A long street that runs east from the Archway gyratory. Buses taking you to Finsbury Park (210) or Tottenham Hale (41) run along it. It's mosly two-way but at the Archway end it's part of the gyratory and sweeps you around the south of the Methodist Central Hall.
Until 1940 it was called St John's Road, as a sign on the corner of Cressida Road still shows.
The street name signs in both pictures above simply read 'Borough of Islington' meaning that they are pre-1965, in the days of the Metropolitan Borough, before Islington and Finsbury were combined to form todays LBI. Most of the street names along the road are from this era. It's not until the far end that you find a more modern LBI sign.
I'm pleased to note that all are correctly apostrophised. But enough on street names...
I began walking along the right-hand side of the road which saved the complications of crossing via the island. There's a little green space here. Welcome to Archway Corner, says the sign, although it's not particularly welcoming - largely a haunt for street drinkers or pigeons.
Next a row of terraced houses which includes a dentist's surgery - the traffic noise probably drowns the sound of drilling.
Then a block of 1950s social housing - Bowerman Court - named after Alderman S C Bowerman who was a member of the council for 31 years and Mayor from 1962-3. Again, the Islington Borough coat of arms gives the clue that they are pre 1965. (See discussion of Constable House in Part 9)
Opposite these flats is the side of the Miranda Estate (see Part 10).
After this the road bends to the left with late C19 terraces on the left and the Elthorne Estate on the right. Turnings to the left lead you up into the streets of the Whitehall Park conservation area (which contains probably the most expensive houses around Archway) and turnings to the right into the maze of the estate. In a way, the street could be seen as a north-south divide. But those streets would have to wait for another day. Today I continued along to the end of St John's Way.
The majority of the terraces on the left of the street have been converted into flats. This obviously caused problems with the post for the occupants of No. 97 (on the corner of Prospero Road). A carefully wordprocessed note, complete with informative arrow, read:
Dear Postman
This is 97 St John's Way
If you want 97A St John's Way
It is round the corner
->
that way.
Thanks very much.
Did the note work, I wondered, or did they still find themselves continually running round the corner to repost mis-delivered mail through their neighbour's letterbox?
The terraced houses come to an end shortly after Cressida Road as you reach the Caxton House Community Centre.
I have fond memories of this as the place where we used to produce our housing co-op newsletter in the 1980s - on a banda machine! Does anyone else remember those?
The lovely cut-outs of dancers that adorn the outside of the building were designed by Randy Klein, an American artist , later based in Islington; he taught metal sculpture at City & Islington College from 1991-2000.
Not sure whether he was also responsible for the mural - dated 1952, the year I was born!
Adjacent to that is another small greenspace - Hillside Park. More welcoming than Archway Corner.
Then a two-storey London stock brick building, clearly late C19.
This is the only remainder of the Islington Workhouse. The workhouse was built in 1869-70 and originally occupied the site stretching from here back to Caxton House. It was taken over by the LCC in 1930 and renamed Hillside (hence the name of the park!) Apart from this section - the former board room and office - the building was demolished in the 1970s and replaced by Caxton House (1976) and the park (1978). The Randy Klein murals were commissioned in 1985. None of that explains why the swan mosaic is dated 1952. That was the year our current Queen came to the throne so it could be described as an Elizabethan mosaic!
Set back behind a large swathe of grass, trees and a walkway on the opposite side of the road are the flats of the Elthorne Estate - also, here, part of St John's Way.
All photos from St John's Way
St John's Way ends with a T-junction at Hazelville Road. Slightly right and then left, Sunnyside Road curves round and then continues, parallel with Hazelville, up to Hornsey Lane. I headed this way.
Why Sunnyside, I wondered, although it's a lovely name for a street. Perhaps because it runs up the south facing side of the hill? There are five other Sunnyside Roads in the A-Z. I have an urge to visit them all to see how they compare. Somehow looking at them on Google streetview just wouldn't be the same as actually being there.
But today I'm in Sunnyside Road, N19.
On the corner is Sunnyside Community Gardens.
It's sad that the wooden chalet, built by volunteers, has been set on fire twice (and now at the time of writing has been removed). The charred remains were visible through its surrounding fence.
Past the gardens Sunnyside Road curves round in a long, steep hill running up to Hornsey Lane. In the early 80s I was living in Crouch End and used to cycle to the Oval for work every day. On the way home I used to ride along St John's Way debating whether I would cycle up this hill or get off and walk. Cycling usually won as it was quicker - those were the days, don't think I'd make it these days! A challenge?
The street is dominated by flats. On the left the three blocks of the Hornsey Rise Estate, running through to Hazelville Road, stand on the former site of the Alexandra Orphanage. The orphanage opened in the 1860s. After it moved to Maitland Park in 1905 the building was used as an additional workhouse for Shoreditch until it was demolished. The estate was built in the 1920s by the LCC and all the blocks are named after former LCC dignitaries.
Among other things,Charles Ritchie was an LCC Alderman in 1895 although he seems to have resigned fairly shortly after this. He was a Conservative MP - elected to represent Tower Hamlets in 1874 and sat in the commons until he was made a peer in 1905. During this time he was Home Secretary (1900-1902) and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1902-1903). But perhaps the claim to fame that most qualifies him to have an LCC block of flats named after him is that, in his role as President of the Local Government Board, he was responsible for the 1888 Local Government Act which led to the formation of the LCC. So you could almost claim that without him these flats would never have been built in the first place.
George Dashwood Taubman Goldie was also an LCC Alderman (1908-12). He played a major role in the founding of Nigeria as a British State. Hard to find a reason a block of flats in Islington should be named after a colonial adminisrator and empire builder - but people saw things differently back then.
Reginald Welby was an Alderman and also Chairman of the LCC in 1900. He died in 1915, shortly before these flats were built.
Continuing up the hill brought me to Manchester Mansions.
This block was also built in the 1920s but this time by Islington Borough Council and named after Sir W. E. Manchester who was a long-time Islington Alderman and Mayor from 1929-30. His wife was the first woman, in 1925, to win a council by-election. (Willats).
Between them, these blocks provide an interesting illustration as to the way attitudes to social housing have changed over the last hundred years. No doubt at least some of these flats have been sold off under the right to buy by now. It's also interesting to speculate why these particular men were chosen to have their names remembered by having housing named after them. Did they consider it an honour? Did they visit the flats? Maybe cut a tape at their opening or the laying of the foundation stone? It would be interesting if the council erected little information plaques giving the history but, in these times of austerity, they no doubt have better things to spend their (or perhaps I should say 'our') money on. Much of our social housing deserves to be recognised as historic buildings.
On the opposite side of the street is the 1970s New Orleans Estate.
The significance of the name eludes me. The estate is built on probably one of the highest points in Islington yet most of New Orleans is built below sea level.
At the top of the hill, on the corner of Hornsey Lane, there's a former petrol station - I remember buying petrol there in the 70s - now a garage/car wash.
Amid the random jumble of cars, car parts and defunct signage is a lovely, though neglected, old building.
It seems, from the detailed account of the development of this area on the very informative WHPARA history webpage that this is a summerhouse or pavilion that belonged to a larger house that once stood here. The decorative plaque on the wall may be the initials of William Thomas Sargant who bought land here in the 1850s.
(Reminder, need to take a better pic of this...)
All photos from Sunnyside Road
I had now reached Hornsey Lane (N6), the boundary of N19. To get back to the postcode in hand, I turned right and then right again down Hornsey Rise - to be documented on another occasion. Today I turned left into Hornsey Rise Gardens.
I was pleased to note that the council had fixed the new street name sign below the old painted one (even though they hadn't made a very good job of getting it straight). It's nice to allow these old signs to degrade gracefully rather than covering them up (or perhaps I'm just a street name sign nerd?)
The Gardens curve up in a crescent that runs back down to Hornsey Rise. In fact, until the end of the 1880s, the street was named Crouch End Crescent. Perhaps estate agents would rather it still was? The street consists of substantial two/three storey houses with double-height bay windows. In the 1980s our housing co-op had a short-life house here on license from the council - happy memories of parties! I'm not sure whether the council developed it into flats or sold it after we moved out - in either case, I imagine it is privately owned by now.
Many of the houses have been converted into flats although some are still single dwellings. There is a curious logic to the mirror writing in this sign giving directions to 13A - you follow the writing then come to the arrow.
As the road curved round I spotted a rather dilapidated looking house. A valuable asset even in this rather sorry state and currently protected by live-in guardians.
On the opposite side of the road a sign pointed along a path leading to the Crouch Hill Recreation Centre.
Or rather, a path that used to lead to the recreation centre. It closed and the building became derelict several years ago. The new Ashmount school was built on the site in 2011. So presumably this path leads to the school now but I didn't walk up it today. Must see if I can find any photos of the old recreation centre. We often used to attend events there when my daughter was young.
All photos from Hornsey Rise Gardens
Back on Hornsey Rise I decided to cut along Cromartie Road back to Sunnyside Road and then return home the way I had come.
It's a short, straight street, developed in the 1890s. The name sounds Scottish but Willats gives no clue as to its origin. The original three-storey nineteenth century terrace runs along the left-hand side of the street, somewhat isolated between two blocks of modern flats, one at each end. The edge of the New Orleans Estate runs along the right-hand side. I try to avoid taking photos that look as if they could have been taken from Google Streetview so I have nothing to illustrate the feel of the street. In fact, I took very few photos at all - perhaps because I was heading home? But I did feel compelled to document the phone box at the Sunnyside Road end. Not an old red one but one of the more modern glass boxes. It still seemed to be functional. I wonder how many people still use public phones in these days of mobiles?
Other pictures from Cromartie Road
So I found myself back in Sunnyside Road and walked back along St John's Way to the Archway gyratory.
The sign could do with a clean but it will soon be gone!
I walked down Holloway Road to take in my final street for the day - Windermere Road.
Above the street sign is one of my favourite, tantilisingly only partially revealed ghost signs. It must have once read 'Gold... Diamonds'. I wish more of the plaster would flake off. The shop beneath, now a computer sales/repair shop, must once have been a jewellers (or possibly pawnbrokers).
Windermere, Willats informs me, "is in the Lake District, Westmoreland and Lancs." But I knew that already; I've been there several times. No clue as to why a street in Archway should be named after a north of England lake though. It is opposite a Swiss waterfall (Giesbach) so there is a watery connection...
The street is a cul-de-sac; a mix of residential and commercial, culminating with a joinery.
(Woodstock is a place in Oxfordshire, nowhere near Windermere. It is also a place in the USA, site of a famous festival in 1969...)
All pictures from Windermere Road
From there, I headed back home along Junction Road (which has to have an entry all to itself in a future installment).
< Part 10
To be continued...
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