Living in a London Borough means our local identify can swing between a smaller district – a resident of Edmonton or Palmers Green for example – or just living in north London. The uniting body of our Borough can sometimes get lost in the mix. That can present a question, especially for young people who might grow up with less of a relationship to the place they live. Can the Enfield beast help with that?

Heraldry is a discipline relating to symbolic designs that represent us. A coat of arms simplifies a complicated back-story into one coherent picture. That idea can be applied to conversations about place and identity.

As individuals we all have personal stories that are made up of many different parts: family, background, birthplace, home, culture, nationality, personality along with emotions and aspirations. The Enfield beast is also made up of different parts and learning about the beast, or designing a pretend coat of arms, creates an opportunity to discuss where we live, and shared identity.

We have tried this out and it works. A group of students with hugely diverse backgrounds, some born locally and others as far away as Hong Kong, looked at the Enfield beast and then designed a personal coat of arms. Few knew about Enfield’s coat of arms, but many chose to include the beast in their own designs. All took part in the conversation and began to search their own history. An accompanying visit to a museum storeroom revealed a world of local heritage that few had any notion of. They began to see heritage of place being local and meaningful to them rather than some abstract or London centric idea.

We hope that using the Enfield beast more widely helps it to be a mental marker for identity of place. Something memorable that we all share and yet is adaptable to every individual.