History: N14
10 Jan 2002

Southgate is so named because it hosted the south gate of the royal hunting ground of Enfield Chase, about where Southgate Circus is now...

Oakwood is a name created by Southgate Council to give to the park opened to the public in 1927.

Southgate and Oakwood remained overwhelmingly rural until well into the 20th century. On this ridge between the Lea and Barnet valleys stood a thickly wooded area of oak, a valuable source of timber, firewood, charcoal and oak bark for the tanning business. A few remnants of this ancient woodland still cling to life in Grovelands Park. Its few residents were wealthy magnates, based around the Arnos and Grovelands estates.

The locals sought to maintain the rural air in the area and when the railways started snaking their way from London the builders were happy to comply, preferring to avoid this hilly area and instead sending their tracks down the Lea and Barnet valleys. N14 had to make do with a connecting horse bus to Colney Hatch station (now New Southgate) from 1850, and when a branch line opened at Palmers Green in 1871 the horse aimed for there instead.

A premature attempt at house building began in 1853 between Chase Side, Chase Road and Bramley Road. Workmen's cottages rubbed eaves with some larger properties, but finding tenants proved immeasurably difficult and up to the 1930s many vacant plots could still be seen in the area.

Elsewhere in the district the Taylors of Grovelands and the Walkers of Arnos Grove pulled rank to keep these unwanted developments off their doorsteps; in time both families would combine to make the famous Taylor Walker Brewery.

But a few houses were creeping up Fox Lane from Palmers Green station to give Southgate its first link to a conurbation. Perhaps no other part of London was so comprehensively influenced by transport developments; the No.29 bus was the first to reach this far, terminating at Southgate Green from 1912. And then the big one; the Piccadilly line was extended between 1932-33 to stop at Arnos Grove, Enfield West (now Oakwood) and Cockfosters.

As if to make up for lost time, the Southgate House Estate, based around Meadway, began its life in 1924 and with the advent of the tube the floodgates opened wide. With the richer families either gone or more than happy to make money by selling to landowners, nearly all of Southgate and Oakwood was built up between 1933 and 1939.

A council estate in the north-west of N14 around Green Road completed the picture. Southgate Council had proved themselves far-sighted enough to acquire parkland before everything disappeared under bricks and mortar, with the open ground opened to the public in the form of Grovelands Park (1913), Oakwood Park (1927) and Arnos Park (1928).

The rapid expansion of N14 was brought to a halt after the war by Green Belt policies, but the late development of the district has led to some interesting survivals. Both manor houses survive, Arnos Grove (1723) and Grovelands (1797), and the four-century old public house, the Cherry Tree, still keeps its vigil by the village green.

Steve Roberts.

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