Flamstead End School /Hammond Street

A Memory of Cheshunt.

Hi..I too went to Flamstead End junior school..and remember Mrs Sibley and Mr Cave...Mr Cave lived in Pottars Bar and drove what seemed a large car then - an Austin Cambridge I think....there was also a Miss/Mrs Butterfield who was related to Mrs Sibley. Do you remember Mrs Golding who used a tamborine to bring in the children after a break. Keith Noble was deputy headmaster and only died a few years ago.. I chanced to call on him- had always known where he lived ..he told me of how rural Hammond Street and Cuffley Hill once were as he moved to the area in the 50s...I too walked up Dig Dag Hill and went through an alley to get to Hilltop Close - also walking through those derelict nurseries where the Rosedale estate now is...- there was also a house at junction of Holbeck/Dig Dag and Longfield who sold annuals in wooden boxes at front of the house. The "tuck shop" mentioned here was known as the Poplar Cafe, run by a lady called Mrs Harfield,(who was the cook at Falcon hotel in Waltham Cross, and the daughter of a policman at Albany Street and had relatives in Devon and Lundy Island ),- it was previously a cafe for cyclists, then became a sweet shop - she kept chickens and some ducks and had a wonderful Aga Range in the kitchen and a tenant called Mr Steele who worked as a cleaner in Enfield and used to call in nightly to collect a boiled egg, tea and a candle (this was late 70s!)...he had no light...( my parents often made her a meal which I brought round and helped her)..strangely she died early 90s...and the day after so did her tenant...it took a while to redevelop the site as the owner was a minor member of the Polish aristocracy and tracing him difficult!!..I do have some wonderful pictures of Poplars...do you also remember a full size railway carriage come up Holbeck Lane to end up in a front garden of a Brian Juniper just down Appleby Street...Despite being sort of cut off from Cheshunt we had the marvel of a bus..the 279 that could transport us not only to Cheshunt but to far off Edmonton..Manor House..Islington and Smith field!! and the one N279 from Trafalgar Square...those romantic routemaster buses....The Rising Sun PH...always seemed a bit run down.....on Dig Dag Hill in the old isolation hospital was a railway club...past Peakes lane was Frestons nursery...then Poplars Cafe....
fyi..my dad taught Geology at Polytechnic , mum worked part time at Fishpools...and I've a sister called Maria.....David Hawkins

---

---