IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Somerset Close, LONDON, N17 6DL

Taken very early one September morning. The Speyquest Car Repair Centre (former Total petrol filling station) can just be seen in the very far distance.

This is believed to be a listed building.

The Broadwater Farm Community Centre on the north side of Adams Road.

Lordship Recreation Ground was first opened as a public park in 1932 on about 100 acres of the former Broadwater Farm which had been acquired by Tottenham Urban District Council. In the intervening years it has reduced in size as the edges have been taken for development, especially for the Broadwater Farm estate built in the early 1970s. The River Moselle runs through the centre of the park from west to east. The river was diverted to the north of its old course as part of substantial investment in Lordship Recreation Ground. More about Lordship Recreation Ground and what the investment over the last ten years has achieved can be seen at http://www.haringey.gov.uk/community-and-leisure/parks-and-open-spaces/z-parks-and-open-spaces/lordship-recreation-ground In the distance is the Broadwater Farm estate. This was begun in 1967 and the various blocks were named after Second World War airfields. Development had not taken place earlier because of the flood risk from the Moselle. It would have been a very different picture here though on 6th October 1985, the night of the Broadwater Farm riot. A very full and interesting account of the estate is given at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadwater_Farm Since the riot, a great deal of regeneration has taken place and an amazing picture emerges. To quote from the Wikipedia entry "Broadwater Farm now has one of the lowest crime rates of any urban area in the world. In the first quarter of 2005, there was not a single reported robbery or outdoor assault on Broadwater Farm, and only a single burglary, from which all property was recovered and the suspect arrested; this compares with 875 burglaries, 50 robberies and 50 assaults in the third quarter of 1985 immediately preceding the riot. In an independent 2003 survey of all the estate's residents, only 2% said they considered the area unsafe, the lowest figure for any area in London. In 2005 the Metropolitan Police disbanded the Broadwater Farm Unit altogether as no longer required in an area with such a low crime rate."

The setting sun softens the harshness of the two utilitarian tower blocks at the centre of the much debated Broadwater farm estate.

Information of the Tower Gardens Estate at this https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/the-white-hart-lane-estate-tottenham-houses-the-very-best-of-their-kind/.

The company specialised in equipment for bakeries which they may have manufactured. The building was demolished in 2006 and the site redeveloped as an apartment block.

This trio was particularly attractive at the time of the photo having retained their original doors, windows, garden walls and privet hedges. Sadly, all but one now sport µPVC.

The two distant tower blocks are on the Broadwater Farm Estate and The Moselle river flows parallel to the path and beyond the trees to the right.

The estate was built between 1967 and 1973 in a style designed by Le Corbusier where no dwellings were at ground level because of the high water table of the Moselle River which is culverted under the estate. The warren of first floor concrete walkways offered opportunities for crime and anti-social behaviour and the consequent bad reputation of the estate long before the riot of 6 October 1985 which resulted in the murder of PC Keith Blakelock. Further information on the history of the estate can be found on Haringey Council's website here http://www.haringey.gov.uk/index/community_and_leisure/neighbourhoods/broadwaterfarm/historyofbroadwaterfarm.htm The mural is on the end wall of Rochford block and features Martin Luther King, Bob Marley, Mahatma Gandhi, and John Lennon. See Image for another photo of the estate in an adjacent grid square.