Queen Anne's Place, Bush Hill Park
A Memory of Bush Hill Park.
Queen Anne's Place was actually quite posh, and my mum, brother and I used to catch the train from here to go shopping in Enfield Town in the 1960's and early 1970's. The other entrance to the station was in St. Mark's Road, which was more fun, but not as upmarket. We lived in Amberley Road, which was a short walk away, and we used to pass a children's home which I think was called 'The Laurels' I used to wonder who lived there, and feel sorry for the children, my imagination conjuring up all sorts of stories about them.
I loved shops from an early age and remember how proper everything was. There was a ladies dress shop, which had two very nice ladies serving, and when mum had finished in there, they offered my brother and me a boiled sweet from a little dish on the counter. There was the bank on the corner, and the post office which also sold toys, and opposite on the end, near Abbey Road was Walton, Hassle and Port, a grocer's. There was also a green grocers, and my brother and I used to wait outside for mum, being completely in our own world, and playing imaginary guitars to passers by! Every door of every shop seemed to be very large (or I could have been very small) and they were sparkling clean with tile entrances and shiny handles. I went back a few years ago, and thought everything looked shabby, but maybe that's just me! There was a poor lady who had a very disfigured face, who we used to see around there, and I remember being told off for staring. My mum said she had been bombed in a cinema in the war. Dreadful.
There was also a car garage there and another couple of funny little shops, which sold nothing in particular, but were nice to go in and browse. I remember getting an Action Girl doll there for my 10th birthday. The pace was very slow and calm, and nobody seemed to be in a hurry. How times have changed!
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I also remember the Avenues very well: Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Avenues each had their own character.
In Fourth avenue there was an off-licence half way down where we used to buy lemonade and Mr Moody's sweet shop (at the end of the road opposite the park gates). Mum made us ice-cream sodas for a treat putting a Walls' ice cream brick cut in half into a glass of lemonade.
Fifth and Sixth Avenues were full of small terraced houses. There were alleyways running behind and between these roads which we used at a cut-through to the park.
Seventh Avenue retains some of its original character because the school looks the same. When I was a child, there was a parade of shops opposite the school, with a sweet shop on the corner which also sold cigarettes singly. At Lincoln Road end of Seventh Avenue there was a parade of terraced houses on the school side and opposite them was the yard used by Price's bakery. Their delivery vehicles were all horse-drawn, so the yard was surrounded by stables. There was always a race for the additional fertiliser in Millais Road when the Price's horse left droppings outside in the road. Dad and a neighbour opposite used to wait with their fireside coal shovels to collect the steaming pile for improving their gardens!
I felt sad when the Avenues were demolished in the early 1970's. I was then newly married and living in Cecil Avenue. I remember the air in Bush Hill Park being full of brick dust. Those houses were among the oldest in the area. I can still visualise them even now.
My dad had the shop until it was compulsory purchased in the early 1970s I have been back there since it was all pulled down and didn't recognise the area the library at the end of the road is still there I have fond memories of being there