Welcome to the North Mymms History Project

A growing collection of books, features, images, documents, and maps, collected, curated, and presented by a team of local volunteers keen to preserve the history of North Mymms

Leggatts Estate Auction Brochure 1911

The North Mymms garden city that never was


Photograph of The main house on Leggatts Estate - image from the Leggatts Estate auction brochure 1911
The main house on Leggatts Estate
Image from the Peter Miller collection

Brookmans Park might have ended up on the edge of a garden city if the sales pitch on an auction brochure printed in 1911 had been acted upon. The proposed Leggatts Estate on the Great North Road was described as a "unique opportunity" for creating "a higher grade garden city" with its 3,000 yard frontage on The Great North Road.

The site, at Little Heath, was described as being ideal land which "could be developed for building purposes without in any way injuring the residential amenities of the central block of about 117 acres."

Those residential amenities included "a good family residence" in land that is "pleasantly undulated and disposed over sunny south and west slopes at an altitude ranging from 320 feet to 420 feet above sea level, crowned by magnificent natural woodlands".

The auction brochure, embedded below, was lent to this site by local historian Peter Miller, so that it  could be accessible to anyone interested in the area's local history.

Scroll past the images (captioned using the words from the original brochure) for a pdf of the auction brochure which you can expand to read and also download.

Photograph of the land at the front of Leggatts taken from the 1911 auction brochure
"3,000 yards of road frontage on The Great North Road"
Image from the Peter Miller collection
Photograph of the woodland and lawns at Leggatts taken from the 1911 auction brochure
"High lying yet sheltered by aged and matured woodland"
Image from the Peter Miller collection

Photograph of the "delightful grounds with massed banks of rhododendrons" at Leggatts taken from the 1911 auction brochure
"Delightful grounds with massed banks of rhododendrons"
Image from the Peter Miller collection

Photograph of the lawns at Leggatts taken from the 1911 auction brochure
"Spacious lawns a feature of Leggatts Estate"
Image from the Peter Miller collection

Photograph of the tennis court at Leggatts taken from the 1911 auction brochure
"The estate has its own tennis court"
Image from the Peter Miller collection

Photograph of the secluded carriage drive at Leggatts taken from the 1911 auction brochure
"Secluded carriage drives connect the property with The Great North Road"
Image from the Peter Miller collection


No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments on this piece
If you have any information to add to this item, please use the comment box below. We welcome input and are keen to update any piece with new research or information. Comments are pre-moderated, so there will be a delay before they go live. Thanks

Further information
If you require any further information relating to this, or any other item, please use the contact form, because we are unable to reply directly to you via this comment box. You can access it from the 'contact us' link at the top of any page on the website, at the bottom of the right hand side of the website, or at the bottom of any page.