Georgian
Edmonton was a parish of some 3,360 acres, divided into four wards:
Fore Street; Church Street; Bury Street; and South Street. The parish
church was a spacious structure, without any pretensions to beauty;
its ancient stone fabric was encased with brickwork in 1772. A low,
but neat, range of almshouses adjoined the church.
Three
fairs were held annually within the parish. Two of these were called
"Beggar's-bush" fairs and in the Regency period were
"but thinly attended". The third was called Edmonton Statute
Fair and was once held for the hiring of servants but by the late eighteenth
century had been "perverted to the use of holiday people, chiefly
of the lower ranks, and, in common with similar celebrations of idleness
in the vicinity of the metropolis, [was] a source of great moral injury".
Approximately 30,000 people attended each year.
