For nearly a decade before its first sod was turned a railway through Winchmore Hill had been spoken of as a future contingency. “When the railway comes” and “If ever the railway comes” were phrases to be heard again and again. Various plans were discussed, but nothing came of them, and most people felt that they should not believe in it till they saw it.

 

The first Bill that was sent to Parliament proposed that the line should pass below the village much nearer to the Green Lanes than its present position, and there was from the beginning an idea of continuing the Great Northern Railway through Enfield to Hertford, and making the new route the main line for passenger traffic, as there would be fewer tunnels.

 

In the Summer of 1869, rather to the astonishment of the Village, there arrived a load of barrows, shovels, and tip trucks, and the Winchmore Hill section of the Enfield branch line was begun by the turning of sods in a large field in Vicarsmoor Lane, near the present Goods Station. In a few days rows of wooden huts arose, mushroom-like, and gangs of navvies were soon in full possession. The work was begun also at the Enfield and Wood Green ends. There were at that time no houses between Winchmore Hill and Wood Green, except the old cottages on or near the high road, Palmerston Villas, and a few gentlemen’s houses in their own grounds, and no part of West Enfield was built with the exception of some large villas on the Ridge Way.

 

The great business was the spanning of the deep valley between the village and the hills to the North. The summer was one of heat and drought, the stream was nearly dry, and the engineers took an entirely erroneous view of its capabilities: they did not realise the extent of the watershed from the hills on either side, and when the inhabitants described “lakes of flood water, and bridges washed away and piled one upon another” they were listened to in polite disbelief.

 

The soil was dug from a cutting in “Brett’s Field” and tipped to form an embankment towards Fillcaps Farm, and soon quite an imposing appearance was made.

 

The pretty row of cottages where the Grandmother lived were pulled down, the great ash arbour ruthlessly destroyed, and the garden devastated: the holly hedge, dense as a wall, was grubbed up, scarcely anything remained but the tall yew and a golden-knob apple tree, which for years after blossomed and fruited, on the top of the cutting by Vicarsmoor Bridge. The lane was closed for traffic, and a notice board proclaimed, “This Road is stopped time the Bridge is being built.”

 

After men and horses had laboured for some time a working engine was brought down called the “Fox.”

 

The excavations were beautiful in colour, the London clay being a bright cobalt blue when first cut through, and changing with exposure to orange. There were strata of black and white flints and yellow gravel; the men’s white slops and the red heaps of burnt ballast made vivid effects of light and shade and colour against the cloudless sky of that excessively hot summer. There were also dark wooden planks and shorings to add neutral tints, and when the engine came the glitter of brass and clouds of white steam were added to the landscape. On Sundays and holidays the men were, many of them, resplendent in scarlet or yellow or blue plush waistcoats and knee breeches.

 

It was not till the 1^st January, 1870, that the Doctor’s house was given over to the invaders and he moved to Grove Lodge. It was then all deep snow, and the cutting was so close to the side of the house that the garden shrubs were constantly slipping over the edge and having to be brought back and replanted. A portion of the wall was built, but the frost got into the mortar and it fell almost immediately, so the garden became a thoroughfare for the navvies at their work.

 

There had been much fear in the village of annoyance from the horde of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire railway men brought into the village by Fairbank, the contractor; but on the whole their conduct was very orderly, and they can hardly be sufficiently commended for their behaviour in and near Grove Lodge. A noticeable figure was “Dandy” Ganger, a big north countryman, decorated with many large mother-of-pearl buttons and a big silver watch chain. He instantly checked all bad language in the neighbourhood of the Doctor’s garden. Many of the navvies brought their food or their tea cans to be heated on the great kitchen range, and never once made themselves objectionable.

 

It had been intended to complete the line in 1870; and that date may be seen on the girders of the bridge, beneath Winchmore Hill Station, but many difficulties were met within the five miles of line; there was a culvert for the great stream in the valley, which looked as if it would carry anything possible, but when the water rose in the winter it sapped the foundations and the arch cracked badly; the treacherous clay, “blue slipper”, sank lower and lower, till what had been meant for a level line became a steep gradient; long after the line was opened the “slip,” as it was called, was so dangerous that every train slowed down to pass it, and many persons were afraid to travel by rail to Enfield. The hollow in the railway may easily be seen from Vicarsmoor Bridge or even the Station platform.

 

The working engines had each a voice of its own, so that it was easy to tell by ear which of them was passing with its load of trucks. “Fox” informed the world there was “such a hurry, such a hurry.” Hunslet, a tank engine, that arrived much later on the scene, was particularly clear in her enunciation, informing all the world of her huffy temper, though I never heard she was ill to deal with as a worker—“I’m in a huff, I’m in a huff!” she puffed on her way along the line. “Progress,” who laboured at the Wood Green end, proclaimed continually the name of the chief engineer—“Mr Claringbull, Mr Claringbull,” she shouted with a strong accent on the last syllable. “Ferret” seldom left the Enfield portion of roadmaking, perhaps because everything was “such a heavy load, such a heavy load.”

 

Besides the trouble caused by the wet clay in the valley, another delay was occasioned by the thoughtless action of a gentleman who moved the stumps in his kitchen garden, which marked the limit of the proposed railway, and by so doing caused the centre line, originally surveyed, to become incorrect. The secret was never divulged, but the mischief done was incalculable.

 

The skew bridge under Hoppers Road was a big piece of building. It is where the Doctor’s house and garden stood, and for one or two years after it was built the cutting each summer was a forest of rose and carnation poppies at least three feet high; they revelled in a new soil and made gigantic blossoms in every shade of crimson, scarlet, white, purple, and grey.

 

Five men were killed by accident in making the five miles of railway. A man who sleeps on a ballast heap on a cold night never wakes, the fumes are as poisonous as those of a charcoal brazier, and this fatality occurred more than once, besides other mischances.

 

All through 1870, the navvies worked; clay and gravel were excavated, and tip trucks filled the valley at Bowes and the much deeper one below the Enfield hills. A viaduct was built over Dog Kennel Lane, and the roadway itself raised 20 feet, the streams were imprisoned in culverts, bridge after bridge was built, either to carry rail over road or road over rail, the five-arch bridge at Warren House Lane being really picturesque till it became surrounded by houses. A huge sustaining wall supported the Grove Lodge garden. Station and platforms were built, sections joined, and the temporary metals became continuous for the whole length of the branch. A foretaste of the convenience of a railway was gained now and again by the wild delight of a rush home on “The Fox.” Once a lurid night-ride from Palmer’s Green seemed faster than the “Flying Dutchman” itself, as the little engine bucketed along over the roughly laid lines, with no weight of trucks behind to steady it.

 

More ballast was burned to lay the permanent way, and heavy rails and cast-iron chairs began to take their places. Another winter was passed, and it was said the railway would be opened early in the year; then a definite date was given, the first of April! But the villagers had waited so long, they only laughed at the day named.

 

“Oh! yes, the first of April! No doubt!” but when notices were published they had perforce to believe.

 

It was the night of the 31^st of March, 1871, the permanent way was completed, the station was finished and smelt strongly of fresh paint, everything was ready. It was late in the evening, all was very quiet, the familiar sound of the working engine and attendant trucks attracted no attention, but suddenly the village was startled by a loud explosion, a perfect volley of explosions!

 

Many people ran down to the bridge expecting to find some unlooked-for accident had occurred. It was the navvies celebrating their departure with their last train of trucks by a fusilade of fog-signals under the bridge and railway station!

 

And on All-Fools’ Day, 1871, the first passenger train came through Winchmore Hill, and the little village developed into a Suburb of London Town.

 

 

The following poem was written in the Autumn of 1888, and is the record of a ride from Tottenham to Winchmore Hill, via Whitehart Lane, Wolves Lane, Tilekiln Lane, Green Lanes, and Hoppers Road:—

 

 

Homeward in the mellow twilight,

Clattering hoofs across the tramlines

Over bricks and over granite.

Past the laden market waggons

Journeying slowly to the City

From the fields and open country.

 

Through the crowd of eager faces,

Crowd of toiling men and women;

Hurrying homewards in the twilight.

Past the glare of many a tavern,

And the flicker of the street lamps

As the lamplighter wends onwards,

Lighting stars along the roadway,

Till the lamps get ever scarcer

Towards the fields and open country.

 

Past the dwellings of the wealthy

And the wretched meagre houses;

Past the mouths of filthy alleys,

Straying dogs and tramps and children,

Shops and stalls and costers’ barrows;

Past the gaudy painted hoardings,

And the hissing tramway engines,

Clanging, whistling, snorting, steaming,

Towards the fields and open country.

 

Under torn and smoky leafage,

Past conventicles and churches,

Midst the din of barrel organs

And the sounds of oaths and strivings,

And the yelping of the street curs,

To a turning from the highway,

Leading towards the peaceful country.

 

Past the railway and the station,

Echoing walls and echoing bridges,

To the welcome tread of gravel;

Past the windows of the College

With the Catherine Wheels above them,

And the studious girlish faces

Toiling in the lighted classrooms;

Onward in the deepening twilight

Towards the fields and open country.

 

Past some cottages with gardens,

Dahlias, clematis, and asters,

Red and white and purple asters;

And a mother with her baby,

Chatting with her neighbour kindly,

Fire-light shining through a doorway,

On the haze of Autumn twilight,

Making ghostly lights and shadows;

Then a row of London houses,

Gazing strangely at the hedge-rows,

Over cabbages and turnips,

Over fields and open country.

 

Now a farm and now a footpath

And a pond that shines like starlight

In the flickering evening shadows,

Till the town is far behind us,

And we pass between the hedgerows,

See the brambles and the ragwort,

And the twisting of the mist-wreaths;

While the ringing of the gravel

Dies on turf beside the roadway,

Where the sheep and spotted cattle

Lift their heads and wander onward,

Wander in the open country.

 

In the distance, in the fog-land,

Shines a candle in a window,

While the light of day grows fainter

And the evening mists wax denser;

So, along the winding roadway

Here, a tile-kiln burning brightly,

There, some women tramping homewards,

Tramping wearily and slowly;

With a bundle and a baby,

Through the still and lonely country.

 

Clattering hoofs on dust and pebble;

Now again we reach a highway,

With a glowing road-side smithy

And a noisy glittering tavern;

Then we cross a dreamy river

Looking weird beneath the twilight,

Bearing water to the City,

To the slums, and dens, and hovels

Of the toilers in the smoke-land,

From the breezy healthful country.

 

Here are houses near together,

Here a wood and there a hay field,

On the outskirts of the village,

Scents of mignonette and roses,

Floating on the breath of evening,

Borne from many a cottage garden;

Now we clatter through the village

To the welcome open gateway,

Hear the friendly words of welcome!

Welcome! both for horse and rider;

Welcome! in the Autumn twilight

From our ride through town and country.

 

THE END