Angel Road
Angel Road, Enfield
Together with its Sterling Way continuation, Angel Road is the main east-west route through Edmonton
The road was called Watery Lane in 1557 and Marsh Lane in the late 16th century, taking its present name in the 1870s from the inn standing at the corner of Fore Street. A station opened on the London and Northern Railway line to Broxbourne in 1840, originally called Water Lane. This was too early to bring suburbanisation to the vicinity as Londoners were not at that time prepared to countenance living so far from their place of work, partly because fares were high and services slow.
Angel Road itself was also liable to flooding by Pymmes Brook. However, the railway did encourage industrial growth on the highly affordable marshland between the station and the River Lea, a process that accelerated at the beginning of the 20th century. By this time terraced housing was spreading outwards from the western part of Angel Road, helped by improvements in bus services and later by the introduction of trams. In 1927 Angel Road became part of the North Circular Road, bringing still more factories.
Edmonton council began to put up housing in the area in the 1930s and chose Angel Road as a prime zone for the building of tower blocks in the early 1960s. Inevitably, factories have closed or moved away in recent decades and several former industrial sites have been converted to other uses, notably at Glover Drive, where Tesco and Ikea superstores opened. In March 2022 Ikea announced its intention to close its store here.
Angel Road station closed on 31 May 2019 and was replaced by Meridian Water station.