50-569: Turkey Brook is a river in the northern outskirts of London. It rises in Potters Bar , Hertfordshire, and flows broadly eastwards to merge with the River Lea Navigation near Enfield Lock . The brook is named from the hamlet Turkey Street, which is recorded as Tokestreete (1441), Tuckhey strete (1610), Tuckey street (1615), and Turkey street (1805) (probably street of houses, i.e. hamlet, from Middle English strete , associated with
100-476: A Celtic deity, though no academic sources have been cited for this and the speculation probably stems from a comparison with etymology for the nearby River Beane . Generally, etymologists and philologists have found the name 'Mimram' hard to analyse as there has been so little raw material on which to work until well into the Saxon era, by which time multiple forms of the name appear in records. Eilert Ekwall believes
150-579: A Zeppelin display, with relics of the L31. As of the 2021 census, Potters Bar still had a Christian majority, making it more Christian than both England and Wales as a whole and the rest of Hertsmere. Potters Bar has a significant Jewish community and an Orthodox synagogue, but as a percentage of the overall population, the Jewish community, which numbers over 600, pales in comparison to every other settlement in Hertsmere,
200-566: A dry valley to the north, it has been known in particularly wet years for the River Mimram to be extended for several miles by springs in the upper valley. In 2001, in a neighbouring valley to the west a village was flooded. The Valley is the furthest east of all the Chiltern Hills valleys. The name of the Mimram is one of the few toponyms recorded within its local area prior to the compilation of
250-565: A family called Toke or Tokey ). The modern form of the name Turkey , not in use before the 19th century, is no doubt due to folk etymology . The brook rises near the Fir and Pond Woods nature reserve in Potters Bar, and at first flows in an easterly direction. Along its course it is joined by other streams including Hollyhill Brook, Cuffley Brook , and the Small River Lea . It flows alongside
300-622: A lack of connection from the lack of proof. The Mimram is crossed at Digswell by the Digswell or Welwyn Viaduct , carrying the East Coast Main Line as well as commuter services to Peterborough and Cambridge, as it spans the entire width of the Maran Valley. The upper reaches of the Mimram are crossed only occasionally by small road bridge or fords (eg at Welwyn and Codicote Bottom ). Welwyn Village's three bridge are at Singlers Bridge, on
350-607: A population of 13,681, increasing to 24,613 in 1971. In 1974 the urban district was abolished and the area became part of the borough of Hertsmere . Having been part of Middlesex, the area continued to form part of the Metropolitan Police District ; with the creation of the Greater London Authority it was transferred to the Hertfordshire Constabulary in 2000. Wrotham Park estate, home of
400-492: A population of 21,882. In the 2021 census, the four wards that make up Potters Bar - Bentley Heath & The Royds, Furzefield, Oakmere and Parkfield - had a combined population of 22,536. This includes several smaller outlying hamlets contained in the Bentley Heath & The Royds ward, such as Bentley Heath and Ganwick Corner. In 2022 the population was around 23,325. Within the historic county of Middlesex until 1965,
450-569: A small piece of art that resembles seven faces was erected at the station as a memorial to those killed. There are eight churches in Potters Bar. These include St Mary the Virgin and All Saints' Church at the top of the Walk, the first Anglican parish in the town created from the parish of South Mimms in the 1800s. The Church contains stained glass including some "fine portraits" of several saints as well as tributes to John Keble , and Randall Davidson . There
500-470: A substantially different landscape after the ice retreated. But it is known that today's tributaries of the upper Lea, such as the Rivers Mimram and Stort , follow broadly the same lines as pre-glaciation valleys, so, by analogy, it is quite possible that elements at least of the pre-glaciation topography of the lower Lea basin are reflected in today's relief. In the case of Turkey Brook immediately after
550-548: A tennis club, a cricket club. The Wyllyotts Centre is a theatre, cinema and events venue, and is also the location of the town's museum. Potters Bar is also home to the Hertfordshire Showband (formally known as the Marching Blues). In December 2018, the golf course at Potters Bar closed after 95 years. In 1983, the area around Potters Bar was used for the on-location filming of the comic-horror film Bloodbath at
SECTION 10
#1732884968708600-683: Is a chalk stream in Hertfordshire , England. It runs from its source near Whitwell in Hertfordshire to join the River Lea at Hertford. The River Mimram rises from a spring to the north-west of Whitwell , in North Hertfordshire , England . At Whitwell there are watercress beds which have existed since Roman times and these are fed by the same springs. The valley extends northwards where it becomes known as Lilley Bottom . Other sections of
650-567: Is a Madonna Window in memory of John Goodacre, a long-time schoolmaster at Potters Bar. Other churches include Our Lady and St Vincent (Roman Catholic), King Charles the Martyr, Christ Church, Potters Bar Baptist Church, St John's Methodist Church and the Causeway Free Church. Potters Bar Spiritualist Church is on Hill Rise. There was briefly a Salvation Army in Station Road. There is also
700-517: Is an all-boys preparatory school in Potters Bar, which opened in 1947. Stormont School is an all-girls preparatory school in Potters Bar, which opened in 1944. Dame Alice Owen's School is a mixed grant-maintained school in Potters Bar. Founded in 1613 and based in Islington until 1973, it is unusual in its 'Visitation' and 'Beer Money' traditions. The town also houses many veterinary medicine (mostly third, fourth and fifth-year) students from
750-644: Is approximately 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south on the A111 from junction 24 of the M25. Potters Bar has a bus depot that services local bus routes as well as some London bus routes. The 84 bus route runs north-west to St. Albans . Other routes include the 298 to Arnos Grove , the 313 to Enfield and Chingford , the 242 to Waltham Cross , the 398 to Watford and the 610 to Enfield and Hatfield. There are also school bus services run from various places to Dame Alice Owen's School and to Chancellor's School . Potters Bar has been
800-712: Is the Marne , after which a whole department of France is named. The prefecture of Marne is Châlons-en-Champagne , formerly called Châlons-sur-Marne - with the name "Châlons" being etymologically derived from the name of the local Belgic tribe of the Catalauni . However, the link between the French Catalauni and the British Catuvellauni is not categorically proven: some texts assume they are connected (including, recently, Graham Robb's "The Ancient Paths"), while others infer
850-399: Is the highest on the line between London's King's Cross railway station and York . The Great Northern route serves various North London suburbs to the south before terminating at either King's Cross or Moorgate station . Northbound, the railway runs to Hatfield , Welwyn Garden City , Cambridge , and Peterborough . The nearest London Underground station is at Cockfosters , which
900-831: The City of London to the north of England . The road was originally numbered as the A1 , and later the A1000 . Potters Bar was historically part of Middlesex and formed the Potters Bar Urban District of that county from 1934. From 1894 to 1934 its area had formed the South Mimms Rural District . In 1965 the district was transferred to Hertfordshire County Council while most of the rest of Middlesex County Council became part of Greater London . The urban district covered an area of 6,129 acres (24.80 km ). In 1939 it had
950-549: The L31 . It was captained by Heinrich Mathy with his crew of 18. All were killed when the flaming zeppelin fell into an ancient oak tree on the Oakmere Estate, Oakmere House at the time being rented by Mrs Forbes. The deadly raids over England declined after this. The 19 German sailors (zeppelins were naval) were buried in the local cemetery, and decades later reinterred at Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery . The Potters Bar Museum has
1000-646: The Pottere family who lived in neighbouring South Mimms parish. The Bar is thought to refer to the gates leading from the South Mimms parish and into the Enfield Chase parish, or possibly from a toll on the Great North Road , said to have been by what is now the disused Green Man pub, or at the current entrance to Morven House. Potters Bar is located on the Great North Road , one of two road routes from
1050-607: The Royal Veterinary College . Potters Bar has a King George's Field in memorial to King George V , which is situated behind the Furzefield Centre. There is a swimming pool and leisure centre run by Hertsmere council, which is home to St Albans and Hertsmere Canoe Club. Also in the town are Potters Bar Town F.C. , Potters Bar Swimming Club (PBSC), a Scuba diving Club (the Potters Bar Sub Aqua Club),
SECTION 20
#17328849687081100-561: The " Finchley depression " and Palmers Green , to join the proto-Thames somewhere around Hoddesdon , at what is today an altitude of around 60 metres. It was this river which, during the course of the early and middle Pleistocene , deposited the "Dollis Hill Gravel" at successive altitudes. When the Anglian ice sheet diverted the Thames southwards, the Mole-Wey was cut off at Richmond . Meltwater from
1150-550: The 20th century still referring to the surrounding area as the Maran Valley. The name "Mimram" is typically believed to be of Celtic origin. Rutherford Davis states "etymology unknown, but there is little reason to doubt it is Celtic". Etymological connections have been suggested by academic philologists with the River Mint in Westmorland and with North Mymms in south Hertfordshire. There have been suggestions of it being named after
1200-634: The Anglian glaciation, the River Thames flowed north-eastwards via Watford, through what is now the Vale of St Albans , then eastwards towards Chelmsford and the North Sea . As a result of the glaciation, the Thames was diverted to a more southerly route, broadly along the line of its current course. Prior to the Anglian glaciation, a "proto-Mole-Wey" river was flowing northwards from the Weald and North Downs , through
1250-552: The Byng family, sits within Potters Bar and Barnet on 2,500 acres of land. The Byng family still own a lot of land in the Potters Bar area and The Admiral Byng pub in Darkes Lane is named after Admiral John Byng , who was executed for failing to obey orders in the Minorca campaign. In the early hours of 1 October 1916, Lieutenant Wulstan Tempest shot down Germany's most famous zeppelin,
1300-666: The Domesday Book in 1086. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described the building of a burh (a fortified town) at Hertford in 913: "betweox memeran and beneficcan and lygean" (one manuscript spells "memeran" as "maran", and another gives "mæran"), meaning "between the Mimram/Maran and the Beane and the Lea’. On old maps of Hertfordshire, the river is named both as the Mimram and the Maran, with local residents in
1350-523: The High Street (previously a ford), and on Mill Lane. The High Street and Mill Lane bridges are relatively recent, making Singlers Bridge the only early bridge within Welwyn. Singlers Bridge is named after Singlers Marsh , which was originally named Single Bridge Mead in the 18th century tithe maps, presumably acknowledging its status as accommodating the only bridge across the Mimram in the area. Below Welwyn,
1400-499: The House of Death . Also, in 2005, David Walliams and Matt Lucas shot two scenes for the third season of the comedy Little Britain : one scene at Mount Grace School gym, the other at a wedding shop on the High Street. Potters Bar is also home to a performing arts school, Top Hat Stage School, which has been running classes at Elm Court Community Centre since 1994. Potters Bar is twinned with: River Mimram The River Mimram
1450-528: The Jain Temple at the Oshwal Centre, which "recreates a general Māru-Gurjara aesthetic". There are six primary and infant state schools in Potters Bar and the surrounding area; they are Cranborne School, Ladbrooke JMI, Little Heath Primary, Oakmere Primary, Pope Paul RC Primary and Wroxham School. Mount Grace School is a mixed grant maintained School in Potters Bar opened in 1954. Lochinver house school
1500-538: The Lea moved further east to its present line, well away from Forty Hill, cutting down to a today's altitude of about 20 metres. The low point between Turkey Brook and Cuffley Brook at Beggars Hollow was breached. Turkey Brook thus changed its course, there to go north-east, through what is defined as a water gap . As a result, Turkey Brook joined Cuffley Brook in Whitewebbs Park and the merged stream continued eastwards along
1550-582: The Lea valley. But, in Enfield, the engineers who constructed it took the New River on a loop going west, to the north of Forty Hill, and then across Cuffley Brook near Flash Lane (and, later, across an aqueduct there). From that point, they took it south-east, through the water gap at Beggars Hollow, along the dry channel north of Clay Hill, and down to where Ladysmith Road is today. Then the New River continued on its southward course, towards Enfield Town. The New River
Turkey Brook - Misplaced Pages Continue
1600-722: The M25 motorway and Crews Hill Golf Club, then goes past Clay Hill , Whitewebbs Park , Forty Hill and Albany Park before merging with the River Lee Navigation below Enfield Lock . The main geological formation underlying the Turkey Brook catchment area is Eocene London Clay . In some parts of the higher sections of the catchment area, the London Clay is overlain by "Pebble Gravel" and "Dollis Hill Gravel" (both Quaternary pre-glacial fluvial deposits), and by Quaternary glacial till . Downstream of where Turkey Brook goes under
1650-530: The M25, there are alluvium and sand and gravel deposits on the Turkey Brook valley floor. And east of Forty Hill, the brook crosses extensive Quaternary river terrace deposits laid down by the River Lea . As a west bank tributary of the lower River Lea, Turkey Brook came into being about 400,000 years ago, after the Anglian glaciation . During that glaciation, ice from the north of England advanced at least as far south as Watford , Finchley and Chingford . Until
1700-583: The Old English version of the name was Memere or Mere ( Mære ), and that, given the dubious nature of early forms, no etymology can realistically be attempted. Archaeologist Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews has written that the Mimram's name is meaningless in Old English and therefore must have Brittonic origins. He writes: "Mimram" seems to contain Brittonic *mimo-, ‘speaking, murmuring, mumbling’, and *aramo-, ‘gentle, calm, quiet’. The original *Mimaramā would mean
1750-666: The area around it as the Maran Valley rather than the Mimram Valley . Downstream in Digswell there is a homestead property dating from the sixteenth century that has the name "Maran House". It has been speculated that "Maran" may hark back to the homelands of the Catuvellauni tribe, the Celts who came to Hertfordshire from a region of modern-day Belgium and Northern France where the main river
1800-530: The brook to spawn . It is estimated that, along the course of Turkey Brook, there are "an estimated 92 properties in Oakmere (Potters Bar), and 3 near Enfield Wash at risk of fluvial flooding during a 1% annual probability event". 51°40′08″N 0°02′06″W / 51.6688°N 0.035°W / 51.6688; -0.035 Potters Bar Potters Bar is a town in Hertfordshire , England, 13 miles (21 km) north of central London. In 2011, it had
1850-498: The former course of Cuffley Brook. But east of that junction, the stream is now known as Turkey Brook. A dry, former stream channel at c30m was left, running just north of Clay Hill, from Beggars Hollow to a point close to today's junction of Clay Hill and Baker Street. That channel now defines the southern boundary of Forty Hill. When the New River was built, it followed the 30m contour from Hertfordshire south towards London , down
1900-589: The glaciation, that stream joined the River Lea somewhere around Forty Hill, where there is a deposit of "Boyn Hill Gravel". That gravel, which is on the highest of the river terraces left by the post-Anglian lower River Lea, marks the line followed by the Lea after the retreat of the ice sheet. During the course of the following 400,000 years, the lower Lea moved steadily eastwards, leaving river terrace deposits of decreasing age and altitude as it did so. Turkey Brook thus extended its course eastwards from Forty Hill, across
1950-560: The most Jewish borough in the country. Potters Bar experiences an oceanic climate ( Köppen climate classification Cfb ) similar to almost all of the United Kingdom. The A1 was built as a major 'arterial' road and a crossroads at Bignells Corner linked it to the Barnet – St Albans road. Potters Bar is now also served by junctions 23 and 24 of the M25 motorway . Potters Bar railway station
2000-429: The newly formed lower River Lea. They, and their own tributaries, cut down successively through till left by the ice sheet, then through "Dollis Hill Gravel", and then into London Clay below. It is not known at present whether Turkey Brook, and other west bank tributaries such as Pymmes Brook and Salmons Brook , followed valleys which had been in existence before the ice sheet covered the land, or whether they fashioned
2050-416: The north side of Forty Hill. At Boyn Hill time (about 400,000 years ago), Cuffley Brook and Turkey Brook joined the River Lea at points not far away from each other, north and south of where Forty Hall is today, at what is now an altitude of c50m. Then the River Lea moved steadily towards the east. And, as a contour map shows, the two brooks each extended eastwards with the Lea, but stayed apart. The Lea and
Turkey Brook - Misplaced Pages Continue
2100-515: The retreating Anglian ice sheet gave birth to a south-flowing lower River Lea , and that river cut into and followed in part the line of the former proto-Mole-Wey. It flowed into the newly diverted Thames, which at that time was spread over a wide flood plain extending as far north as Islington . And, as the ice sheet retreated, west bank tributaries of the lower Lea, such as Turkey Brook, flowed eastwards and south-eastwards from higher ground running roughly south-north through Potters Bar, down towards
2150-460: The river goes into a culvert under the by-pass road and the motorway alongside it, before emerging at Lockleys Park and flowing alongside the road through Tewin Water towards Panshanger Park. The river is the subject (and speaker) of a Stevie Smith poem, The River God . Popular and enjoyable though this poem has been for its many readers, the description of the river in the poem bears little relation to
2200-455: The scene of three train crashes; two major and one minor. On 19 March 1898, a train crashed on the platform, but no one was killed or seriously injured. On the night of 10 February 1946, a local train hit buffers at the station, became derailed, and two express trains travelling in opposite directions struck the wreckage. On 10 May 2002, a northbound train derailed at high speed, killing seven people and seriously injuring another 11. On 10 May 2003,
2250-561: The town dates to the early 13th century but remained a small, mainly agricultural, settlement until the arrival of the Great Northern Railway in 1850. It is now part of the London commuter belt . The origin of the Potters element of the town's name is uncertain but is generally thought to be either a reference to a Roman pottery, believed to have been sited locally, or alternatively to
2300-448: The two brooks cut down into the London Clay (to a today's altitude of c35m), thus defining the north, east and south sides of what was becoming Forty Hill. The brooks approached each other quite closely either side of Beggars Hollow (close to where, today, the Rose and Crown public house is located on Clay Hill). The dividing line between them was thus lowered by erosion at that point. Later,
2350-439: The valley are known as Kimpton Bottom and Codicote Bottom. After flowing through Whitwell, Kimpton Mill (where the Mimram is joined by the River Kym) and Codicote Bottom, the river flows through the middle of Welwyn village before heading between the modern and older Digswell settlements, and then running cross-country through Panshanger Park, a former gravel quarry, until it reaches the River Lea at Hertford . Although
2400-535: The valley floor of the lower Lea, past Turkey Street, to where it today flows into the River Lee Navigation below Enfield Lock. The drainage pattern in this area continues to evolve. In particular, Turkey Brook has, in the recent geological past, changed its course just after Hilly Fields. It formerly flowed south-eastwards, along what is today a "dry" channel along the south side of Forty Hill. Today, it turns northwards through Beggars Hollow to join Cuffley Brook in Whitewebbs Park. From there it continues eastwards, along
2450-425: The ‘murmuring gentle river’. Speakers of Old English found words with three repeated consonants challenging to say and changed the third ‑m– to –n by a process known as dissimilation. Historically, the river has also been known by the name "Maran" and many maps from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries mark the river's name as "Mimram or Maran". Indeed, up until the 1960s and 1970s, most local residents referred
2500-437: Was later straightened to flow southwards continuously, to the east of Forty Hill. An aqueduct was built for the New River to cross Turkey Brook near Maidens Bridge. This left the former course of the New River as it is today, curling through Whitewebbs Park, passing through Beggars Hollow and following the dry channel. The brook is mostly shallow, fast flowing and clean and can support wildlife. Coarse fish including dace use
#707292