ENFIELD
ENFIELD (fn. 1) contained 12,460 a. in 1831, when it was
the largest parish in Middlesex after Harrow with
Pinner. (fn. 2) Enfield 'Town', as it came to be called, (fn. 3)
grew up on the edge of Enfield Chase over a mile
west of the main road from London to Ware, which
entered the parish about 8 miles from London at
Ponders End. (fn. 4) The eastern part of the parish was for
long the most thickly populated, with road- and
river-side settlements at Ponders End, Enfield
Highway, Enfield Wash, and Enfield Lock, and the
19th-century Royal Small Arms factory which
produced the Lee-Enfield rifle. Before the inclosure
of the Chase under the Act of 1777 (fn. 5) the parish
covered 14,779 a. (fn. 6) but for the purposes of this article
the boundaries are those established in 1779, when
the Act came into effect. (fn. 7)
From 1779 the parish formed a rectangle measuring 8 miles from east to west and 3 from north to
south. It was bounded on the north by Cheshunt
and Northaw (Herts.), on the west by South Mimms
and Monken Hadley in Middlesex and East Barnet
(Herts.), and on the south by Edmonton. The
eastern boundary was formed by the river Lea and
the Mar dyke, which bordered Essex, and was alone
in following natural features. (fn. 8) A tract between
World's End Lane and the South Lodge estate was
transferred to Enfield from Edmonton between 1858
and 1871. (fn. 9) Two detached pieces of land in Monken
Hadley, totalling 54 a., remained part of Enfield
after the division of the Chase; they are treated
under Monken Hadley to which they were transferred in 1882 and 1894. (fn. 10) Further boundary
revisions reduced the total acreage to 12,601 a. in
1901. In 1924 26 a. near Potters Bar (South Mimms)
were transferred to South Mimms R.D. and in 1926
a narrow strip of land along World's End Lane was
transferred to Southgate U.D. Between 1931 and
1951 the area of Enfield U.D., roughly conterminous
with the old parish, dropped from 12,574 a. to
12,339 a. after changes which included the transfer
to Southgate U.D. of a tongue of land projecting
south from Cockfosters on either side of Cockfosters
Road. (fn. 11) Enfield joined Edmonton to form the
London Borough of Enfield in 1965. (fn. 12)
The western part of the parish, reaching 363 ft.
above sea level near New Cottage farm, is formed of
London Clay, with a strip of pebble gravel running
along the northern part of the Ridgeway; there are
patches of pebble gravel at Clay Hill and near
Potters Bar and Monken Hadley, while the southern
end of the Ridgeway runs through glacial gravel to
boulder clay. Glacial deposits also occur at Cockfosters and near Trent Park and South Lodge. From
the centre of the parish, where there are some steep
hills, the ground slopes eastward towards the Lea
through clay and an extensive area of terrace gravel
and then through brickearth. The brickearth gives
way to flood plain gravel between ½ mile and 1 mile
west of the Lea and to alluvium in the riverside
marshes. (fn. 13)
From the hills in the west flow several tributaries
of the Lea. Maiden's brook, called the Wash brook
in 1826, (fn. 14) rises at Potters Bar, meets Cuffley brook
from Hertfordshire near Clay Hill, and joins the Lea
about a mile south of the northern parish boundary.
The lower part of Maiden's brook was still navigable
in 1824, when the vestry appointed a committee to
investigate the state of wharfing in Turkey Street. (fn. 15)
Salmon's brook rises near Roundhedge Hill in the
north-west of the parish and runs south-eastward
through a valley, entering Edmonton south of
Enfield Town at Bush Hill; it has two tributaries,
the Leeging Beech gutter, which rises in the grounds
of Trent Park, and Merryhills brook farther south,
which rises near Cockfosters. A third stream,
Pymme's brook, rises near the suburb of Hadley
Wood and runs south into Monken Hadley, after
passing through two large artificial ponds, the
southernmost of which was recorded in 1656 as
New Pond. (fn. 16) The ponds had assumed their modern
shape by 1686. (fn. 17)
The New River was cut through the parish from
north to south and opened in 1613. (fn. 18) The original
course closely followed the 100 ft. contour line but
was straightened in 1859 and again c. 1890, when it
was channelled in three mains to Bush Hill park. In
1974 portions of the old course remained in
Whitewebbs park and around Enfield Town and the
river was carried over Maiden's brook by an
aqueduct east of Maiden's bridge. Another aqueduct
of cast iron in Flash Road, carrying the old stream
over Cuffley brook, was built in 1820-1 when a
diversion was made necessary after the portion of the
river west of Flash Road had been bought by
Edward Harman of Claysmore (fn. 19) and converted into
an artificial lake, which survives in the grounds of
Wildwood. Before 1820 the river passed under
Cuffley brook in a trough or 'flash', rebuilt by
Robert Mylne in 1775, parts of which survive. The
ornamental aspect of the river was praised in 1823 (fn. 20)
and proposals to drain the superfluous old course
c. 1890 were defeated by public agitation. (fn. 21)
The southern part of the eastern parish boundary
was formed by the Mar dyke, a cut running west of
the Lea through the marshes into Edmonton.
Another cut, the mill river, left the Lea in the northeastern corner of the parish and ran south, to join the
Mar dyke at the south-eastern boundary. It was built
to supply medieval mills (fn. 22) and was mentioned in the
later 16th century, when a lock had been constructed
between Wild and Mill marshes. (fn. 23) In 1572 the mill
river was said to be of greater size than the main
river (fn. 24) but an Act was passed to make the Lea itself
navigable as far as Ware (Herts.) in 1571 and the
work was completed by 1576. (fn. 25)
The old river was effectively superseded after
improvements to the mill river under an Act of
1767. (fn. 26) Work began on the Enfield Cut of the Lea
Navigation in 1769 and on the southern extension,
called the Edmonton Cut, in 1770. Enfield Lock was
constructed on the site of the old mill river lock and
a surveyor's house was built in 1792, on the site of
the later British Waterways' depot. An increase in
traffic led to the construction of a second lock, at
Ponders End, in 1793. Near by an early-19thcentury dock was being used in 1832 for barges
travelling between London and Hertfordshire; (fn. 27)
a new double lock was built in 1959. (fn. 28) A third lock,
at Rammey marsh in the extreme north of the
parish, was built by 1867. (fn. 29) The old course of the
Lea was submerged by King George's reservoir
(446 a.), opened in 1913. (fn. 30)
Enfield won intermittent notoriety in the 18th
century. Dick Turpin, whose grandfather reputedly
had lived at Clay Hill, was said to lurk in new Camlet
Moat on the Chase. (fn. 31) From 1753 until 1755 36
pamphlets and 14 prints were published on Elizabeth
Canning, a servant girl convicted of perjury after
claiming to have been abducted and robbed at
Enfield Wash. (fn. 32) In 1779 sightseers were attracted by
Thomas Hill Everett, the outsize baby son of the
manager of the mills by the Lea, who lived at
Scotland Green; the child was then exhibited in
London, where it died in 1780. (fn. 33)
Natives (fn. 34) included the author Henry Baker (1734-
66), Isaac D'Israeli (1766-1848), born in a house
on the site of Enfield Town railway station which
later became a private school attended by John
Keats, (fn. 35) the civil engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette
(1819-91), and the poet and bibliographer of angling
Thomas Westwood (1814-88), whose father, a
former haberdasher, was described by his friend
Charles Lamb as 'a star among the minor gentry'.
Gerard Legh (d. 1563), writer on heraldry, owed his
education to Robert Wroth of Durants and the
romance writer Robert Paltock (1697-1767) spent
his early years in Enfield. Richard Brownlow (1553-
1638), chief prothonotary of the Common Pleas, (fn. 36)
and Sir George Wharton, Bt. (1617-81) died in their
houses at Enfield and Edward Stephens (d. 1706),
pamphleteer, was buried in the parish. Among other
residents were John Hadley (1682-1744), mathematician and scientific mechanist, John Cartwright
(1740-1824), political reformer and friend of
Thomas Holt White of Chase Lodge, (fn. 37) William
Saunders (1743-1817), physician, buried in the
parish church, Sir Nathaniel Dance (1748-1827),
commander under the East India Company, Mary
Linwood (1755-1845), composer and needlework
artist, (fn. 38) Thomas Smart (1776-1867), (fn. 39) musician, and
Leitch Ritchie (?1800-65), novelist. (fn. 40) The critic
Walter Pater (1839-94) spent his early years at a
house in Baker Street, called Yarra House in 1911
and afterwards demolished. (fn. 41) William Booth (1829-
1912), founder of the Salvation Army, moved to
no. 33 Lancaster Avenue, Hadley Wood, in 1889 (fn. 42)
and Sir Herbert Gresley (1894-1941), locomotive
engineer, lived at Camlet House, Hadley Wood,
in the 1920s. (fn. 43) Other notable residents are mentioned
elsewhere in the article.
William Henry van Nassau van Zuylesteyn, who
married a daughter of Sir Henry Wroth of Durants,
in 1695 was created Lord Enfield, Viscount
Tunbridge, and earl of Rochford, which titles were
held by his descendants until the honours became
extinct in 1830. (fn. 44) After John Byng, Lord Strafford of
Harmondsworth, was created Viscount Enfield and
earl of Strafford in 1847, (fn. 45) Viscount Enfield became
the courtesy title of the earl of Strafford's eldest
son. (fn. 46)