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The Meads, EDGWARE, HA8 9HD

Seen from Lyndhurst Park. In the foreground is Burnt Oak Brook. The houses date to the building of the Watling Estate between 1924 and 1930 and backed onto the Finchley to Edgware branch of the Great Northern Railway.

The Meads forms part of the Watling Estate built on land that used to be Goldbeaters Farm between 1924 and 1930. The estate was designed by George Forrest. The line of the housing around a central open space closely follows a pre-existing field boundary and the development may have taken its name from the use of that field as a hay meadow. The open grass in the centre of the estate makes a good place for the children to play football during the half-term holiday. The road on the left at this point recalls the farm that the estate is built on being called Goldbeaters Grove.

The Meads forms part of the Watling Estate built on land that used to be Goldbeaters Farm between 1924 and 1930. The estate was designed by George Forrest. The line of the housing around a central open space closely follows a pre-existing field boundary and the development may have taken its name from the use of that field as a hay meadow. The open grass in the centre of the estate is split by the course of Burnt Oak Brook. The sign in the foreground indicates the course of the Barnet Millennium Walk, a circular walk of 4 miles from Mill Hill Broadway station through Lyndhurst Park, Watling Park, Silk Stream Park, Montrose Playing Fields, Grahame Park and Woodcroft Park.

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The culvert carries the stream under Image The source of the brook is a small pond on Holcombe Hill/The Mill Field by The Ridgeway in Image - see the map and satellite image http://openspace.nearby.org.uk/wheresthepath.htm?lat=51.62214304867671&lon=-0.23609628442052388&gz=19&oz=10>=1 and Image (photographed by Stacey Harris). The brook then follows what looks to be a partly artificial course down towards the junction of Victoria Road and Lawrence Street http://openspace.nearby.org.uk/wheresthepath.htm?lat=51.62214304867671&lon=-0.23609628442052388&gz=19&oz=10>=1 . It must then enter a culvert that passes under The Broadway in Mill Hill, the M1, and the WCML near Mill Hill Broadway station before emerging here near the northwest corner of Lyndhurst Park http://openspace.nearby.org.uk/wheresthepath.htm?lat=51.614932589650515&lon=-0.2482481269904202&gz=17&oz=10>=1 .

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See Image The section of the former line from here as far as Dean's Lane is now the Mill Hill Old Railway Nature Reserve. In happier, pre Covid-19 times, it was open 10am-4pm on Saturdays and Sundays. As you can see from my photos of the rest of the former railway line west of Bunn's Lane https://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=112315803 all of it is effectively a nature reserve.

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