is a area in the eastern part of the
London Borough Of Enfield . Often refered to as the town of Edmonton, locals consider it quite seperate from Enfield and for locals Enfield refers to Enfield Town.
Edmonton is 8.6 miles (13.8 km) north-north-east of
Charing Cross and stretches from just south of the
North Circular Road in the south to just past Edmonton Green in the north and from the Great Cambridge Road in the west to the
River Lea in the east.
Edmonton comprises Upper Edmonton to the south and Lower Edmonton to the north. The Member of Parliament for
Edmonton is
Andy Love (Labour), who polled 18,456 votes (53.2%) at the
General Election held on 5 May 2005. The main shopping centre in Edmonton is at Edmonton Green, the second largest is at the Angel, Edmonton which is a high street.
Pymmes Park with its historic walled garden is Upper Edmonton's park.
Pymmes Park originated as a private estate. In the late 16th century it was owned by the powerful Cecil family. In 1589
Robert Cecil , later 1st
Earl Of Salisbury , spent his honeymoon at Pymmes. The estate was eventually acquired by Edmonton Council and opened as a public park in 1906. Pymmes House was destroyed by fire during World War II and the remains were demolished.
Robert Cecil was a protege of Francis Walsingham,
Elizabeth I's chief spymaster and he succeeded him as
Secretary Of State in 1590.
The historic All Saints' Church is situated in Church Street as is Lamb's Cottage, which was home to writers
Charles Lamb and
Mary Lamb .
The railway arrived in 1840 with the opening of the first section of the Lea Valley Line from
Stratford to Broxbourne. A station was provided in
Water Lane (Angel Road) . As the station was badly sited and the trains were slow and expensive, few people used the railway in the early days, preferring the horse buses. In 1845 there were buses every 15 minutes along Fore Street, travelling alternately to
Bishopsgate and
Holborn .
The single-track line from a junction just north of
Angel Road to
Enfield Town opened on 1 March 1849, with an intermediate single-platform station at Lower Edmonton, located at the edge of the village green. The service was infrequent and often required a change of train at the junction. This, coupled with the train taking the long way round through Stratford to get to the terminus at Bishopsgate, meant that the railway offered little competition to the existing horse coaches and buses.
The direct line from London to Enfield Town was opened in four stages, from Bethnal Green to Stoke Newington on 27 May 1872; from Stoke Newington through to Lower Edmonton High Level on 22 July 1872, with stations in Edmonton at
Silver Street and a new High Level station at Lower Edmonton, which was renamed
Edmonton Green in 1992; the short section from Lower Edmonton High Level to Edmonton Junction (where the new line met the original Eastern Counties Railway route from Angel Road to Enfield Town via Lower Edmonton Low Level) on 1 August 1872; and the suburban platforms on the west side of
Liverpool Street Station on 2 February 1874.
The stations were well sited and offered exceptionally cheap workmen's fares of just 2d on trains arriving at Liverpool Street prior to 07:00, 3d on those arriving between 07:00 and 07:30, and half-price returns on those arriving between 07:30 and 08:00. A horse tramway along Fore Street opened in 1881. The tramway was re-constructed and electrified during 1905, lasting until 1938 when trolleybuses took over.
The old highway
Ermine Street passed through what is today Edmonton. Ermine Street was the main
Roman Road from London through
Lincoln and on to
York .
Edmonton appears in the
Domesday Book of 1086, where it is recorded as Adelmentone.
The
River Lea adjoins the east of Edmonton and runs from the
Chiltern Hills through
Hertfordshire and the Lea Valley down to the
Thames .
