Over the Easter Weekend in 2024 five interpretation boards were installed by the Council at locations along the New River Loop. Highly illustrated, they tell the story of the New River and Enfield Town’s historical watercourse. Together they create a New River Loop trail describing its history and heritage.
The boards are co-credited to The Enfield Society and The Council. Two local residents and Society Trustees Sue-Grayson Ford and John Cole, worked on the design and text for the panels with Martin Jones, Senior Landscape Architect.
Writer and Journalist Nick Higham and author of The Mercenary River was asked to fact-check some elements of the project too, following his recent talk at the Society’s Jubilee Hall.
The project is part of a wider Council desire to maintain and improve the health, quality and appearance of the New River Loop. This has included relaying the footpath to the west of Carr’s Basin, repairs to the wooden sides of the waterway and to both pumps as well as a significant de-siliting project in 2022.
The Enfield Society has been active in cleaning up parts of Loop in recent years and along with The Gentleman’s Row, River View & Holly Walk Residents’ Association (GRH) and other local residents report problems concerning the Loop to the Council.
The project is part of a wider unfunded project to restore and improve access and its appearance. It is hoped that the future Enfield Town project, part funded by TfL around Enfield Town Station, might support this aim.
The five trail stops comprise two lecterns, two upright panels and a larger unit in Chase Green Gardens that will be used by GRH for their notices. The board was funded by the Society.
The information on the boards includes
- an activity question aimed at children,
- how the New River, a triumph of early engineering, was completed in 1613 to carry clean drinking water from Hertfordshire springs to central London,
- the grisly murder that took place after a drinking session in the Crown & Horseshoes,
- and how royalty, including Elizabeth 1 and James 1, hunted their own deer on the Royal Chase as long as poachers didn’t get to them first.
The five boards are located at the following points:
Southbury Road/St Andrew’s Road
Crown and Horseshoes, River View
Chase Green Gardens
Carr’s Basin, Town Park
Enfield Town Park
