Turkey Brook - Enfield Wash

Turkey Brook
Turkey Brook continues to flow eastwards. It is also known as Maiden Brook.

Suburban area along the main Hertford Road by passing Enfield Town

Post to the west Maiden's Bridge
Post to the east Enfield Lock



Almshouse Lane
Ann Crowe’s almshouses. Re-built by Bowles of Myddleton House

A group of four from 1893. They originated from a terrace of four houses built for Sir Robert Clayton in 1676 to house poor people. They were later to sold to Thomas Crowe, and were named for his wife who left money to support them.  Originally these almshouses stood well back from Turkey Street and Almshouse Lane itself has been built on the land which was once theirs. Part of the re-aligned site was donated by Bowles. An inscription on them refers to an earlier reuilding by Charles Wright. They are now managed by the Old Enfield Charitable Trust were reopened by Tim Eggar, then MP for Enfield North in 1984. The bungalows have central heating, communal rear gardens with each having a living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.
Connop Road
The Connop family owned large estates in Enfield, auctioned in 1869.
Albany Park. The park was opened in 1902, laid out on old farmland and allotments by Enfield UDC and bought by Trinity College Cambridge. There were later additions including grants from the King George's Fields Foundation. It was on the area of College Farm, and the farmhouse remains behind the leisure centre

Bell Lane
Albany School opened by Middlesex County Council in 1939 with separate boys' and girls' schools on the same site. It became a secondary modern school in 1939 and a comprehensive in 1974. It closed in 2009.
Oasis Academy Hadley run by Oasis Community Learning and opened in 2009 in the buildings of Albany School. It is named after mathematician John Hadley who lived in Enfield.
Sure Choice Nursery
Albany Children’s Centre

Eastfield Road
Local authority housing built here in the 1920s – cottage style with rough cast exteriors. Low cost.
Guernsey House - Tower block built by London Borough of Enfield in the late 1960s.
Eastfield Primary School. This was opened in 1909 as a separate girls and boys elementary school.  The site had previously been a nursery and greenhouses.  In 1912 it became a mixed Infants and Junior School and in 1987 became into Eastfield Primary School. It suffered bombings during the Second World War.

Enfield Highway
The area known as 'Enfield Highway is roughly located either side of Hertford Road between Hoe Lane and The Ride.  In the 16th and earlier this area was known as Cocksmith’s End, where the Hunsdon family were major landowners.

Enfield Wash
Enfield Wash is named as this in 1675 and means–‘a place that floods’; there was probably a ford here where Ermine Street crosses Turkey Brook. The road, and the settlement, was known as '‘Horsepoolstones’ until the 18th. Turkey Brook is also known as Maiden Brook and sometimes Wash Brook.

Hertford Road
Ermine Street. The Roman Road crossed the Turkey/Maiden Brook here via a ford. It is now part of the A1010 which now runs from Tottenham to Waltham Cross. It is part of the old route of the Hertford Road which ran from Bishops gate through the Lea Valley to Hertford. It is thought to follow the line Roman Ermine Street which went from London to Lincoln but runs to the east of it in this area. As a main route north this was maintained at the expense of the parish from the middle ages, something which became increasingly difficult to undertake. It was thus one of the earliest roads to be turned into a turnpike trust in the mid 18thAs a main route it is now bypassed by the new motorway-standard A10. The northern part of this stretch of road is Enfield Wash, the southern part Enfield Highway.
Woolpack Bridge. There was a footbridge at Enfield Wash since the 17th but it was not until 1821 that a proper bridge for carts was provided by the Turnpike Trust.
442 – 446 Dharma Mandir, Hindu centre
505 Albany Pool and Leisure Centre. Site of College Farm. Behind the pool is the farmhouse which was used as an overnight stop for cattle being driven to London Markets. It now belongs to Enfield Council.
510 Club X Zone. This pub, now closed, was also known as  'Bar FM', 'Bell', 'Hotshots', 'Chimes', 'Texas Cantina', etc. A former Whitbread house that became head office of the Old English Pub Co. It was originally The Bell, or the Bull and Bell.  The pub dates from at least the 17th when it was purchased by the parish with a charitable bequest and the rent used to buy bread for the poor. The current building is 19th in ‘railway hotel’ style, and is listed.
561-563 Barclays Bank. Used as an off licence for a time. Built in 1899
588 Prince of Wales. Latterly called The Entertainer and now in other use.
612 Midland Bank, now HSBC built 1903
640 Sun and Woolpack. The pub was there by the mid 18th and served travellers on the Hertford Road. Once called the Sun and Punchbowl.
Mother Well’s house was opposite the Sun and Woolpack. This was the site of a 18th scandal about a missing girl and much perjury
645 Ordnance Road Library. Designed 1976 by the Borough Architect. N. C. Dowellis open-plan ground floor, which wraps round a taller area.
651 19th house in brick
652 Enfield Highway Conservative Club
654-658 Unity Co-op Superstore. Opened 1976 by the Enfield Highway Co-operative Society
Premier Cinema opened in 1921 on the corner of Eastfield Road by local builder W. Grenfell. It closed as a cinema in 1961, became a bingo club and closed in 1985. It was demolished but there is a colourful mural to remind people.

Meadway
Built by the Enfield Highway Co-operative Society as part of their Unity Estate

Ordnance Road
69 The Ordnance, Built in the 1970s pub and originally called The Barnyard. Closed in 2008.
Kettering Hall. Used by a variety of community groups including the Church of Antioch and one of these ‘free’ schools.
Methodist Church. This was an ‘iron church, ‘In 1879 replaced by a brick chapel and schoolroom in 1904. The current red-brick church, was opened in 1957 and the order church is now the church hall.

Totteridge Road
Totterridge Road Baptist church. Built 1871 with coloured decorative brickwork. A large and dramatic building in among small terraces. Church hall attached

Turkey Street
The meaning is uncertain. It was not called ‘Turkey’ as such until the 19th. The earliest spelling is ‘Tokestrete’ in 1441. ‘Street’ of course probably refers to the Roman road. It was a hamlet along the Turkey Brook.  From the 1850s cottages were built on the east side of the main road.  The station, when it was built, served half dozen cottages & an inn. 
Turkey Brook runs alongside the road and footbridges lead across it to housing and side roads
Turkey Street Station. Opened in 1891 and now stands between Theobald’s Grove and Southbury on One Railway on what is now called ‘Southbury Loop’. It was originally built by the Great Eastern Railway on what was known as the ‘Churchbury Loop’, it was called ‘Forty Hall’.  It was built in red brick, with two street level buildings, covered stairways to the platforms and a very prominent chimney from the station masters office.  The station is builr in a slope and the ticket office is on an embankment with a serving hatch. A field subway led to the stairs up the Cheshunt bound platform, and this tunnel remains. In addition a footbridge passed over the Turkey Brook to the Cheshunt bound platform and this was later used by the shop now in the old station buildings, the entrance to the station area had a large iron gate since bricked up. In 1909 it closed because of competition from the trams and reopened in 1915 for munitions workers, but in 1919 it was again closed. It then became a house called Roselands, but the name 'Forty Hill' could still be seen on a down side window.  In 1960 it was reopened as a station following electrification of the line and a short section of canopy was erected on the platforms, and supported by ironwork which was reputedly salvaged from Stratford Market station. In 1967 the original platform buildings were demolished and replaced by brick shelters although the original down side street level entrance is still there and used as a shop. 
The goods yard was on the up side, at the country end and was in use until 1966 when it became a scrap yard.
13 The Turkey


Unity Way
Part of Unity Estate built by the Enfield Highway Co-operative Society

Sources
Pevsner and Cherry London North
Field Place Names of London
Stevenson Middlesex
Walford Village London
London Railway Record. Articles.
London Borough of Enfield. web site
Oasis Academy Hadley web site
Eastfield Primary School web site
Cinema Treasures web site

Comments

Stephen said…
Albany School became a comprehensive before 1974. I left the school in 1973 and it was a comprehensive whilst I was there. I would estimate it became a comprehensive in the 1960s.
Unknown said…
Do you have any information on Cedrus House which was on Turkey Street? Would love to find out more about it.
Emma
JohnCNZ said…
"The Ordnance" stood on the site of an earlier pub called "The Alma". If I remember rightly, this featured a cast-iron and glass colonnade running down one side.
JohnCNZ said…
It would be worth giving a mention to "The Plough"inn, a familiar and well-loved landmark, which stood near the corner of Turkey Street and what is now the Great Cambridge Road. Acquired by an unscrupulous firm of developers, it was demolished in 2002, shortly before it was due to acquire listed building status.
Anonymous said…
Sadly blog riddled with errors with unchecked statements. Poor research. A lot just copied verbatim from other unchecked sources. Example: Hertford Road - Ermine Street. The current A1010 Hertford Road through Enfield and High Street through Ponders End was NEVER part of a Roman Road. Ermine Street ran to the west of the A1010 and crossed the A10 Great Cambridge Road just south of Lincoln Road. It did actually cross the Brook but at a place much further to the west not at the Woolpack bridge. Similarly the Co-op Unity Buildings date back to the 1920s. Turkey Street station was Forty Hill (not Hall.)
Enfield Researcher
M said…
Happy to accept a lot of this is done quite quickly with limited resources. Would be delighted to get corrections from people who know their areas better than I ever will. I always hoped to get solid stuff in - so please carry on. And Enfield has some good people working on it - please continue to correct and criticise
JohnCNZ said…
The Ordnance Road Library site has had a varied history. When I first lived in the area (the mid-1950s) it was occupied by the warehouse of Linscotts seed merchants, who also ran a pet shop on the opposite corner. To keep down the inevitable rats and mice, the warehouse had a small population of half-wild cats which I was advised not to attempt petting.

Linscott's either went out of business or moved elsewhere around 1960, and the site then became a block of low-rise flats. Strange that these seem to have lasted only a relatively short time before coming down to be replaced by the library. Perhaps the corner had become too noisy for residential use.
Danny Cordt said…
Linscotts didn't go out of business they must have downsized.They had the shop on the corner of Ordnance Road well into the 80s. My dad had his first job after leaving school there in the 60s

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