please empty your brain below
I don't know if it's down to DG's hiatus from full time employment, but the blog just gets better and better at the moment.

Tom | 07.06.17 - 7:17 a.m. | #

Another interesting post.Looked up New Addington and Croxley Green on wiki,such different ends of the social spectrum only connected by their proximity to the green belt. Shocked that NA was so far from a train station and could still be in Greater london.

My nearest piece of green belt is Oakwood/Cockfosters both with good transport links. They have an unfinished feel about them and I have always put this down to the outbreak of WW2 with development just stopping and never starting again post war due to the new imposed green belt barrier.

Anno | 07.06.17 - 8:14 a.m. | #

Thanks - I hadn't been aware of this. I grew up in Manchester's equivalent, I think. I've booked to hear John Grindrod talk in Croydon on 24 June (part of the Croydon Heritage Festival) and I'm very much looking forward to it.

Baldassaro | 07.06.17 - 8:27 a.m. | #

I'm going to be spending a lot of time looking at John Grindrod's blog today! Thank you for that. And I shall be buying the book - loved Concretopia and the new one sounds great.

Sarah | Homepage | 07.06.17 - 8:31 a.m. | #

Pedant hat on - I think you're declaring rather than (or in addition to) expressing an interest...
Many years' involvement in local government has sensitised me to such nuances.

dg writes. Re-expressed, thanks.

Sarah | Homepage | 07.06.17 - 8:37 a.m. | #

It's a shame town planning roles are dissapearing from councils. I've long marvelled at the eclectic blend in London. With million pound townhouses adjacent and facing council homes.
It brings beautiful diversity and 'integration' to the city. A stark contrast to social housing projects found on the outskirts in different cities, which clearly doesn't work. I hope this is not the future.

louise | 07.06.17 - 9:13 a.m. | #

That tree looks really lonely.

Still anon | 07.06.17 - 10:18 a.m. | #

Thank DG this is a book I will buy, growing up in Ruislip in the early 1950's I'm a child of the green belt.

Michael | 07.06.17 - 10:22 a.m. | #

As a fellow Croxley boy (albeit from the other end of the "village"), I'll be reading this with interest. Thanks for the heads up DG.

THC | 07.06.17 - 10:34 a.m. | #

I spent the first seven years of my life living on the first farm along The Ridgeway in Enfield. To our south was Chase Farm Hospital and continuous built up land for twenty-thirty miles or more, to our north farmland as far as the eye could see with just the village of Botany Bay between us and Potters Bar. I then moved just a few miles east to Ponders End but it might as well have been a different planet although Epping Forest was tantalisingly visible in the distance across the Lea Valley reservoirs!

Phil | 07.06.17 - 12:21 p.m. | #

Ponders End is another planet, Edmontons downmarket brother.

My grandfather used to drive us up to Chingford for the afternoon out and as children we would marvel when descending down Kings Head Hill at the reserviors below us . He told us that was the sea and we believed him.

Grazing along side the reserviors were the grubbiest sheep I've ever seen. I bet they dreamt of escaping to somewhere nice.

Anno | 07.06.17 - 1:51 p.m. | #

I've been mulling over your comments about the village of Croxley Green being an illusion as only a handful of people worked on the land.
I'm wondering whether a village has to have an agricultural basis. The Oxford dictionary defines a village as being "self contained".
I grew up in a large-ish rural village. Most of the people worked in the village, others worked maybe up to 4 miles away. But it was a mining village and those who didn't work in the mine worked at the industrial estate. Very few of the people worked on the land.
It was still very much a village nonetheless.
I very much agree though that most of the places I've been to within spitting distance of London that are described as "villages" are anything but - posh detached dormitory enclaves more like.

Caz | 07.06.17 - 6:02 p.m. | #

Sounds great, I've ordered my copy. I didn't grow up in the Green Belt, but this sounds fascinating. Looking forward to finding out where Chelmsley Wood is too.

As THC said, thanks for the heads up.

Lorenzo | 07.06.17 - 10:56 p.m. | #

@Anno

New Addington's distance from a railway station was the very reason the tramline was built.

timbo | 07.06.17 - 11:26 p.m. | #

Interesting topic. I find it's interesting that here in the states, people in the suburbs have more or less totally cut off lives, where they usually drive to every service and store. But the one topic of conversation that seems to hold everyone's interest is the few wild things that are left. Coyotes being the chief amusement for local conversation. I guess you have foxes in the U.K.

John | 08.06.17 - 4:15 a.m. | #

Got inspired to buy the book so found it on Kindle (the US version). Wondered why DG hadn't put in a link with an affiliate code to it. Held off purchasing in the hope he does so in the near future.

There's people who want to give you money for a bloody brilliant site. We also know you won't be reduced to peddling shit for hits via '10 Things You Won't Believe About Dagenham' type articles. So please stick some affiliate links on to things you discuss. Add lots of British-style apologies to them for when you do if it will ease your conscience. If I'm going to pay a US company money for a book I'd rather some of it finds its way to you.

Spent 6 years living in London before returning to my home country. Your blog is a daily reminder of the beautifully sensory-overloading human place the city is.

Graham | 08.06.17 - 3:25 p.m. | #

Thanks Graham, but if you're waiting for me to add affiliate links, you will never buy the book.

Buy the book. John'll get your money.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 08.06.17 - 3:37 p.m. | #











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