Edgware is easy to find, its a terminus station on the Northern Line tube. Its also astride the A5, the road known to the Romans as Watling Street. It is situated 9.7 miles north-west of Charing Cross. This is very helpful if you know the location of Charing Cross! This is, of course, an area of London. Edgware was an ancient hamlet in the county of Middlesex and is a Saxon name meaning Ecgi’s weir. Ecgi was a Saxon and the weir relates to a pond where Ecgi’s people would catch fish. It is now principally a shopping and residential area. From 1894 to its abolition in 1931, the parish was part of Hendon Rural District. From 1931 until 1965 it became part of the Municipal Borough of Hendon. Nearby, Brockley Hill is associated with Roman pottery and could be the site of Sulloniacis. To the noth-west, is Canons Park. James Brydges 1st Duke of Chandos developed it as an estate and built his great palace, Cannons.

The highwayman Dick Turpin has been associated with Edgware. 4th February 1735 is the date of his worst incident. 70 year old Joseph Lawrence of Earlsbury Farm was attacked by Turpin and four others who beat him with their pistols and tortured him by setting him on a fire whilst naked. While this was going on, the leader of the gang took a servant girl upstairs and raped her.

There have been other famous people associated with this place and when I find someone that I feel is worthy of mention I will add them here!

Just recently, I’ve been thinking about ‘The Underground’. I bought a number of small paperback booklets from two well known internet sites and found them very interesting, each one giving a detailed history of each line. I have also bought a hardback book called ‘By Tube Beyond Edgware’. (*1) It tells of the plan to extend the Northern Line beyond Edgware towards Bushey Heath. The main purpose of this scheme was to create a new traction depot for the line. The earthworks and a lot of the ground works for the buildings were well underway when along came the Second World War. Following the end of that conflict the country was in a state of financial hardship and all the plans of extention were abandoned. Wot a waste! Now, all that area has been developed for housing. If there’s any future plan for a traction depot, that will have to be built further out and will probably mean that the existing station is rebuilt underground to allow the trains to pass all the surface obstacles. This may have some benefit to the surrounding area by means of making more people nearer the train service into London for work or recreation. There is, of course, the added employment opportunities.

 

 

( *1 ) ISBN 185414 246 1

Published by Capital Transport Publishing, 38 Long Elmes, Harrow Weald, Middlesex.   © Tony Beard  2002

To be continued…….