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15
OPEN SPACES.
Pymmes Park (53 acres) was purchased in 1899 for £36,000, towards
which the Middlesex County Council contributed £9,000. A garden has
been laid out after the old English style within one of the walled
enclosures adjoining the old Elizabethan mansion. The technical classes
formerly held here by the Middlesex County Council were transferred after
the summer vacation to a new building on the site of Upper Latymer
School, adjoining the Parish Church ; the plans of the County Council
Architect for this building were approved in January, 1911, by our
Council, and the complete building was opened for use on September
28th, 1912. (See Annual Report on Education.) The artificial lake
provides scope for boating or skating. As, in the course of time, Edmonton
becomes more densely populated, Pymmes Park will be an increasingly
valuable factor in the good health of the people.
In October, the Architect submitted a plan showing possible rearrangement
of this house as a local museum. In June, the Library
Committee suggested a branch reading-room there. But a decision in
both cases is deferred until the Education Committee have decided on
the establishment of a School Clinic.
A scheme came under consideration for emptying the old lake on
the south-west side of the house, and laying out this bed as a sunk
geometrical garden, but want of funds prevented the work being carried
out. Works of improvement at the Park and Recreation Ground might
have been carried out by the unemployed during the year, but, as no
help was forthcoming from the Government, nothing could be done.
The Recreation Ground in Church Street (20 acres) was presented to
the Council by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in December, 1901, and
affords room for cricket pitches and football grounds of the rising
generation.
Other spaces of service in their special way are the Sewage Farm of
235 acres, and the General Cemetery of 30 acres (which cost £20,590, and
was consecrated in 1884). The Hebrews' Cemetery, in Montagu Road,
was extended from 10 to 15 acres in 1910. It was opened in 1884, and
approved by the Home Secretary for the burial of persons of the Jewish
faith only. This restriction has now been withdrawn as regards a
portion of the land which has been sold to a private company.
New Cemetery, Montagu Road.—The plan of this was
submitted in August to the Plans Committee. In September, the Council
entered a protest to the Local Government Board, Lea Conservancy, and
the Middlesex County Council, emphasising their Medical Officer's opinion
that burials close to the northern boundary might lead to the pollution
of Salmon's Brook, a tributary of the River Lea. In October, our M.P.