![[Lower Edmonton]](../images-odds/header-left.jpg)
The Archive CD Books Project have scanned a number of old directories and books and many will contain information relevant to Lower Edmonton though it might just be a few pages out of hundreds on the CD. The scans are pretty good quality though many pages are distorted a little towards the fold. That really isn't a great problem though and they are more than adequate for the purpose they were created for. They seem a pretty organised company so you should be able to buy with confidence if you are interested. The CDs I have are Kelly's Directory of Middlesex 1937 which included an alphabetical local trade directory and 1902 Kelly's London Suburban Directory Northern Districts which is sold as a "Post Office directory" and includes uses a street by street local trade directory.
A number of directories are available on the Historical Directories site. This used to be a very frustrating site as the search facility wasn't too good and it wasn't possible to browse a directory without starting at the beginning and viewing every single page. There have since been improvements made.
If you want to examine old maps of Lower Edmonton, look no further than The Godfrey Edition of Old Ordnance Survey Maps which are available directly from Alan Godfrey Maps (no need to look elsewhere, they only charge 60p postage and they have same day despatch). The maps are published using the survey dates which are 1894 and 1895 but actually say on them Edition 1894-1896 and Second Edition 1896 so they could be referred to as the 1896 maps by others. They are reduced from the 1:2500 series and presented as approximately 15 inches to the mile. The reverse includes local historical notes and extracts from Kelly's Directory. The maps are just about the right size to handle without wanting to fold them. As they are relatively large scale it actually takes six maps to completely cover modern Lower Edmonton, though the last two are really only for completeness to take in the northern boundary.
The Ordnance Survey have an archive of old maps available but they will cost about £25 for pre-1940 ones (and even more for later ones) as they are printed on chart paper and suitable from framing and display rather than being the modern style of fold up maps. They do include 6 inch, 25 inch and even larger town plans though.
As mentioned on the 1867 map page, the Ordnance Survey and Landmark Information have got together to come up with http://www.old–maps.co.uk/ which includes mapping of Lower Edmonton from what it calls the 1881 Middlesex map. I argue that it is really the 1867 map.
There is a very small scale 1786 map that can be glimpsed online. That is on a site where they are selling reproductions of old maps largely for decorative purposes.
For modern maps Multimap and Streetmap are online road atlases. They are not bang up to date but not too old either and of course the searching by name or post code is invaluable. Also of great interest is Google Maps UK as they have some really good aerial photos that are surprisingly detailed (given that they are free).
As for modern scaled maps, well the best you'll get off the shelf from the Ordnance Survey is 1:25,000 which isn't terribly useful. Anything larger than that and you are into custom mapping and the prices shoot up dramatically.
The London Borough Of Enfield has a Local History Unit that may prove be a useful resource to some of you. They have files of many local papers for example. I haven't been there myself but it has been highly recommended to me. The unit is presently at Southgate Town Hall but there are plans to move it to Enfield Town in a new building that will also house the library and a museum. Talk in early 2004 is that less ambitious plans for this new building will need to be adopted and this will mean that the unit wont get much more space than it already has, which isn't a lot at all.
As a rule I try to offer useful links in context on the various pages on the site but I'll note some others here. I also have a separate site links page.
Enfield Council's web site was embarrassingly bad for years. There had always been some useful information on there but it was always hard to find and the site seemed to get a redesign every few months which did little to improve the look and feel but broke all the links to it and made you go searching for stuff again. However looking at it in mid-2006 there did seem to have been a sudden improvement although migration to the new design was incomplete. Naturally all the links broke yet again. Unfortunately in trying to repair these links I have found out just how appalling the navigation is on the new site and the pages seem much more formal. I'd have to say on my limited exploration that it is still pretty awful.
Just to add to the problems the site displays an error 404 page for incorrect URLs that is returned with the HTTP code 200 instead of 404. That means you can't automatically check your links to the site as 200 means it is OK.
The Enfield Preservation Society's site doesn't seem to be updated very often which isn't very encouraging but at least it will give you some contact information. A bit of a wasted opportunity I think. They are looking at setting up an Edmonton sub-group should there be sufficient interest as at present they only really cover the old Enfield area from before the creation of the London Borough. The Edmonton Hundred Historical Society don't seem to have a web presence at all which is a bit of a shame.
There is a lack of local news on my site and it would be nice to refer you to a decent source but the best I can offer is the Enfield Independent site. This was one of a maze of database driven local newspaper and area based sites that were probably intended to be using the same template but in practice got into a bit of a state. The situation has improved but it still isn't what it might be.
