Template:Wp-Southgate, London-History

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Southgate was originally the South Gate of Enfield Chase, the King's hunting grounds. This is reflected in the street names Chase Road (which leads due north from the station to Oakwood, and was formerly the avenue into the Chase) and Chase Side. There is a blue plaque on a building on the site of the south gate. A little further to the south was another small medieval settlement called South Street which had grown up around a village green; by 1829 the two settlements had merged and the village green became today's Southgate Green.

Southgate was predominantly developed in the 1930s: largish semi-detached houses were built on the hilly former estates (Walker, Osidge, Monkfrith, etc.) following increased transport development. In 1933, the North Circular Road was completed through Edmonton and Southgate, and also in 1933, the London Underground Piccadilly line was extended from Arnos Grove (where it had reached the previous year), through Southgate tube station, on to Enfield West (now known as Oakwood). This unleashed a building boom, and by 1939 the area had become almost fully developed.

Governance

In 1894 an urban district of Middlesex, called Southgate, was created by the Local Government Act 1894. In 1933 the Municipal Borough of Southgate was created. The borough, which had its headquarters at Southgate Town Hall, was abolished in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963. Its area then came within the newly created London Borough of Enfield, which also included the areas that had been within the Municipal Borough of Enfield and the Municipal Borough of Edmonton.