfield' now. Curiously though I do generally call it 'London' and not 'Middlesex', but thats another story.

Images and links

I have collected photographs and scans from various sources so if I have been naughty with copyright then I apologise and I will add or amend credits and acknowledgements or remove offending material on request from the copyright holder. Generally I have tried to take my own (usually inferior) photographs rather than reproducing other contemporary images.

The last time I checked there were over 1300 images on the site and around 1100 of them were my own photos. The figures are unlikely to have changed significantly, of at all. If you wish to use any of my images on 'not for profit' web sites then please ask my permission first as I'd like to know where they are (if my photos are useful to you then perhaps your site is of interest to me). It seems unlikely that I would say no provided that you acknowledge my copyright and make local copies of the photos rather than link to them but I do reserve the right. Any other form of publication would need more discussion. I would ask you to bear in mind that the majority of my photos on the site have been reduced in size from 1280x960 pixels or greater and that there has also been a deliberate reduction in quality to reduce file sizes (that is why photos of things like buses look so blotchy). You might wish to consider asking for the originals and working with those instead.

If you wish to link to this site then again I would appreciate knowing about it as you may have a site of interest to me. For many years I had to work around the limitations of my website hosting which meant I had to redirect http://lower-edmonton.co.uk/ to a URL in my shared hosting and I had to recommend linking to that URL. With a change of hosting provider on 2013 that is no longer necessary and the site can be presented on its own URL. You may link to other pages if you so wish, although I wouldn't really encourage it as I offer no guarantees that I will not remove, rename or drastically alter the pages at any time.

Apparently I once introduced a Fotopic gallery to support this site at the URL http://fotopic.lower-edmonton.co.uk/ in order to allow me more flexibility in presenting images at larger sizes and with less compression without worrying about the bandwidth usage (which is less of an issue these days) and noted that it was arguably a better tool for the job. Well Fotopic bit the dust in 2011 so that wasn't a great idea. I'll have to see what, if anything, I put on Fotopic as I'd forgotten about it.

Browsers, HTML etc

This site uses HTML 4.01 Transitional, CSS2 and JavaScript but nothing too exotic so it should work fine in any modern standards based browser. It was really only the historical use of the <iframe> element to keep adverts under control and some occasional use with Google Maps, that is a real stopper as far as using 4.01 Strict is concerned (quality, consistent support for the <object> element that I could have used instead never really happened). I actually write to 4.01 Strict as much as I can, it is the DOCTYPE that is Transitional.

To cut a long story short I now mainly use the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Google Chrome on Windows so that is what the site gets tested on. The site design never was particularly complex and I have revamped it in late 2011 to make it even simpler. It should be quite sympathetic to mobile devices.

I don't use any cookies on the site myself but there will be cookies from various third party services used on the site. They are covered more by the privacy page.

Suggestions, corrections and additions

Suggestions, corrections, additions etc are welcomed either via the message board where others can see them and add their supports and comments, or they can be sent via e-mail (link at the bottom of each page).