Noel Park

Noel Park in north London is a planned community built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries consisting of 2,200 model dwellings, designed by Rowland Plumbe. It was developed as the Noel Park Estate on a tract of land on the edge of north London as part of the fast growing development of Wood Green. It is one of four developments on the outskirts of London built by the Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company (Artizans Company). From 2003 to sometime in 2009, the name was also given to a small park near the southern edge of Noel Park, formerly known – and now known again – as Russell Park.

One of the earliest garden suburbs in the world, the Noel Park Estate was designed to provide affordable housing for working-class families wishing to leave the inner city; every property had both a front and back garden. It was planned from the outset as a self-contained community close enough to the rail network to allow its residents to commute to work. In line with the principles of the Artizans Company's founder, William Austin, no public houses were built within the estate, and there are still none today.

As a result of London's rapid expansion during the early 20th century, and particularly after the area was connected to the London Underground in 1932, Noel Park became completely surrounded by later developments. In 1965 it was incorporated into the newly created London Borough of Haringey, and in 1966 it was bought by the local authority and taken into public ownership.

Despite damage sustained during the Second World War and demolition work during the construction of Wood Green Shopping City in the 1970s, Noel Park today remains largely architecturally intact. In 1982, the majority of the area was granted Conservation Area and Article Four Direction status by the Secretary of State for the Environment, in recognition of its significance in the development of suburban and philanthropic housing and in the history of the modern housing estate.

Noel Park is a neighbourhood of Wood Green, 6.4 miles (10.3 km) north of Charing Cross, near the centre of the modern London Borough of Haringey, of which it is a ward. The area forms a rough triangle, bordered by the A109 road (Lordship Lane) to the north, A1080 road (Westbury Avenue) to the south-east, and A105 road (Wood Green High Road, formerly part of Green Lanes) to the west.

When construction began, the River Moselle, running parallel to Lordship Lane a short distance south of it, formed the de facto northern boundary of the area. During the development of the area in the 1880s the river was culverted and the land between the river and Lordship Lane built on.

The historic western boundary was the now-defunct Palace Gates Line of the Great Eastern Railway (GER), a short distance to the east of Wood Green High Road. Since the railway's closure in 1964, much of the area between the former railway line and Wood Green High Road has been occupied by the eastern section of the large The Mall Wood Green shopping, cinema and residential complex (commonly known as Shopping City).

Most of Wood Green, including the site of Noel Park, was sparsely populated up until the nineteenth century. The 1619 Earl of Dorset's Survey of Tottenham shows the area as forming the historic Duckett's Manor; as with the rest of the Moselle valley, the land consisted almost entirely of woodland and pasture, with the only building shown in the area which was to become Noel Park being Ducketts Farm. This building was the former manor house of Ducketts dating from 1254 and is the earliest recorded property in Wood Green. The tiny settlements at Wood Green and Elses Green are shown a short distance to the north-east. The manor itself was situated on the ancient drovers' road of Green Lanes. The last recorded occupancy of the manor was in 1881, shortly before the site was cleared for the construction of the Noel Park Estate.