Southgate Town Hall - by Ruby Galili

Southgate Town Hall is the building below Palmers Green Library. It was built in 1893. There is a newspaper picture of a painting of the area in 1873 by Mr JW Bone. It shows open country with Broomfield lane joining the Green Lanes at a grassy triangular junction. It did not reproduce well on my computer so I did not include it here.

Southgate Town Hall is under threat of demolition. The Enfield Advertiser 13/07/2011 states that there are two possible “free” schools, that would be prepared to take over the building for educational purposes. They have the support of David Burrowes MP for Enfield, Southgate but it is opposed by many Enfield Councillors on the grounds that the building is not suitable.

The building is not grade listed despite being one of Palmers Green’s most attractive buildings. There are car parking facilities for library users and for the government officers who are temporarily based in offices at the Town Hall. The whole area is under threat of being turned into housing.

Southgate was a local government district of Middlesex from 1881 to 1965. Historically the area had been part of the parish of Edmonton and in 1850 they formed a local board of health to govern the area but by 1879 the ratepayers of Southgate petitioned for their area to be separated from Edmonton, after the owner of Broomfield House found that the fish in his lake had died due to pollution, which he blamed on Edmonton. In 1881 Southgate Local Board was established, with nine members. By the Local Government Act 1894 Southgate was designated as an urban district and became independent of Edmonton. The borough was to be administered from a new town hall.

Alan Dumayne, the reliable and renown, local historian in his “Once Upon a Time in Palmers Green” (published in 1988) says that when Southgate separated from Edmonton in 1881 the first seat of local Government was Ash Lodge near the Cherry Tree, Southgate Green and John Walker of Arnos Grove was its first chairman. Soon larger premises were required and the Board Instructed architect Arthur Rowland Barker to design a Town Hall. He and his architect son Raymond lived at Grove Lodge near Southgate Green, where Chandos Court is today.  A R Barker designed several local buildings as well as Southgate Town Hall, there was the Southgate Village Hall, St Paul’s Institute, a school in Chase Side and St Andrews Baptist Church. He was a church warden at Christ Church for 25 years and his family contributed to the installation of the bells there, as well as one of the windows on the south side of the church which commemorated his aunt. He was a JP for 11 years, and became a member of both Middlesex County Council, and the Southgate Burial Board. He died at Grove House in 1915 and is buried in the cemetery in Waterfall Lane.

The site chosen for the new Town Hall was on the corner of Broomfield Lane and the Green Lanes. He was asked to make his design resemble a private house rather than a public building and it certainly does that. It was finished in 1893 the year before Southgate became an Urban District.

Earliest photograph of the Town Hall 1893

In 1894 the area was still very rural and the new building was described by some wag as a Town Hall in a Turnip field.

The flagpole and horse trough were added c 1900 when the urban district council was increased in size to 12 councillors.

Council Offices Palmers Green 1906

Alterations were made in 1914 to enlarge the building (look at the brickwork and roofing tiles). The clock tower was added at this time.

In 1933 Southgate was granted a charter of incorporation and became a municipal borough. The corporation of the borough consisted of a mayor, seven aldermen and twenty-one councillors. They met in a magnificent Council Chamber which still exists in the depths of the building.

Council meeting 1936Princess Alexandra visited The Town Hall as a child in 1933 and again as a grown up in 1961 when a commemorative photographic record was made. The book of photographs of the visit can still be viewed at the Local Studies Centre, Enfield.

The Library was added to the Town Hall, and opened 6th April 1940.

During the Second World War the building became the Civil Defence Control Centre. Geoffrey Gillam’s book, Enfield At War 1939-45 has more on this.

The London Government Act 1963 led the way to the abolition of Southgate’s independence in1965, when the municipal borough of Southgate was abolished to become part of the Greater London Council. The Municipal Borough of Enfield and the Municipal Borough of Edmonton were combined again to form the present-day London Borough of Enfield. The borough included Southgate as well as neighbouring areas, such as Palmers Green and Winchmore Hill, and the administration of the borough moved to The Civic Centre in Silver Street, Enfield. 

From c. 1970 to c. 2009 the building housed the Local History Archive firstly run by David Pam, then by Graham Dalling and Kate Godfrey. Documents could be consulted and records were made available to researchers on application.  Local Schools’ Services and the Social Services departments were housed in the building as well.

Graham Dalling’s Southgate & Edmonton Past also has some references to the Town Hall including the intriguing story of a frustrated asylum seeker who in 2002 doused himself with petrol outside the Town Hall. Luckily he was prevented from setting fire to himself.

Enfield undertook a feasibility study in February 2010 to consider what the building could be used for. At that time they were planning to move Palmers Green Library nearer to the Triangle. This plan has now been abandoned I believe. They are now considering the demolition of the Town Hall and the Library and building new housing over the whole area.

The pictures are courtesy of the Local Studies Centre, Dugdale Centre, London Road, Enfield