PROJECT EDGWARE

Occasionally, our teachers at my boarding school would give us projects to do during the holidays, and although these were never arduous tasks, I always resented them as intrusions into our precious time at home. Nevertheless, being the conscientious little chap I was, I always did them as best I could, as the one presented here bears testimony.

As far as I recall, this was the very first such project I was assigned, back in the Christmas new year break of 1971/72, making me 11 at the time. Certainly, my use of felt tip pens would be consistent with that dating, making these pictures exactly, an incredible 50 years old.

Looking at them now raises a mixture of emotions; of nostalgia for a happy and safe childhood on the one hand, and a reminder of the sense of relief I felt a few years later at escaping from dreary, peripheral suburbia into the city itself.

In any event, for better or for worse, here is Edgware; famous for it’s eponymous Roman road; boasting one of the oldest avenues of sequoias in Europe, being the home of George Fredrick Handel, and indisputably, “My Home Town…”

FRONT COVER
The closest Edgware had to a cooperate skyscraper was the UK Green Shield HQ.
The war memorial.
Stonegrove Park
Edgware had one of the UK’s biggest Jewish communities, and consequently, several synagogues, including this – The United Synagogue – the largest synagogue in Europe at the time.


The parish church of Saint Margaret’s is one of the few reminders of Edgware’s picturesque village past.
My old primary school, Rosh Pinah, since moved to a new site, and more evidence of Edgware’s then-thriving Jewish community.
Most of houses in Edgware (in common with several other outer-London suburbs) were built to one of two architectural “formulae” laid down in the 1930’s. This was a typical “mock Tudor” house by the building company Curtain…
…and this, more appropriately deco style house by the Laing company.