THE LONDON BOROUGH OF
ENFIELD
Enfield Heritage Strategy
‘A Living Landscape’
Approved on
17 September 2008
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Preface
This document aims to demonstrate how and why heritage is important to the
London Borough of Enfield. It presents a bold and imaginative approach that reflects
the borough’s existing commitment to heritage, its progressive place-shaping
agenda working across all council services, policy and planning, and the role of
heritage as an important part of a shared future. The Strategy will form a vital part of
the evidence base for the Council’s Local Development Framework documents,
which will collectively shape the future of the borough over the next twenty years.
The literal and metaphorical theme of ‘a living landscape’ encapsulates a
progressive vision for Enfield’s heritage: the London Borough of Enfield is a living
landscape of people and places.
This Strategy provides both a frame of reference and planning mechanism through
which this landscape can be better understood, valued, cared for and enjoyed by
existing and future residents of Enfield and by visitors to the borough.
The Heritage Strategy must contribute directly to local needs as expressed in Enfield’s
Future: A Sustainable Community Strategy (2007-2017). In the Community Strategy
local needs are grouped together under the following five themes which are also at
the heart of this Heritage Strategy:
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Children and Young People
Safer and Stronger Communities
Healthier Communities
Older People
Economic Development and Enterprise
The partners delivering the Community Strategy have the ambition to ensure that
Enfield has ‘a healthy, prosperous, cohesive community living in a borough that is
safe, clean and green’. The Heritage Strategy is committed to help deliver this vision.
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Contents
Introduction: Then and Now
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1. Why the Need for a Heritage Strategy?
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1.1 Place Matters
1.2 Meeting the Challenge of Change
2. Defining Enfield’s Heritage
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2.1 What is Heritage?
2.2 What is Enfield’s Heritage?
3. The Strategic Context
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3.1 The National Context
3.2 The Regional Context
3.3 The Enfield Context
4. A New Vision for Enfield’s Heritage
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4.1 The Vision
4.2 Our Mission
4.3 Our Aims
4.4 Key Outcomes
5. Issues and Opportunities
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5.1 The Natural Environment
5.2 The Historic Environment
5.3 Material Culture
5.4 Intangible Heritage
5.5 Community-based Heritage
6. Priorities and Aims
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1. Site Specific Priorities
2. Conservation areas
3. Collecting Enfield
4. Mapping the Intangible
5. Enfield as a Learning Resource
6. Partnerships and Promotion
7. Monitoring and Evaluation: Next Steps
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8. Conclusion
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Appendix: Definitions
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Introduction: Then and Now
The London Borough of Enfield as understood today is a palimpsest1 of topography
and past lives. The borough has been shaped over centuries by people, by their
needs and aspirations. Enfield’s heritage is found where the values and traditions of
people and places intersect.
Enfield and its neighbourhoods exist as much in the mind as they do in the streets,
buildings and landscape. Heritage is not only about the distant or even recent past, it
is also about the present, the now. Conceptions of heritage can unite older more
established communities and newer arrivals.
Enfield’s heritage has its roots in the natural topography of river valleys and clay
uplands that prehistoric settlers began to utilise and manage as an agricultural
landscape.
Enfield’s heritage is the routes of movement and communication used from the
earliest times, by the Romans along Ermine Street, and continued in underground and
overland road and public transportation systems; it’s the 191 bus to Brimsdown, the
Piccadilly line to Cockfosters and the Great Cambridge Road.
Enfield’s heritage is industrial achievement and decline, urban regeneration and
ambition.
Enfield’s heritage is the relationship between centre and periphery, between the City
of London and the County of Middlesex, between the urban and the rural. It has the
potential to explain the significance of a place and its peoples. Understanding a
place aids the growth of people’s connectivity to that place and supports and
strengthens sustainable communities.
Enfield’s heritage is a creative resource. It is not to be dismissed as a passive
backdrop to daily life. It is an active ingredient of change.
1 Palimpsest - ‘Writing-material, manuscript, the original writing on which has been effaced
(rubbed out) to make room for a second”. Oxford Dictionary
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1. Why the Need for a Heritage Strategy?
1.1 Place Matters
Place is latitudinal and longitudinal within the map of a person’s life. It is
temporal and spatial, personal and political. A layered location replete with
human histories and memories, place has width as well as depth. It is about
connections, what surrounds it, what formed it, what happened there, what
will happen.
Lucy Lippard2
It is increasingly being recognised that locality and place matter in a rapidly
globalising, urbanising world. Place, and the quality of place, matters to us more than
ever before. Within the context of this Heritage Strategy, place and places emerge as
key features and characteristics of Enfield’s living landscape. Place and places are
given value, and are valued, by people.
This Heritage Strategy acknowledges that whilst perceptions of place and places do
not necessarily adhere to artificial administrative boundaries, Enfield has a
responsibility to understand and care for the distinctiveness of its valued places whilst
recognising that the borough is open and connected to the world locally and
globally.
1.2 Meeting the Challenge of Change
Change appears to be an elemental characteristic of the whole universe. But
when change destroys those qualities of our places that are anchors,
reference points for our memories and hence our being, I worry about the
effects on human lives, present and future. Change defines existence.
Robert Archibald3
At some point in 2007, the human species became urban; over 50% of the world’s
population now lives in towns and cities – a figure that continues to grow.
London is always changing, and with change comes opportunities and challenges.
Enfield too is changing: socially, economically, culturally, and physically. What does
this mean for local communities living on the edge of a world city, where urban and
rural environments meet?
This Heritage Strategy is founded on the idea that a better understanding and
appreciation of heritage can inform change, help to direct and manage change,
and also help to ensure that communities are more involved in and engaged with
the processes of change at a local level. It is these broad themes that will inform the
Council’s Place Shaping agenda; while the Heritage Strategy will be a key part of the
evidence base for the LDF, our statutory plan and the Parks and Open Spaces
Strategy. Together, these mechanisms will help to ensure that Enfield makes the most
of our heritage and manages change in the most beneficial way for the people of
Enfield.
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The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentred Society (1997)
The New Town Square: Museums and Communities in Transition (2004)
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2. Defining Enfield’s Heritage
Heritage is everywhere mixed.
David Lowenthal4
2.1 What is Heritage?
Despite wide-spread public support for the heritage, the view persists within a vocal
minority that it is negative, nostalgic and re-active. This Heritage Strategy aims to
combat these prejudices and approaches the definition and value of heritage
positively as engaged, open and pro-active.
In many ways defining ‘heritage’ is as difficult a task as defining ‘culture’ or ‘nature’.
To address this, we have adopted and adapted a ‘family’ of related definitions
produced by English Heritage and UNESCO (see Appendix 1 for these definitions in
full). In doing this we are taking a ‘whole landscape approach’ that weaves together
the cultural and natural, material and intangible. The following open definition of
heritage is broadly applied throughout the Heritage Strategy:
All inherited resources which people value for reasons beyond mere utility.
2.2 What is Enfield’s Heritage?
Five inter-connected areas of Enfield’s heritage are identified. These areas help to
organise key issues and opportunities as priorities for action.
1. The Natural Environment: the natural environments and wildlife habitats of the
borough, including but not limited to the Green Belt, parks and open spaces
and designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs).
2. The Historic Environment: including, but not limited to, the officially designated
parts of the borough including scheduled monuments, listed buildings (both
statutory and local), registered landscapes, conservation areas and
archaeological sites.
3. Material Culture: a sub-set of Cultural Heritage focusing on movable items in
museum and archival collections, both those owned by the borough and
those owned by other groups, organisations and individuals.
4. Intangible Heritage: languages, the visual and performing arts, social
practices, rituals and festive events that provide communities with a sense of
identity and continuity.
5. Community-Based Heritage: local faith groups and special interest groups
associated with the cultural, natural and intangible heritage of people and
place.
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‘Natural and Cultural Heritage’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 11.1 (2005), 81-92
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3. The Strategic Context
Heritage can no longer be considered a minority interest, existing in isolation
from everyday reality. Increasingly, heritage is recognised as something which
permeates daily life, bringing a sense of meaning and identity to an
increasingly dislocated world.
(English Heritage5)
3.1 The National Context
The Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) is the lead government
department on matters concerning the historic environment, museums and galleries,
tourism, architecture and the built environment. The Department of Communities and
Local Government also has responsibilities towards the built heritage through planning
laws and regulations. In particular, it provides national policy guidance on Planning
and the Historic Environment (PPG 15, 1994) and Archaeology and Planning (PPG 16,
1990).
In 2001 these two departments jointly published The Historic Environment: A Force for
Our Future, in which the government set out a vision of the future in which:
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public interest in the historic environment is matched by firm leadership,
effective partnerships, and the development of a sound knowledge base
from which to develop policies;
the full potential of the historic environment as a learning resource is realised;
the historic environment is accessible to everybody and is seen as something
with which the whole of society can identify and engage;
the historic environment is protected and sustained for the benefit of our own
and future generations;
the historic environment’s importance as an economic asset is skilfully
harnessed.
This Heritage Strategy shares and supports these national aspirations.
DCMS is also promoting changes to heritage protection though the 2007 White Paper
Heritage Protection for the 21st Century. A draft Heritage Protection Bill is at present
being prepared, which will seek to put in place a simplified unified protection system,
removing the distinctions between listing, scheduling and registration. Primary
responsibility for designation is to be transferred from the Secretary of State to English
Heritage.
A new educational initiative aimed at using the built environment to teach has been
developed through a partnership between DCMS and the Department for Children,
Families and Schools (DCFS),who worked with related agencies such as English
Heritage and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE).
Engaging Places includes the whole built environment, not just its specifically historic
aspects, and includes a broad range of approaches and subject areas. A year-long
pilot of this project is due to report soon.
One outcome of the wider project has been the Learning Outside the Classroom
Manifesto. The Manifesto defines learning outside the classroom as ‘the use of places
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People and Places: A Response to Government and the Value of Culture (2004)
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other than the classroom for teaching and learning’ and ‘provides a powerful route
to the Every Child Matters outcomes’:
Learning outside the classroom is about raising achievement through an
organised, powerful approach to learning in which direct experience is of
prime importance. This is not only about what we learn but importantly how
and where we learn.
The Manifesto is explicitly intended to generate a new learning ‘movement’ focused
on school-aged children. Learning outside the classroom begins with the school
grounds, then moves outwards to the local environment, places further afield and
residential places. The Manifesto has been endorsed by national, regional and local
agencies, organisations and local authorities including English Heritage, CABE,
Natural England, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Museum of London and the London
Wildlife Trust.
Enfield’s heritage is found throughout the borough. The development of this Heritage
Strategy provides an opportunity to engage directly with the whole local
environment as a learning resource.
The Heritage Lottery Fund has transformed the landscape of heritage policy, planning
and provision over the past decade. HLF operates several grant schemes, including
Heritage Grants and Parks for People. As of April 2008 HLF will be changing and
simplifying its processes for funding applications. However, as set out in Our Heritage
Our Future, the Fund’s report towards its next strategic plan for 2008-2013, its three
core strategic aims remain:
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conserve the UK’s diverse heritage for present and future generations to
experience and enjoy
enable more people, and a wider range of people, to take an active part in
and make decisions about their heritage
enable people to learn about their own and others’ heritage.
HLF will also introduce a renewed focus on outcomes for conservation, participation
and for learning, and have the expectation that all applicants ‘green’ their projects
and put greater emphasis on minimising environmental impacts.
This Heritage Strategy aims to deliver across HLF’s strategic aims ‘centred on
achieving benefits for both heritage and people’ with a view to achieving long-term
sustainability. The Strategy will also set out key outcomes for delivering on its aims, and
aims of any individual project.
The latest Strategic Plan from English Heritage (2005-2010), People and Places:
Making the Past Part of Our Future6 has established a ‘virtuous heritage cycle’ to
communicate its key aims of understanding, valuing, caring for and enjoying the
heritage:
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AIM 1: Help people develop their understanding of the historic environment
AIM 2: Get the historic environment on other people’s agendas
AIM 3: Enable and promote sustainable change to England’s historic
environment
AIM 4: Help local communities to care for their historic environment
AIM 5: Stimulate and harness enthusiasm for England’s historic environment
AIM 6: Make the most effective use of the assets in [its] care.
On the front cover of the English Heritage strategic plan is a photograph of Arnos Grove
underground station, in the south west of the borough.
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A similar approach is taken by its ‘sister’ agency for the natural environment, Natural
England. Newly formed in 2006, Natural England has adopted four key outcomes in its
first Strategic Direction Report for 2006-2009. The outcomes of ‘enjoyment of the
natural environment’ places access to the natural environment highly, believing that
with access comes a greater duty of care. Within this is the objective to ‘increase
everyone’s understanding of, and ability to take care of, the natural environment’.
Comparable aims for the historic and natural environments are articulated
throughout this Heritage Strategy at a local level.
The UK has yet to ratify the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage (2006), concerned with ‘the practices, representations,
expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural
spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases,
individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage’. Nonetheless, the inaugural
meeting of the UK National Commission for UNESCO in 2006 recognised the potential
significance of this intangible heritage, ‘not only for its intrinsic value, but also in giving
identity and a ‘sense of belonging’ in a fast changing world and in supporting social
cohesion and inclusion’, and grass roots involvement.
In terms of this Heritage Strategy Consultation Draft, the concept of intangible
heritage is recognised as being significant and a part of the borough’s long-term
planning for Enfield’s heritage.
Sponsored by DCMS, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) is the
strategic body responsible for national policy across these three domains of cultural
life in England. Key strategic developments from MLA include Renaissance in the
Regions (2001) for museums and galleries, and the Inspiring Learning for All (2006)
framework.
Learning is at the heart of national heritage policy and the funding priorities of the
Heritage Lottery Fund. Inspiring Learning for All is informing the development of
learning policy, planning and provision across the cultural sector, using a broad and
inclusive definition of learning:
Learning is a process of active engagement with experience. It is what people
do when they want to make sense of the world. It may involve the
development or deepening of skills, knowledge, understanding, awareness,
values, ideas and feelings, or an increase in the capacity to reflect. Effective
learning leads to change, development and the desire to learn more.
Supporting this definition of learning is a set of four interconnected principles:
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People: providing more effective learning opportunities
Places: creating inspiring and accessible learning environments
Partnerships: building creative learning partnerships
Plans, Policies, Performance: placing learning at the heart of the museum,
archive or library.
Positively contributing to the wider learning agenda across the Borough is a core
priority of this Heritage Strategy.
A final key part of the national strategic picture has been the Lyons Inquiry into Local
Government published in 2007 as Place-shaping: a shared ambition for the future of
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local government. This is now influencing the future planning of Enfield as are earlier
changes to national planning legislation. Importantly, the Lyons Inquiry restates the
importance of having a local voice and that ‘place remains relevant’ in the
contemporary world. Indeed, the Inquiry suggests that the role of local government is
in fact ‘place-shaping’; a term aimed at integrating roles and responsibilities across
the public, private and voluntary sectors. To better facilitate the delivery of this farreaching agenda, the Council has created a new Place Shaping and Enterprise
Department, within which its Conservation and Design service is located.
3.2 The Regional Context
Enfield is Greater London’s northernmost borough – on the urban fringe – and marks a
boundary between urban and rural London life.
The Greater London Authority (GLA), headed by an elected Mayor, was established
in 2000 to provide a strategic, regional tier of London government. The Mayor’s
Spatial Development Strategy for Greater London, The London Plan (2008 onwards)
sets out the Mayor’s objectives:
• To accommodate London’s growth within its boundaries without encroaching
on open spaces
• To make London a healthier and better city for people to live in
• To make London a more prosperous city with strong and diverse economic
growth
• To promote social inclusion and tackle deprivation and discrimination
• To improve London’s accessibility
• To make London an exemplary world city in mitigating and adapting to
climate change, and a more attractive, well-designed and green city.
Within these overarching objectives, the London Plan includes policies on the
protection and enhancement of London’s historic environment, waterways and
natural heritage.
Sustaining Success, the GLA’s Economic Development Strategy (2006-2016) was
developed with the London Development Agency (LDA). The Strategy focuses on four
major investment areas, all of which pertain to this Heritage Strategy:
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Places and infrastructure
People
Enterprise
Marketing and promoting London
Within these over-arching investment areas, the following specific proposals are
particularly relevant to Enfield’s heritage and are supported by this Strategy:
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Deliver healthy, sustainable communities in high quality urban environments
Maintain and develop London as a top international destination and principal
gateway for visitors, tourism and investment.
The GLA’s Cultural Strategy7, Cultural Capital: Realising the Potential of a World City,
(2004) focuses on four key objectives; excellence, creativity, access and value. The
following policies outlined by the Strategy are most relevant to, and are supported
by, this Heritage Strategy:
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Which is now being taken forward by the London Cultural Consortium
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London needs to ensure its cultural institutions and events are of a high quality,
world-class status.
London needs to develop its brand and promote itself as a world cultural city
and tourist destination.
Education and lifelong learning must play a central role in nurturing creativity
and providing routes to employment.
There should be a spread of high-quality cultural provision across London at all
levels – local, sub-regional and regional.
The cultural value and potential of London’s public realm should be fully
realised.
The LDA is also in the process of developing a new North London Visitor Economy
Development Plan. The Council has submitted responses to the LDA’s consultation
phase on this new Plan, promoting the cause and significance of ‘green’ and
heritage-based tourism in the outer London boroughs.
Finally, the planning and preparations for the 2012 London Olympics will be of real
significance for the whole of the capital, directly and indirectly. The Lea Valley
Regional Park forms the eastern edge of Enfield, and the regeneration of the Lower
Lea Valley as the main Olympic site is already having a significant impact on London.
In 2002 English Heritage published Changing London. The report sets out a vision for
London which this Heritage Strategy fully endorses and supports. Some of its most
relevant aspects include:
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The historic and natural environments are two sides of the same coin – they
are both part of the green agenda. We need to help people understand that
looking after the historic environment is intrinsically linked to making London a
sustainable city.
Conservation is about managing not preventing change.
Conservation is about the entire historic environment, not just about listed
buildings. We must value the streets and spaces in between and act to
improve the quality of London’s streetscape.
We must not allow banality and uniformity to replace local distinctiveness.
Nurturing its historic environment will make London a better place in which to
live, to do business, to relax and to play.
In 2007, MLA London published Museum Metropolis, its strategy for museums in the
capital (2006-2010). The following aims are of most relevance to Enfield’s Heritage
Strategy:
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Broaden museums’ access and ensure that their work reflects the full diversity
of cultural heritage in the capital.
Develop programmes, partnerships and profile to ensure museums derive
maximum benefit from the 2012 Olympic Games.
Develop, coordinate and promote the tourism offer of London’s museums.
Improve the quality of the museum offer, particularly in outer London and in
key regeneration areas.
Support museums to maximize the opportunities presented by the local
government modernisation and improvement agenda.
Develop strategies to ensure preservation and greater public engagement
with museum collections in London.
Support, coordinate and profile the networks and partnership activity of
London’s museums.
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This Heritage Strategy fully supports and contributes towards the regional context for
heritage.
3.3 The Enfield Context
Putting Enfield First is the London Borough of Enfield’s Council Business & Improvement
Plan for 2008-2011. The Borough’s key aims for this period are:
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A cleaner, greener, sustainable Enfield
Ensure every child matters and provide high quality education for all
A safer Enfield
A healthier Enfield where people are able to live independent lives
Provide high quality and efficient services
Build prosperous, sustainable communities
Enfield Strategic Partnership’s Sustainable Community Strategy, Enfield’s Future –
2007-2017, sets out the future strategic direction for the borough. The strategy
identifies children and younger people, and older people, as key ‘themes’, each of
which has been designated a Thematic Action Group within the Enfield Strategic
Partnership. Leisure and Culture is embedded within the Community and Economic
Development Thematic Action Group.
The Strategy is underpinned by the Local Area Agreement – Every Child Really Does
Matter and the emerging Local Development Framework (LDF). The LDF will provide
the long term spatial vision, policies and implementation programmes to help shape
the future of the borough over the next twenty years and achieve the Enfield
Strategic Partnership’s ambition that Enfield has ‘a healthy, prosperous, cohesive
community living in a borough that is safe, clean and green.’
This Heritage Strategy forms a vital part of the LDF evidence base and will be used to
inform policies affecting the spatial aspects of the borough’s heritage. It will inform a
wide range of LDF documents including the Core Strategy, Area Action Plans,
Development Management Document and Enfield Design Guide, together with
other place shaping initiatives.
The Council is currently preparing a Place Shaping Strategy and will be developing
detailed delivery and investment plans for the Council’s place shaping priority areas.
This strategy will help to inform the detailed proposals as they emerge. In addition,
the Council is preparing a Parks and Open Spaces Strategy. Together the three
strategies will be mutually reinforcing.
This Heritage Strategy is predicated on the belief that understanding, valuing, caring
for and enjoying Enfield’s heritage is a vital part of the borough’s future, contributing
across the borough’s corporate and community aims and priorities.
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4. A New Vision for Enfield’s Heritage
4.1 The Vision
The London Borough of Enfield is a living landscape of people and places.
4.2 Our Mission
Our mission is better to understand, care for and promote Enfield’s diverse heritage
for the enjoyment of all residents and visitors to the borough, and to ensure that
heritage makes a full contribution to our shared future.
4.3 Our Aims
1. To increase understanding and awareness of Enfield’s diverse heritage.
2. To enable everyone, alone or collectively, to benefit from Enfield’s cultural
heritage, contribute towards its enrichment, and participate in decisions
about its future.
3. To work in partnership with local, regional and national organisations and
agencies in understanding and caring for Enfield’s heritage.
4. To work in partnership with local communities to understand what they value
as their heritage and to share what it means to them.
5. To develop use of Enfield’s heritage as an educational and lifelong learning
resource.
6. To promote Enfield’s heritage more effectively to local residents and visitors to
the borough.
7. To ensure that heritage opportunities and considerations are at the heart of
Enfield’s place-shaping agenda.
8. To establish heritage as a cross-departmental responsibility within the Council.
9. To actively create, through Enfield’s place-shaping agenda, buildings and
places that have the potential to be tomorrow’s heritage.
4.4 Key Outcomes
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Borough-wide
Enfield’s heritage is understood as a living landscape of people and places.
Enfield’s heritage is safeguarded for present and future generations.
Local residents actively participate in understanding, safeguarding and
enjoying Enfield’s heritage in greater numbers.
The profile of local heritage participants broadens to better reflect the
borough’s diverse population.
Enfield’s heritage is more widely understood and valued as an important
contribution to London life.
Site specific
Forty Hall & Estate is successfully enhanced as a high-quality heritage resource
for local residents and visitors to the borough.
Enfield Museum service is successfully re-located and re-launched at Thomas
Hardy House in the centre of Enfield Town.
Sustainable solutions are found for each of the borough’s historic ‘Buildings at
Risk’ – particularly Broomfield House.
The Conservation Area Review is satisfactorily concluded and new
designations put in place which will be taken forward as part of the LDF.
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5. Issues and Opportunities
At this early stage in the development of a Heritage Strategy, the tangible, material
heritage is more easily identifiable. Greater attention is therefore placed on these
aspects of the local heritage in this Consultation Draft. However, the key areas of
intangible and community-based heritage are included and draw attention to the
need to pursue further work in these areas and so give greater balance to the final
Strategy.
5.1 The Natural Environment (Fig. 1)
Enfield is primarily an urban Borough. However, the northern-western part is open
countryside which falls within the Green Belt. This is a typical ‘enclosure landscape’, a
patchwork of relatively small fields with straight boundaries, set amid rolling hills, the
ridges of which run west- east and drop towards the Lea valley. The fields were largely
created between 1777 and 1803, with the enclosure of Enfield Chase, a former Royal
hunting park. Most is still in agricultural use, though garden nurseries, paddocks for
horses and golf courses are very common. While not outstanding as a landscape or
as an ecological habitat, it makes quite attractive countryside. Proximity to the town
means that it is well used and appreciated by local people as an informal amenity, a
place to cycle and walk. It plays a vital role in creating a sense of place for London
as a whole by defining the outer edge of the capital.
Clay Hill
Trent Park
Three large areas in the Green Belt are managed by the Council, at least in part, as
public parks: Whitewebbs Park, the Forty Hall Estate and Trent Park. These are of
particular value as public amenities, and are very well used. The less intensive
management regime means that they are of greater value than the surrounding
countryside as a wildlife habitat. The Forty Hall Estate has been identified as being of
particular value as an insect habitat. The woodlands in Whitewebbs Park and Trent
Park are recognised as sites of nature conservation importance, managed as a local
nature reserve, as are two other areas of woodland in the extreme north-west of the
Borough, Fir Wood and Pond Wood. The nearby Five Acre Wood is designated a site
of nature conservation importance.
The area immediately around the river Lea forms part of the Lea Valley Regional Park.
The King George and William Girling Reservoirs are designated Sites of Special
Scientific Interest (the only ones in the borough) for their value to wildfowl and
wetland birds and as sites of nature conservation importance.
Within the urban area there are many public parks, often formerly parks attached to
large private houses such as Trent Park, which have considerable heritage value as
historic places, provide valuable green space for local people and are often
attractive spaces in their own right. Other open land, including churchyards,
cemeteries, allotments, playing fields and unused land has an amenity value to local
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people and is often of some ecological value as a habitat. Railway lines, streams, the
New River and the river Lea also provide valuable habitats and corridors for wildlife.
Fig. 1: Designated natural heritage assets in Enfield
5.2 The Historic Environment
The historic environment of Enfield is diverse, but there are several key themes which
have shaped and continue to shape the place. These can be defined as follows:
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earliest inhabitants
the forming of the Borough
medieval manors
suburban villas,
town houses and cottages
transport infrastructure
industry
mass housing
public buildings
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In terms of statistics, the formally-designated heritage (shown on the map, Fig. 2) can
be summarised as follows:
Scheduled monuments
Areas of Archaeological Interest
Statutorily listed buildings
Locally listed buildings
Registered Parks and Gardens (national)
Registered Parks and Gardens (local)
Conservation areas
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Schedules detailing the individual entries in each of the above categories can be
found on the Council’s website at www.enfield.gov.uk
Fig. 2: Designated elements of Enfield’s historic environment
Earliest inhabitants
The land that now forms the borough of Enfield, particularly the Lea valley on the east
side, has always been an attractive place for humans. The river valley and its tributary
streams provided a corridor that permitted relatively easy movement. Its marshy
banks provided a rich source of food for pre-historic hunter-gatherers and the higher
slopes easily cultivatable soil for the first farmers. However, this occupation has left
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few visible traces in the landscape. Evidence from the Bronze Age (from about
2500BC) is more plentiful, and very much focused on the Lea, with the buried remains
of a group of timber round houses recently discovered at the Innova Park site. During
the Iron Age, from about 700BC, this process of landscape utilisation tended to
intensify, but there is little direct evidence for activity in Enfield beyond traces of a
settlement at Forty Hill. Two earthworks, one at Hadley Wood (bisected by the east
coast main line in 1850) and another at Bush Hill Park, may date from this period.
The shaping of the modern landscape began almost 2000 years ago, with the Roman
conquest in AD 43. The Roman road north from the provincial capital of London –
Ermine Street - followed the Lea valley, and is the first ‘man made’ feature in the
borough that can still be seen today (Fig. 3). It survives as Tottenham High Road, as
far as the borough boundary, and its line is preserved in Bulls Cross Lane in the north
of the borough. It has also been found by excavation in Bush Hill Park, Snells Park and
Donkey Lane, and it probably ran close to Edmonton Church, where its line can be
inferred from the surviving street pattern. There are signs that Ermine Street provided
the basis for a co-axial field system along the west bank of the Lea valley. While this
was largely superseded by medieval field systems, and later housing and industry, it
has contributed to moulding the map of the east side of the borough. The most
obvious relicts are the straight east-west boundaries of the parish of Edmonton: the
southern one now forms the borough boundary. The only known Roman settlement in
the area was just off Ermine Street, in what is now Bush Hill Park, remains of which
continue to be discovered in house gardens. This was probably primarily a staging
post on the main road, but also most likely formed the focus of a dispersed
agricultural community of villas of farmsteads.
While agricultural use of considerable areas of the western slopes of the Lea valley
undoubtedly continued after the end of the Roman occupation, there is as yet little
direct archaeological evidence for the Saxon period from the Borough.
Fig, 3: Roman Enfield
18
The forming of the Borough (Fig. 4)
An area very similar in extent to the modern Borough of Enfield first emerges as an
historic entity in Domesday Book. In 1066, the manors of Enfield and Edmonton were
both held by the same Royal official, Ansgar the Staller; after the Norman conquest,
Ansgar’s estate was granted to the Norman knight Geoffrey de Mandeville. Only two
buildings remain standing from the medieval period, parts of the churches of Enfield
and Edmonton. However, much of the underlying structure of the borough, including
the road network and the layout of the centres of its older settlements, including
Enfield itself, Edmonton, Southgate and Winchmore Hill, is medieval. The preeminence of Enfield and Edmonton as the main population centres in the Borough
was also established by the 11th century. Topography greatly influenced
development, with agriculture, roads and settlement concentrated on the slopes of
the Lea valley, with marshy ground along the Lea providing pasture. The less
productive higher ground was occupied by Enfield Chase, a royal hunting park
enclosed by the mid-12th century, indeed probably of pre-conquest origin, and which
grew to occupy most of the north-western part of the borough.
All Saints Church, Edmonton
Geophysical survey of Elsyng Palace
Medieval manors
One of the characteristics of the medieval borough was the large number of small
manor houses surrounded by moats, the result of the sub-division of the two great 11th
century manors. Most of these disappeared under 19th century urban expansion but
good examples survive at Camlet Moat, in Trent Park and on the golf course at Worlds
End. At Elsyng manor, on Turkey Brook within the present Forty Hall Park, now known
to have been occupied since at least c1100, the moat survives as an archaeological
feature which has been partially excavated.
Elsyng was acquired by Henry VIII in 1539/40, and part of the Chase was hived off to
form a deer park for the newly-extended palace before 1548. Elsyng was one of the
principal residences of two of the King’s children, the future Edward VI and Mary I,
and their sister Elizabeth visited frequently during her reign. The archaeological
remains, free of later development on the site, are among the best-preserved
remains of a Tudor royal palace in England, with great research potential.
19
Fig. 4: Medieval Enfield
Suburban villas
The growth of London made Enfield an attractive suburban retreat for the rich.
Between the 17th and early 19th centuries, wealthy merchants or minor gentry built a
series of suburban villas in extensive grounds, many of which are now nationally and
locally designated Historic Parks and Gardens. One of the first, and most interesting,
of these is Forty Hall, built in 1629-32 for Nicholas Rainton, a textile merchant and
former Mayor of London. His nephew, who inherited the house, added a landscape
park on the site of Elsyng Palace, which he purchased and demolished in 1656. Later
owners have greatly altered both the house and park. Other important examples
include Broomfield House (16th century and later), the early 18th century Arnos Grove,
Capel Manor (mid 18th century), Myddelton House and Grovelands (early 19th
century), Whitewebbs (rebuilt in the later 19th century) and Trent Park (18th century,
rebuilt in the early 20th). Of these, only Trent Park has the scale, and the landmark
structures, of a truly rural estate, thanks largely to Philip Sassoon's work around 1930.
Forty Hall
Grovelands
20
As well as being interesting in their own right, these estates have to a large degree
shaped the later development of the Borough. The refusal of the owners of Forty Hall
and Trent Park to sell land for development contributed greatly to the present semirural nature of these parts of the borough, eventually secured by the designation of
the London Green Belt. To the south, the designed landscapes associated with
estates like Grovelands and Broomfield have become public parks.
Town houses and cottages
No medieval (pre-1485) domestic buildings are certainly known to survive in Enfield,
but may remain to be discovered embedded in seemingly later structures. A
relatively large number of high quality small and medium sized houses from the 16th to
early 19th century do survive. These tend to be modest in size but make an important
contribution to the look and feel of the historic settlements of the borough.
Particularly interesting early examples are to be found in Enfield town itself (the Coach
House and Clarendon Cottage, Gentleman’s Row), but most are to be found in the
less intensively developed north and west of the borough, such as the 16th/17th
century Fallow Buck Inn and the Rose and Crown in Clay Hill, and the mid 17th
century Dower House and impressive baroque-fronted Worcesters in Forty Hill. A few
early buildings also survive in the more developed south and east, such as the late
16th or early 17th century Salisbury House, Bury Street West, and ye Old Cherry Tree on
Southgate Green.
The Fallow Buck, Clay Hill
Worcesters, Forty Hill
The 18th and early 19th centuries saw the transplantation of the Georgian townhouse
from central London to what became growing suburbs. Specifically urban forms of
house appeared from the beginning of the 18th century in what were at the time very
rural areas. The best examples are in Gentleman’s Row in Enfield. Nos 236-8, 258-60
Fore Street and Angel Place, 183-195 Fore Street, in Edmonton, and The Cresecent, 84132 Hertford Road, in Edmonton are particularly urban in character. Other examples
are to be found in both towns, as well as in Southgate, Clay Hill, Forty Hill and
Winchmore Hill. More modest cottages, built in the local vernacular, are more typical
in smaller, more rural, settlements such as Bulls Cross.
The Crescent
Maiden’s Bridge
21
Transport and infrastructure (fig. 5)
Transportation has played a key role in shaping the Borough. The earliest means of
communication was the river Lea, which was canalised after 1571, and superseded
by the Lea Valley Navigation, a purpose-built canal, after 1770. While few historic
canal-side structures survive, it remains a working waterway. The New River, an
aqueduct transporting drinking water from springs in Hertfordshire to London, first
constructed between 1609 and 1613 and much improved since, is a fascinating and
unusual feat of engineering. The 19th century iron footbridges crossing the New River
are particularly distinctive.
Railways played a vital role in opening up the borough to residential and industrial
development. The Great Eastern line to Cambridge, opened in 1840, followed the Lea
valley. The network was expanded with a branch to Enfield and Edmonton in 1849, a
branch connecting Edmonton to Bethnal Green in 1872 and the opening of a line to
Cheshunt in 1891. To the west, the Great Northern Railway loop line via Stevenage,
which began in 1871 as a branch to Winchmore Hill and Enfield, opened up the
centre of the borough. Railways were late to reach the west of the borough, with the
extension of the Piccadilly line to Cockfosters, completed in 1933.
With the exception of the closure of the Cheshunt branch, the railway network
remains largely intact. However, stations and line-side architecture were generally
unremarkable and extensive modernisation has changed their appearance
dramatically. The most interesting part of the overground network is the Stevenage
Loop line, where the late 19th century stations erected by the Great Northern Railway
survive largely intact. By contrast the Piccadilly line extension was architecturally far
more innovative, with fine stations by Charles Holden, of which the best is the circular
station and parade at Southgate, which have been little altered.
The road network has been modernised by the building of the Great Cambridge
Road in 1930, incremental upgrading of the North Circular, and of course by the
building of the M25 in 1981.
The New River
Southgate Station
Industry
Improved transport links stimulated industry in the Lea Valley. This phase of
development has been relatively short-lived, and little now remains of Enfield’s
industrial past. The two most important surviving sites are Wrights Flour Mill, Ponders
End, originally a water-powered mill on the Lea, founded in the 18th century and still
producing flour, and the British Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock. This was founded
soon after 1804 and rebuilt on a grand scale in 1854. The factory turned out not only
huge quantities of small arms but also bicycles and motorcycles. Much of the 1854
factory building survives, at the centre of a new housing area, along with early
22
worker’s housing along the canal. The best surviving 20th century factory is the art
deco former Ripaults factory of c.1930. However, the once dominant industrial
structures, the cooling towers of the Brimsdown Power Station, were demolished 1976.
The Banbury, King George and William Girling Reservoirs of 1906, 1913 and 1951 are
now the most spectacular industrial structures.
Ponders End Flour Mill
British Small Arms Factory
Mass housing (fig. 5)
Housing now dominates most of the borough, and has been shaped largely by the
developing transport links. The Great Eastern Railway’s policy of including 3rd class
carriages on all trains encouraged the development of simple, cheap workers’
housing in the east of the borough. However, there are some areas of larger, more
architecturally ambitious 19th century estates, the best being Bush Hill Park, which was
developed from 1880. Those associated with the Great Northern Railway’s lines,
around Winchmore Hill, Bowes Park and Palmers Green, were aimed at the middle
class and are larger and of reasonably good architectural quality. The best of these,
such as Grange Park and Hadley Wood, date from the turn of the 20th century and
draw on garden city layouts and arts and crafts detailing.
Grange Park
The Meadway
Twentieth century housing tended to be concentrated around the Piccadilly line
stations and the North Circular and Great Cambridge Roads. Earlier development
tended to be aimed at the middle class, of which the best is The Meadway,
Southgate, with its cottage-style details and generous landscaping. Later houses,
constrained only by building bylaws, tended to be built to the lowest cost: the quality
of both architecture and landscaping deteriorated. A distinctive and new building
type to emerge in the suburbs of London in the 1930s was the purpose-built
apartment block. There are good surviving examples in Southgate, for example
Tregenna Close, near Oakwood Station, dating from 1938.
23
Much of the interesting housing of the early 20th century has tended to be social
housing, concentrated in the east of the Borough. Early distinctive workers’ housing
can be found in Enfield in Landseer Road (1902), Cecil Avenue (1903) and also Sketty
Road. Pioneering early 1920s council estates in Enfield and Edmonton, such as the
Hyde Estate in Edmonton, were influenced by the work of Raymond Unwin (architect
of Letchworth and Hampstead Garden Suburb) and garden city theorists; and also
by the early London County Council cottage estates, with plentiful open space and
plain exteriors in brick or render. Of the later council estates, the best is by Edmonton
Borough Council at Beaconsfield Road (c.1950-60), to a masterplan by Sir Edward
Gibberd, with butterfly roofs and crinkle-crankle walls.
Sketty Road
Beaconsfield Road
The growth of suburbia prompted the development of new urban centres around
railway stations, mainly consisting of parades of shops. The best of these are at
Palmers Green, where there is a fine group of Edwardian shops, and Southgate,
where Charles Holden’s circular station and parade is surrounded by terraces of
varying quality.
In many of Enfield’s residential areas, street trees, grass verges and green spaces are
important to the character and quality of streets, but together with front gardens they
are vulnerable to the pressures of increasing car ownership, demand for parking, and
simplification of maintenance regimes. The quality of the houses and apartment
blocks themselves is tending to be reduced by the ‘personalisation’ of the exteriors of
houses and flats, especially the loss of traditional joinery, eroding their integrity and
the sense of local distinctiveness.
24
Fig. 5: The growth of Enfield from c.1800
25
Public buildings
The earliest public buildings in Enfield are the medieval churches of Enfield and
Edmonton. The earliest surviving secular public building is Enfield Grammar School, the
present building being erected c.1586, a good example of essentially domestic
architecture of the period.
Expansion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was accompanied by a surge in the
provision of social, educational and leisure facilities – schools, libraries, parks,
swimming baths, hospitals and council offices. Just as these services and institutions
had an immense influence on the life of the community, so the surviving examples
continue to define and identify local communities even where (as is increasingly the
case) their original use is long gone.
These ‘civic markers’ identify local centres in the conurbation, and are usually
notable for their size, their quality of detailing and their confident design. Examples of
high-quality survivors include elementary schools by the first independent and local
authority school boards, secondary schools by Middlesex County Council, Carnegie
libraries at Enfield and Edmonton, the postal sorting offices at Grove Park and New
Southgate, and the electricity station at Ladysmith Road. The architecture of hospitals
tended to be particularly distinctive, the best being Chase Farm (opened 1886) and
Highlands, formerly Northern Hospital (opened 1885). The best of the new churches
are Butterfield’s St Mary Magdalene on Ridgeway Road (1883) and J. O. Scott’s
Church of St John the Evangelist, Palmers Green (1904-9).
Expansion to the west along the Piccadilly Line created a new wave of public
building. The best of these are in the modernist style, such as the De Bohun School,
Bowes Road Health Centre and Library, Green Road and the Arnos Pool and Library,
all by Curtis and Burchett, 1938-39.
Southgate Post Office
Fore Street Library
Bowes Road Library
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5.3 Material Culture
Collections of material culture in Enfield include those owned and managed by both
the Council and external organisations and communities. The Council is directly
responsible for the Enfield Museum Service.
John Constable, A Dell, 1796
Quarter guinea coin, 1818
Electric bed warmer made by famous local company, Belling, 1961
The Museum Service collects material in six main areas: social history; a sound archive
of oral history; fine and applied art; natural sciences; industrial history, and
archaeology. There are approximately 12,000 objects in the main collection and
around 2,000 objects available as a ‘handling’ collection for people to touch and
hold, which is regularly used as a learning tool by schools and community groups.
Victorian costume and object handling session for schools, Forty Hall, June 2007
The current collecting policy is to collect only items made in, owned in, used in, or
bought in the London Borough of Enfield (including pre-1965 constituent boroughs of
Enfield, Edmonton and Southgate).
27
The collection includes the exhibition and oral history archive called ‘Enfield
Revealed’ which is a fascinating deposit of the stories, memories, and interests of the
peoples of Enfield past and present; both young and old, and new or established
residents.
The Museum collection has been housed rather awkwardly at Forty Hall. The Museum
Service, the borough collection and its activities will benefit considerably from the
planned relocation to new premises at Thomas Hardy House in Enfield Town Centre.
The new premises will allow the Council to establish a new fit for purpose local history
museum within the regeneration scheme for Enfield Town.
Equally, now relieved of the future need to house the Museum collection, the exciting
proposals for Forty Hall and Estate can be planned and implemented.
The Local History Unit at Southgate Town Hall is responsible for archival material
related to the history of the borough, and houses records relating to the three
constituent historic boroughs of Enfield, Edmonton and Southgate. Together with the
Museum Service it has an important role to play as a learning resource that can give
a better understanding and sharing of Enfield’s heritage and support social adhesion
and inclusivity.
In addition to the borough collection, there are three other significant collection, at
Middlesex University, Whitewebbs Museum, and at the Royal Small Arms site in the Lee
Valley. The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture at the Middlesex University
Cat Hill site is a nationally renowned collection of domestic design, furniture, and
architecture; and includes the significant ‘Silver collection’ of wallpaper designs from
the 20thc. The Whitewebbs Museum of Transport at Crews Hill is managed by local
volunteers to keep alive the transport heritage of Enfield and is linked to the Enfield
Pageant of Motoring which takes place every spring. The Royal Small Arms
Interpretation Centre is independently managed as a visitor attraction within a
residential development and centre for small businesses. It tells the story of arms
manufacturing, the inventions and the industrial product development in the Lee
Valley in the 19thc and 20thc.
Most of these sites are located in the north of the borough. The Heritage Strategy is an
opportunity more accurately to reflect the geographical spread of diversity of the
borough’s heritage.
5.4 Intangible Heritage
Intangible heritage is less easy to identify than the material, tangible heritage. This
Enfield Heritage Strategy is the first time that the intangible aspects of heritage have
been formally recognised and it is perhaps unsurprising that no work has yet been
carried out to map what might constitute the intangible heritage of Enfield.
Nevertheless, given the definition of intangible heritage of languages, visual and
performing arts, social practices, faiths, rituals and festive events, there is clearly a
broad-range of such heritage throughout the borough, its people and places. All of
this activity is there to be embraced, understood and valued as a part of Enfield’s
diverse heritage. The task is to identify and reveal it for our common enrichment.
The key to making this rich diversity of heritage more visible and better valued is to
find and make opportunities for people to learn and share their cultural heritage
traditions and their modern manifestations. In so doing heritage will play a leading
role in ensuring the creation and strengthening of sustainable communities and be a
28
beacon of continuity and adhesion in these uncertain times. The achievement of this
aim will depend on organisations and individuals working together to learn,
understand and celebrate the cultural heritages within the diverse communities of
Enfield. There are many exemplars of best practice in this regard to be found in
Enfield’s schools, community and cultural organisations, Council services and policies,
and are often expressed through group activities, networks, festivals and events in
local neighbourhoods.
The Green Man
The diverse culinary heritage
Salsa and samba
To this contemporary mix we can add the ‘idea of Middlesex’. Although this historic
English county has been divided between various London boroughs and
administrative areas, Middlesex survives as a powerful and evocative name still used
by many people throughout Enfield and indeed other parts of London. It has a
meaning and value that continues to unite people and places.
29
5.5 Community-based Heritage
There are many community-based heritage organisations throughout the borough,
including the Enfield Archaeological Society, Friends of Forty Hall, The Enfield Society,
and many study groups contributing to the stewardship of conservation areas and
other historic areas, as well as the deliberations of the Council’s Conservation
Advisory Group.
In light of the more inclusive definition of heritage being used within this Strategy, to
these groups should be added the different faith groups of the borough, Greek and
Greek Cypriot, Eastern European, Turkish and Turkish Cypriot, the African and
Caribbean Society, and many more cultural and community organisations. There
exists a wide range of agencies and groups within the Borough who work to support
community development and care; Enfield Race Equality Council, Enfield Asian Day
Centre, Enfield Age Concern, the Enfield Women’s Centre, Enfield Disability Action,
Enfield Voluntary Action, Children & Young Peoples Services, and various residents
and tenants groups, to mention but a few. Many of these groups are focused on the
east of the borough where high deprivation levels and transient populations are of
particular concern.
All of these community-based organisations have important roles to play in the future
of Enfield’s heritage and the development of this Strategy.
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6. Priorities and Aims
Competition within Council’s for scarce resources and staff time has never been
more intense and it is clear that the Council cannot fund or support every heritage
opportunity that arises. It is vital therefore, that tough choices are made so that the
most effective use of resources is made. The Council has decided that the following
key aims are its top priorities for action in the near future. They relate to a 3 – 5 year
time frame, which will be reviewed from time to time to measure progress and allow
new emerging priorities to replace those successfully completed.
1. Site Specific Priorities
Forty Hall & Estate
Forty Hall & Estate is the heritage crown jewel of Enfield. It also has the potential to
act as a catalyst for the positive development of Enfield’s wider heritage. The
realisation of Forty Hall & Estate as a ’Regional Heritage Visitor Centre’ is a key action
of the Council’s current Improvement and Best Value Performance Plan 2007/2010.
In the context of Enfield’s heritage, Forty Hall & Estate is the Council’s top priority for
action.
Key aim 1: To secure funding for the imaginative enhancement of Forty Hall & Estate
as a cultural landscape and destination heritage attraction.
Enfield Museum
The re-location of Enfield Museum service to its central Enfield town centre site at
Thomas Hardy House is already being planned, and is a key action of the current
Improvement and Best Value Performance Plan 2007/2010.
Key aim 2: To allocate funding for the successful re-location of Enfield Museum
Service from Forty Hall to Thomas Hardy House and its re-launch as a local history
museum for the people of Enfield.
Broomfield House & Park
Broomfield house is an important historic building, but has been extensively damaged
by fire and relatively little of the historic fabric remains. The house was the focus of an
important formal garden and wider designed landscape which essentially took on its
present form in the early 18th century, incorporating earlier features. A study has been
commissioned to define the extent and importance of the surviving fabric in its
landscape context, and to investigate possible ways forward.
Key aim 3: To look for a viable solution for the Broomfield House site and to consult
with English Heritage, community groups and local residents on taking it forward.
31
2. Conservation areas
The designation of conservation areas provides the Council with a means of
recognising and managing areas which are of ‘special architectural or historic
interest, the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance’
in the local, borough, context. The Council has recently approved character
appraisals and management proposals for the 16 areas currently designated, and
commissioned both a characterisation study of the Borough as a whole, and a review
of designation criteria, as part of its present wide-ranging Conservation Area Review.
Key aim 4: The Council will use the Borough-wide characterisation study as the basis
for establishing consistent criteria for selecting and designating areas of ‘special
architectural or historic interest’ at borough level.
Key aim 5: To conclude the Conservation Area Review, the Council will, on the basis
of established criteria, and through public consultation, bring forward further areas of
the borough to be designated as conservation areas.
3. Collecting Enfield
Although collections are found in the ‘institutional’ contexts of local museums and the
local studies collection, it remains to be discovered what other collections exist in
Enfield. This is not necessarily to add to Enfield Museum’s collections, but to identify
aspects of material culture from individuals and groups that should be recognised as
being valued by people, and therefore part of the borough’s wider heritage.
Key aim 6: The Council will consult widely throughout the borough on collections of
material culture held by individuals and groups.
Key aim 7: To consider different forms of communicating and exhibiting these
collections, including physical displays and digital technologies.
4. Mapping the Intangible
The intangible heritage is currently under-researched at borough level. Successfully
mapping and representing the intangible heritage of the borough presents new
opportunities to develop greater levels of involvement and participation in the
heritage at a more grass roots level and from a wider range of potential audiences
and communities.
Key aim 8: The Council will consult widely to audit the breadth and diversity of
intangible heritage resources in Enfield and find new ways to record and recognise
them and, where possible, open up wider public access to them.
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5. Enfield as a Learning Resource
The whole of Enfield is a learning resource. Learning is not limited to historic sites and
museums and the whole built and natural environment that makes up Enfield’s
landscape is a potential learning resource to be explored and understood.
Key aim 9: The Council will consult with learning providers of all kinds on the potential
of Enfield’s heritage as a learning resource.
Key aim 10: The Council will pursue the potential of learning from the environment in
terms of curriculum-shaping at both Primary and Secondary schools.
Key aim 11: The Council will become a signatory to the Learning Outside the
Classroom Manifesto.
6. Partnerships and Promotion
The extension and development of existing and new partnerships, for example the
Partnership Schemes in Conservation Areas (PSiCA) projects with English Heritage in
the east of the Borough, are vital to ensure the successful positioning and promotion
of heritage as an important part of Enfield’s shared future. We already have a strong
record of successful working in partnership with national and local groups to deliver
heritage pilot projects; for example the work with English Heritage, in response to the
challenge to the sector from the Government, to deliver the conservation area
character
appraisals,
management
proposals
and
the
borough-wide
characterisation study.
Other challenges, for example Heritage at Risk entries and Trent Park, together with
opportunities such as at Millfield House and the Queen Elizabeth II Stadium, will
continue to demand tenacity, imagination and flexibility when working with others
towards solutions and more sustainable long-term management.
Key aim 12: The Council will build on existing partnerships and seek, wherever
opportunities arise, to establish new partnerships.
Key aim 13: The Council will set imaginative new aims for its heritage and pilot new
heritage projects in partnership with others.
Key aim 14: The Council will seek, in partnership with neighbouring organisations and
bodies, to explore the potential of Enfield’s northern green landscape as a
sustainable heritage tourism brand and destination.
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7. Monitoring and Evaluation: Next Steps
This Strategy has been widely circulated throughout the Borough and with key
stakeholders beyond for discussion and comment. The consultation process has
endeavoured to address the - currently understandable - imbalance in favour of the
tangible, material heritage of the past as opposed to aspects of the intangible
heritage valued by individuals and communities today. The findings and implications
of the consultation have been fed into the Heritage Strategy and will inform the
development of individual Key aim projects. At that stage, specific responsibilities,
timescales, resource implications and outcomes will be identified against each of the
Key aims which will relate, where relevant and appropriate, to the Council’s
performance management system.
Heritage initiatives and projects have the potential to contribute to national and local
performance indicators and LAA targets, particularly with regards conservation area
performance, planning performance and in the areas of education, social cohesion,
community development, community safety, positive activities for children and
young people, economic wellbeing and regeneration targets for positive change in
local neighbourhoods. New Key aim projects will incorporate an evaluation process
to monitor outcomes, so that the overall impact and benefits of projects, and on the
Heritage Strategy overall, can be assessed as a symbiotic process.
8. Conclusion
Enfield has a rich past, a present full of opportunities and challenges, and an exciting
future. The inclusive conception of heritage embodied within this Strategy ensures
that heritage has a key role to play in our shared future.
A more deeply held and better promoted understanding of Enfield’s heritage has the
potential to contribute towards the delivery of excellent services across the Council
and to make a real difference to the lives of all residents and visitors to the borough.
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Appendix: Definitions
Heritage includes ‘all inherited resources which people value for reasons beyond
mere utility’; it is the attachment of value (’an aspect of worth or importance’) that
makes a resource ‘heritage’. That resource may be tangible, like a building or a
street, or intangible, like oral traditions or dance. This distinction between ‘tangible’
and ‘intangible’ heritage is often made according to whether the resource
concerned is or is not ‘material’, physical rather than abstract. Such a distinction is,
however, made for essentially practical purposes. Heritage values attached by
people to places are a public interest in largely private property, which justifies
protection through specific legal and policy constraints on its owners, whereas
intangible heritage tends to be largely in the domain of those who attach value to it.
English Heritage has recently developed a group of heritage definitions specifically
related to the (tangible, immovable) historic environment. Although relatively open
and inclusive, as one might expect, they necessarily focus on the heritage values that
people attach to places that are certainly ‘material’ and may be obviously ‘historic’:
Heritage: All inherited resources which people value for reasons beyond mere utility
Cultural Heritage: Inherited assets which people identify and value as a reflection and
expression of their evolving knowledge, beliefs and traditions, and of their understanding of the
beliefs and traditions of others
Natural Heritage: Inherited habitats, species, ecosystems, geology and landforms, including
those in and under water, to which people attach value
Historic Environment: All aspects of the environment resulting from the interaction between
people and places through time, including all surviving physical remains of past human
activity, whether visible or buried, and deliberately planted or managed flora
Place: Any part of the historic environment, of any scale, that has a distinctive identity
perceived by people
Value: An aspect of worth or importance, here attached by people to qualities of places
Conservation Principles: Policies & Guidance for the Sustainable Management of the Historic Environment,
Final version, English Heritage, forthcoming April 2008
Ideas of ‘intangible heritage’ can provide a real link to local communities and be
expressive of their cultural diversity, beyond the ‘top-down’ statutory designations of
buildings, townscapes and landscapes. In 2003 UNESCO published the following
definition of intangible heritage in its Convention for the Safeguarding of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage, which came into force in 2006 in those countries (not
including the UK) which have ratified it.
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The ‘intangible cultural heritage’ means the practices, representations, expressions,
knowledge, skills – as well as instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated
therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognise as part of their
cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is
constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their
interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and
continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity.
The ‘intangible cultural heritage’ is manifested inter alia in the following domains:
a) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural
heritage;
b) performing arts;
c) social practices, rituals and festive events;
d) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;
e) traditional craftsmanship
Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO, 2003
This document has been subject to public consultation. It was drafted by:
The Paul Drury Partnership
114 Shacklegate Lane
Teddington TW11 8NE
Tel 020 8977 8980
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Email: [email protected]
75 Ambergate Street
Kennington
London SE17 3RZ
Stuart Davies m 07821 382 998
[email protected]
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