Durants Park

Durants Park is named after Durrants, one of the eight sub-manors of the Enfield Estate, which date from the C13th when William the Conqueror granted Enfield to Geoffrey de Mandeville. It was allegedly named after the family of an Adam Durant recorded here from 1244. In the early C15th the Durants estate was owned by the Wroth family who held land in Middlesex for a number of centuries, Sir Thomas Wroth and his son Sir Robert Wroth both holding important positions in Elizabethan times. James I was reputedly a frequent visitor. It was later owned by Sir Thomas Stringer, whose wife Lady Stringer lived here until 1727 and is buried at St Andrew's Church (q.v.). Their son, William, married a daughter of the infamous Judge Jeffreys who was known to have visited Durants and fortifications could be seen on an outbuilding, reputedly erected for his protection. In 1910 this and the remains of the moated manor house, Durants Arbour, were demolished. The site of the moated manor house was south of the public park to the east of Ponders End High Street but it had been destroyed by fire in the late C18th although the Tudor gateway remained until 1910; it remained marked on OS maps into the 1920s. The moat has been filled in and built over.

In 1903 Enfield Urban District Council had bought nearly 14 hectares of the estate lands for a public park. Until the late C19th the area was largely fields south of the hamlet around the church of St James (q.v.) at Green Street but by 1897 a number of nurseries existed in the area. OS Maps of 1913 and 1920 show that the park had a bandstand and a drinking fountain, both reached by a pathway from the west entrance, where some planting is indicated. Immediately to the south and east of the park extensive nurseries are marked, with numerous other nurseries and allotments in the wider area. By this time the adjacent Hertford Road Cemetery (q.v.) was established to the east of St James's Churchyard. By 1935, the park had toilets near the more formally laid out entrance, to the east of which was a bowling green; additional paths led to tennis courts, a putting green, and to the east of the bandstand an athletics track had been laid out. London planes line the Hertford Road boundary and the main entrance has railings and brick gate piers. By the late 1960s the bandstand had gone but a club house, large pond and landscaping have been created on the former site of tennis courts, and the putting green and tennis courts have been re-located.

In the (late) 1990s a £15,000 grant enabled the children's paddling pool to be created with rocks and landscaping around the perimeter and a series of colourful cut-out zoo animals affixed to the iron railings. The west part of Durants Park remained laid out with an area of floral displays by the entrance, with shrubs and a willow by the small lake. Further east the park is now given over to playing fields and play areas. The easterly section is reached across the playing fields with a footpath running along the railings, which form the boundary with Hertford Road Cemetery, and appears to be used as a pedestrian through-route between east and west.