Green Dragon Lane, an old thoroughfare, started to be urbanised in 1907.
The ’Green Dragon’ inn is reputed to have opened in 1726 on the junction of Green Lanes and Green Dragon Lane, with the latter road named after it. That pub moved to its current location at the bottom of Vicars Moor Lane near the end of the eighteenth century. In 2017, a micropub called the Little Green Dragon was opened near to the site of the original eighteenth century Green Dragon at the end of Green Dragon Lane.
In 1754 the Lane was called Filcaps Lane after Filcaps Farm which stood on its north side. Cary’s Map of Middlesex from 1789 shows it as Chace Lane, and the Edmonton Enclosure Award of 1801 calls it Old Park Road since it formed the southern boundary of Old Park. Henrietta Cresswell in 1912 called it Dog Kennel Lane - a document of 1721 refers to the cutting down of an oak tree near the dog kennel on the Chase.
A builder Richard Metherell arrived in London from Devon to London in the 1870s. He formed a company - R. Metherell and Son - and began buying up land to became one of the first speculative builders in the area. In 1906 he bought the Old Park Grange Estate from Lord Currie.
About 1900, Metherell had straightened and widened the lower end of Green Dragon Lane, building between Bush Hill and Old Park Ridings. In conjunction with his son, constructed the roads Old Park Ridings, The Chine and The Grangeway, including two bridges over Salmons Brook.
The portion of Green Dragon Lane between Old Park Ridings and Green Lanes was known earlier in the twentieth century as Grange Drive.
In 1909 ’The Recorder for Palmers Green, Winchmore Hill and Southgate’ reported that "The old lane has been transformed from a narrow picturesque avenue of trees and high hedges into a fine wide road, flanked on one side by an artistic row of high-class houses. Those who know this part of Winchmore Hill are aware of its charm, its high altitude, gently undulating contour, the fine woodland and its close proximity to some of the finest scenery in the neighbourhood of Enfield."
It was reported in the Middlesex Gazette in 1910: “…there is no lovelier part of the district than that stretching northwards from Green Dragon Lane towards Enfield.”
Green Dragon Lane, an old thoroughfare, started to be urbanised in 1907.
