History
Edmonton's population grew with the opening of the high level railway at Edmonton Green station in 1872. The traffic produced by the railway and by a tramway opened by the North London Tramways Company in 1881, brought a working class population to Lower Edmonton and encouraged housing development and the development of Edmonton Green's outdoor market. This had always been the major centre for the village, but by the early 20th century its character had changed to a busy, raucous Cockney centre, alive with costermongers barrows and food stalls, the venue for travelling circuses and fairs. On several occasions the local council tried unsuccessfully to close down the market .
By the 1930s the area had become a major shopping destination drawing visitors from a wide catchment area. The early post war years saw much of the area in a run down state. There was also an acute housing shortage. Comprehensive redevelopment of the area was agreed in 1960, to a plan by Frederick Gibberd & Partners for a radically transformed urban centre with a pedestrian shopping area, car parking for 3000, 750 flats including three tower blocks and new civic and amenity buildings to replace the old town hall and baths. When Edmonton was incorporated within the new London Borough of Enfield (1965) plans for the civic buildings were abandoned. Only the leisure centre (demolished 2007) set in a car park was completed. Building began on the redevelopment in 1965 and completed in 1974.
The crenellated perpendicular Edmonton Town Hall was built in 1884 to the designs of George Eedes Eachus. The building was enlarged in 1902-3 by W. Gilbee Scott, who added public swimming baths. The baths were replaced by the Edmonton Green Swimming Pool in 1970. The Town Hall was demolished in 1989.
Read more about this topic: Edmonton Green Shopping Centre
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.”
—Malcolm Bradbury (b. 1932)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)