One of this year's projects is to visit every borough in London and take photographs. It works out at roughly three boroughs per month, and the first three for February are Camden, Haringey and Enfield. Obviously, with some of the more suburban boroughs that are further afield, you have to find interesting places to visit to make it feel like the journey is worthwhile.
On Saturday, Yersinia, MM and myself had a fun day out in darkest north London. Our first stop was right at the end of the Piccadilly Line, at Cockfosters, a place to visit if only for the name as much as anything. The station turned out to be quite pleasant in the sunshine, and has far more character than many central London tube stations.
From there, it's just a ten minute walk to MODA, which is a great little museum if you have any interest in the changing faces of interior design in the twentieth century. Even though it's only a small museum, there are loads of great examples of wallpaper design, textile patterns, vintage magazine articles and adverts to look at.
After that, we walked 'round the corner to Bramley Road to get a bus to Enfield Chase, from where we caught the bus to Forty Hill, which is home to Forty Hall, an old country house that now works as a museum of local interest. There are a few rooms with fairly standard decorations — antique chairs and chinoiserie cabinets etc. — but there are also a couple of rooms full of vintage ephemera that are well worth a look. As well as old advertising signs for local businesses, there is a great collection of cigarette tins and coffee caddies, 1920s tea sets and children's board games, and all sorts of other fascinating examples of great old design. Some of the items are really quite curious, too, like the coffee pot with the sideways handle, or the suffragette board game where the object is to get out of Holloway Prison!
Forty Hall is situated near a section of the London Loop, and has a nice little park with a duckpond, and a farm. It's also not far from the gardens at Capel Manor Farm School, and the gardens at Myddleton House, both of which we unfortunately didn't get to this time, because the former isn't open at weekends in the winter, and the latter closes early. Another time, then.
More photos (and more to come) on Flickr.
