Moselle River - Archway
Moselle River
The Cholmeley Brook tributary flows north and east
Here the A1 road climbs on one of its several bypasses up and out of the City on its way to Scotland. The legendry version of Dick Whittington was here and a vast hospital complex and other institutions were named for him. Housing lies on either side of the road - council estates in Islington, posher housing towards Highgate.
Post to the north Crouch End
Post to the west Highgate
Post to the east Crouch Hill
Square to the south is four posts
Archway to the north west
Upper Holloway to the north east
Tufnel Park to the south east
Upper Holloway to the south east
Archway Road
This could be claimed as the first great by-pass road. It branched off the Great North Road at the Archway Tavern to avoid the the steep climb of 400 ft up to Highgate Village. In 1813, plans were made to tunnel through difficult clay below the summit of the hill. A new road was to go by tunnel through the hill for about three hundred yards and then rejoining the Great North Road but it collapsed. It had been built in 1809 and was a tunnel arched with brick but in 1812 the brickwork gave way, the ground above the tunnel cracked and the arch fell in. They heard the crash at Kentish Town. An open road was built and opened in 1813 – it was on the line of the tunnel, with a reduced gradient, and an archway built in heavy brickwork to carry Hornsey Lane over it. This was a commercial toll road and in 1829 it was taken over by the Commissioners of the Holyhead Road. Tolls were abolished in 1876. Eventually the archway became too narrow for the traffic, and it was demolished in the 1890s and replaced by another a hundred yards further north. Even so the climb is still severe for pedestrians and cyclists.
Archway Bridge. Constructed by the London County Council with Alexander Binnie as engineer and contractor Charles Wall. Binnie’s bridge has decorative cast iron and dolphin lamp copies like those on the Embankment.
Whittington Almshouses. Sir Richard Whittington founded almshouses next to St Michael Paternoster Royal in the City. These almshouses moved to Highgate in 1808 and to East Grinstead in 1966. They were administered by the Mercers Company.
St Augustine of Canterbury. Designed by J. D. Sedding, 1884-7 although the nave completed by H. Wilson and Repaired by J.H. Gibbons after a fire in 1924. Sedding’s interior has been described as unconventional. In 1881 the vicar of All Saints bought a part of the old Winchester Hall estate and the church schoolroom moved there in 1882 became the church of St. Augustine. a permanent church was began and the chancel was consecrated in 1888 and more opened as the years went by, Eventually it has a bell-tower higher than originally planned a life-size stone Calvary, on the front. The level of ceremonial, led to a Protestant demonstration in 1914.
Toll Gate was on the corner of Lidyard Road. It closed in 1871
Whitehall Mansions. Built 1895 and done up in 1981. Massive mansions block with dated pinnacle
London Underground electricity substation. This is above the Northern Line and looks a bit Holden.
Charlotte Despard pub, this was previously called The Settle Inn. Now named after the 19/20th campaigner and suffragist.
Parish Hall - Brick building
Ashmount Road
Ashmount Primary School. Built in 1957 by H. T Cadbury Brown, with the Hills steel frame glazing system then in vogue. Dramatic wall of glass on the Hornsey Lane frontage
Avenue Road
The Cholmeley Brook runs along the back of the north side of the road along the playing fields.
Beaumont Rise
17-23 Elthorne Community Care Centre,
Buxton Road
Hornsey Rise Estate. Built 1979
Calverley Grove
Named for 19th poet Charles Calverley
Hathorne Terrace – self build homes.
Cardinals Way
Hillside Estate built 1975
Cheverton Road
Building started here from the 1880s
Names for sculptor Benjamin Cheverton
Claremont Road
This is solid turn-of-the-century housing in quiet side streets
21a the line of the Cholmeley Brook runs via the archway next to this house.
Town House on the corner with Stanhope road marks the line of the Cholmeley Brook
Colwick Close
Houses by David West of Mcmillan West Architects, 1976, tucked behind 19th houses
Courtauld Road
This was a length of Elthorne Road, renamed
Euro American Cars. Test centre in old Steam joinery works- industrial buildings from pre-1930s
Flats on site of Islington St.Mary’s Vestry depot
Cressida Road
Built up by 1892
Cromartie Road
Built up by 1892
6 Centre for Persistent Truants set up in 1971
RIBA Energy Efficiency Award 1988 by ECD Partnership
New Orleans Griffins – football club
Crouch End Hill
Crouch End Station Opened 1867 when it had been built by the Edgware Highgate and London Railway. The entrance was on the east side of Crouch End Hill south of Haslemere Road. It was a typical suburban station of the 1860s consisting of a single storey building in brick. It Closed in 1954. At first it was converted into a café but has since been demolished and replaced. There are some remains below on the Parkland Walk which is on the track bed. There was a brick retaining wall on the north side, and the track then went under a pedestrian bridge, and to the two platforms at the station. Stairways went down to the wooden platforms from the street level buildings. One of the concrete supports for the name board remained complete with rusting metalwork. A few courses of bricks survive from part of the platform buildings.
Siding behind the down platform, entered from the country end
Signal box. This stood opposite the junction with the passenger line, west of the Crouch End Hill bridge.
Bridge. Under the bridge emerging from the brickwork is the scary figure of a spriggan - said to steal children and leave baby spriggans in their place. The bridge was remodelled in 1970 when the station was demolished and a parapet of inverted arches added so you could look down the Parkland Walk.
83 Unison Housing Associations branch. It is claimed that the building can be seen in a 19th photograph next to the station building and possibly part of it.
Crescent Cafe. These are not the actual station buildings but appear to be something to do with the railway.
Despard Road
Suspect it is named for Edward Despard, soldier, hero executed for alleged plot
Dresden Road
Built in the 1870-80s
Duncombe Road
The road is named for Thomas Duncombe MP for Finsbury 1834-61 who was instrumental in setting up Finsbury Park.
Duncombe Hall. In 1885 this was Duncombe Road Chapel, and became in 1902 a Seventh Day Adventist College. Now site of the housing on the Duncombe Estate.
Mount Carmel School. The building was originally Archway Secondary Boys School. Began as Duncombe Road Board School. It became a primary school in 1945 and renamed in 1951 as a boys secondary school. In 1981 it was an annexe to George Orwell School. Now Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Technology College for Girls
Elthorne Road
At one time this was Redcap Lane
Fitzwarren Gardens
Built up in 1904 and said to be named for Sir Richard Whittington’s wife
Hazelville Road
Hornsey Rise Baptist Church. Founded 1871 in Duncombe Road and on this site in 1881. Bombed and rebuilt 1948
Islington Boxing Club. This is on what was Bovis’s site –a boys club opened by singer Frankie Vaughan
Hornsey Rise Estate on site of Alexandra Orphanage,
Alexandra Orphanage. Opened in 1864 for the infant orphans of respectable mechanics. After moving in the 1920s it became the Royal Alexandra and Albert School.
2 Aged Pilgrim's Friend Society. Opened in 1871 and closed 1973, this was a home for 120 pensioners at the northern corner with St. John's Road. It was a two-storeyed building designed by F. Boreham around a courtyard with chapel, hall, and committee rooms.
Arthur Henderson House. Local authority housing of 1939. Named for Arthur Henderson, first Leader of the Labour Party, and a Cabinet Minister.
Bruce Glasier House. This is local authority housing of 1939. Named for Glasier who was the second leader of the Independent Labour Party
Caroline Martyn House. This is local authority housing of 1939. She was an Independent Labour Party member who founded the Socialist Sunday Schools.
Enid Stacey House local authority housing of 1945. She was an Independent Labour Party member, suffragist and member of the Clarion movement.
John Wheatley House local authority housing of 1945. Wheatley was a member of the Independent Labour Party and an activist in the Red Clydeside movement.
Kier Hardie House, local authority housing of 1945 rebuilt 1963. Leader of the Independent Labour Party and early Labour Member of Parliament.
Louise White House local authority housing of 1977
Margaret McMillan House local authority housing of 1945. She was a Nursery education pioneer
Mary McArthur House. This is local authority housing of 1939. She founded the National Federation of Women Workers.
Elthorne Park. Local park, with laurel-lined walkways and woodland. The Noel Baker Peace Garden - named after the 1959 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize - is an example of late-20th garden design. Centred around a water feature and bronze sculpture, it uses brick and York stone paving with planting, in green, grey and white and some brighter colour. It was designed by Steve Adams and laid under the supervision of Islington Council in 1983 when five cherry trees were planted in the central lawn around a circular stone plaque.
Sunnyside Community Garden. This garden at the end of St. Johns Way includes a wildlife area with ecology and horticultural therapy centre, woodland and nature pond.
Henfield Close
Flats around large communal gardens, with playground.
Highgate Hill
Highgate Hill forms a part of the ancient road from Islington to Highgate, which is said to have been constructed by one of the hermits who was extracting gravel from the ponds (so that’s what hermits did) In 1884 the first cable tramway in Europe was opened but closed following an accident in 1894.
89 Whittington and Cat. Irish pub in a mid 19th building.
Calvert Court. Site of Unitarian Church which closed in 1961 and was demolished, and also Spears Memorial Hall named for Robert Spears who founded Channing School later became the first minister of Highgate Unitarian Church
The Academy. Flats in the buildings of Whittington School. The date of 1880 is outlined in brickwork on one of the gables. The school was opened by S.B.L. for boys and girls. It was subsequently reorganised in 1932 for and used senior girls and then in 1947 when it became a primary, It was Closed 1957 and used as part of Archway George Orwell Schools.
Holmesdale Road
The road skirts the cutting of the old Finsbury Park – Highgate line and then follows it downhill. The tunnel mouths can be seen below at the end of the tree-lined cutting. The road was built up with varied housing in the 1880s and 1890s.
Hornsey Lane
This was once called Duval's Lane – and he was a handsome highwayman. It is the continuation of a medieval road which linked Watling Street at Kilburn with Ermine Street at Tottenham – an old road on the Islington/Haringey borders. It was cut in two by the Highgate cutting.
Highgate Archway - bridge across the cutting of Archway Road with spectacular views. The present bridge is 1897-1900 by Alexander Binnie with elaborate decoration and railings. The dolphin lamps are copies of the Embankment design by Vulliamy. There is a telephone for potential suicides and other facilities under consideration.
Ashmount Primary School – the wall to this school, in Ashmount road, is of frosted green glass and on the boundary wall a scary bronze cockerel by John Willaas
St Aloysius’ College. Founded in 1879 by the Brothers of Mercy as a Roman Catholic Independent part boarding and day school it then became a Grammar School and College was passed to the De La Salle Brothers in 1960. It became a Comprehensive school in 1971. It is the oldest surviving foundation of its kind in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster.
War Memorial outside St. Aloysius’ School. In the form of a wayside Calvary, with marble relief and wrought iron screen. It includes the inscription TO THE SACRED AND LOVING MEMORY OF THE ALOYSIANS WHO GAVE THEIR COUNTRY IN THE GREAT WAR. 1914-1918. AT SEA, ON LAND, AND IN THE AIR. DUTY WELL DONE: REST WELL WON. REMEMBER THEM IN YOUR THOUGHTS. REMEMBER THEM IN YOUR PRAYERS.
12 Highgate Nursing Home. This was the Bethanie Convent Nursing Home and designed for them – there are rooms with balconies overlooking the view. Gardens landscaped with decking and a sensory garden
Fitzwarren House, within the same grounds, as the Highgate Nursing Home and also BUPA.
Oldfield Mews. Earlsmead House. In the Great War this was the Earlsmead Home of Recovery. In 1918 Mr. E.G. Harrop loaned the use of his home, Earlsmead, to the Great Northern Central Hospital for use as a convalescent home.
Reservoir. New River Company built covered reservoir storing water for local consumption pumped from Fortis Green. New River Company Engine House, which pumped to the higher parts of Highgate and Hampstead with two pumping engines, 1859, stock brick with stucco pediment. Base of large chimney
Garton House. Nine storey tower block designed for single people in 1980 by Colquhoun & Miller for Haringey.
Ridgeway Gardens. Gated house project with six storey towers built in 1988 by Douglas Paskin Associates.
Northwood Hall. Vast complex of 194 art deco flats. Built in 1935 by Richard Costain Limited to designs by George Edward Bright.
Hornsey Rise
Street on the steep rise on the way up to Highgate. Once many speculative villas now largely local authority housing
Hornsey Rise Gardens
Previously called Crouch End Crescent.
Langdon Park Road
St Augustine Vicarage and Church Hall by J.S. Alder, 1901 and 1905.
Milton Avenue
Manholes on the corner with Milton Park and by the steps to the Parkland Walk. These mark the line of Cholmeley Brook which has come under the walk from the corner of Northwood road
Miranda Road
Up to the 1880s the road was Albert Place and Albert Road
Mulkern Road
The Royal Oak Pub
31 The Fisherman. In the 1930s this was Evans Concisnum, Limited. Cigarette making machines
Northwood Way
The road is crossed by a narrow single file railway arch under the trackbed of the old Finsbury Park to Highgate line. The brickwork of this bridge must represent some of the most original infrastructure on the whole line. A LNER trespass board stood above it alongside the line.
Pauntley Street
Pauntley is the village where Dick Whittington was born.
Blue plaque to the site of the toll gate on Archway Road.
Collins and Hayes furniture factory 1940s.
Whitehall Park Garden – small community maintained garden on the slip road
Pilgrim Way
Housing dating from 1976
St John's Way
129 Caxton House Community Centre. Opened 1976. This was a development of the Caxton House Settlement set up in the 1940s in a church hall to improve the area pre-redevelopment.
Islington Workhouse. The main building, stretching right along half of the road, and served then whole area. The institution had its own infirmary and chapel in its grounds. It was built in 1869-70 to designs by RH Burden in brick and was T-plan layout typical of its time. It had a central section with administrative offices and Master quarters, with male inmates accommodated in the west wing and females in the east. There was a dining-hall with the chapel behind, and beyond that the infirmary with four blocks .The central section had a large cupola and tower with a clock. It was taken over by the London County council and renamed Hillside. It closed in 1972, and has been demolished apart from the board-room and office
Flats in what was the Eastgate wing of the workhouse latterly the Roger Casement Irish Centre
Singing Kettle – the workhouse was used for Hungarian Refugees in 1956 who opened their own cafĂ© there,
Hillside Park – opened on a steep slope on the site of some of the workhouse grounds.
Stanhope Road
The Cholmeley Brook crosses the road at its lowest point
2-6 blocks of flats for Ideal Homesteads 1975 three blocks of busy Neo-Regency flats, 1959-61 by Walter Grant
The Highgate to Finsbury Park railway line – as the Parkland Walk lies in a cutting, climbing up towards an embankment. It passes above the road on a bridge
Archway signal box was on the south side of the line here but closed by the mid-1930s.
Sunnyside Road
Steeply sloping road with a wide variety of blocks of flats of many styles from the 1920s onwards
Tile Kiln Lane
Studio flats by Beavan, 1978, with white concrete-block walls,
Waterlow Road
14 Scene of one of the Brides in the Bath murder
Whitehall Park
This covers the area of a big house called Whitehall sold in 1910. The road was the area of an estate designed by R. W. Hill and begun in 1889. The road being completed in 1891.
St.Andrew's Church. Built on a sloping site in 1894-5 by Frederick Hammond in red brick, Two 16th figures of St James and St Simon from Ram's Chapel, Homerton. An associated hall has been demolished
Wychwood End
Modernist houses built 1975 by Duncan Medhurst.
Sources
Ashmount school web site
Byway 7
Camden History Newsletter
Caxton House web site
Friends of Elthorne Park web site
Charlotte Despard web site
Clunn. Face of London
Dodds. London Then,
Field. Place names of London
Francis. Cement Industry
GLIAS Newsletter,
Graces Guide web site
Highgate walks
Highgate Nursing home web site
London Borough of Islington web site
London Railway Record
London’s Water Supply. MWB
Lost Hospitals of London web site
Northern Wastes,
Northwood Hall Residents Association web site
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Pinching and Bell. Haringey’s Hidden Streams
Records of the Chelsea Speleological Society
Smyth. City Wildspace
St.Aloysious college website
Stevenson. Middlesex
Walford. Highgate to the Lea
Webster Great North Road
Willatts. Streets of Islington
Workhouses web site
The Cholmeley Brook tributary flows north and east
Here the A1 road climbs on one of its several bypasses up and out of the City on its way to Scotland. The legendry version of Dick Whittington was here and a vast hospital complex and other institutions were named for him. Housing lies on either side of the road - council estates in Islington, posher housing towards Highgate.
Post to the north Crouch End
Post to the west Highgate
Post to the east Crouch Hill
Square to the south is four posts
Archway to the north west
Upper Holloway to the north east
Tufnel Park to the south east
Upper Holloway to the south east
Archway Road
This could be claimed as the first great by-pass road. It branched off the Great North Road at the Archway Tavern to avoid the the steep climb of 400 ft up to Highgate Village. In 1813, plans were made to tunnel through difficult clay below the summit of the hill. A new road was to go by tunnel through the hill for about three hundred yards and then rejoining the Great North Road but it collapsed. It had been built in 1809 and was a tunnel arched with brick but in 1812 the brickwork gave way, the ground above the tunnel cracked and the arch fell in. They heard the crash at Kentish Town. An open road was built and opened in 1813 – it was on the line of the tunnel, with a reduced gradient, and an archway built in heavy brickwork to carry Hornsey Lane over it. This was a commercial toll road and in 1829 it was taken over by the Commissioners of the Holyhead Road. Tolls were abolished in 1876. Eventually the archway became too narrow for the traffic, and it was demolished in the 1890s and replaced by another a hundred yards further north. Even so the climb is still severe for pedestrians and cyclists.
Archway Bridge. Constructed by the London County Council with Alexander Binnie as engineer and contractor Charles Wall. Binnie’s bridge has decorative cast iron and dolphin lamp copies like those on the Embankment.
Whittington Almshouses. Sir Richard Whittington founded almshouses next to St Michael Paternoster Royal in the City. These almshouses moved to Highgate in 1808 and to East Grinstead in 1966. They were administered by the Mercers Company.
St Augustine of Canterbury. Designed by J. D. Sedding, 1884-7 although the nave completed by H. Wilson and Repaired by J.H. Gibbons after a fire in 1924. Sedding’s interior has been described as unconventional. In 1881 the vicar of All Saints bought a part of the old Winchester Hall estate and the church schoolroom moved there in 1882 became the church of St. Augustine. a permanent church was began and the chancel was consecrated in 1888 and more opened as the years went by, Eventually it has a bell-tower higher than originally planned a life-size stone Calvary, on the front. The level of ceremonial, led to a Protestant demonstration in 1914.
Toll Gate was on the corner of Lidyard Road. It closed in 1871
Whitehall Mansions. Built 1895 and done up in 1981. Massive mansions block with dated pinnacle
London Underground electricity substation. This is above the Northern Line and looks a bit Holden.
Charlotte Despard pub, this was previously called The Settle Inn. Now named after the 19/20th campaigner and suffragist.
Parish Hall - Brick building
Ashmount Road
Ashmount Primary School. Built in 1957 by H. T Cadbury Brown, with the Hills steel frame glazing system then in vogue. Dramatic wall of glass on the Hornsey Lane frontage
Avenue Road
The Cholmeley Brook runs along the back of the north side of the road along the playing fields.
Beaumont Rise
17-23 Elthorne Community Care Centre,
Buxton Road
Hornsey Rise Estate. Built 1979
Calverley Grove
Named for 19th poet Charles Calverley
Hathorne Terrace – self build homes.
Cardinals Way
Hillside Estate built 1975
Cheverton Road
Building started here from the 1880s
Names for sculptor Benjamin Cheverton
Claremont Road
This is solid turn-of-the-century housing in quiet side streets
21a the line of the Cholmeley Brook runs via the archway next to this house.
Town House on the corner with Stanhope road marks the line of the Cholmeley Brook
Colwick Close
Houses by David West of Mcmillan West Architects, 1976, tucked behind 19th houses
Courtauld Road
This was a length of Elthorne Road, renamed
Euro American Cars. Test centre in old Steam joinery works- industrial buildings from pre-1930s
Flats on site of Islington St.Mary’s Vestry depot
Cressida Road
Built up by 1892
Cromartie Road
Built up by 1892
6 Centre for Persistent Truants set up in 1971
RIBA Energy Efficiency Award 1988 by ECD Partnership
New Orleans Griffins – football club
Crouch End Hill
Crouch End Station Opened 1867 when it had been built by the Edgware Highgate and London Railway. The entrance was on the east side of Crouch End Hill south of Haslemere Road. It was a typical suburban station of the 1860s consisting of a single storey building in brick. It Closed in 1954. At first it was converted into a café but has since been demolished and replaced. There are some remains below on the Parkland Walk which is on the track bed. There was a brick retaining wall on the north side, and the track then went under a pedestrian bridge, and to the two platforms at the station. Stairways went down to the wooden platforms from the street level buildings. One of the concrete supports for the name board remained complete with rusting metalwork. A few courses of bricks survive from part of the platform buildings.
Siding behind the down platform, entered from the country end
Signal box. This stood opposite the junction with the passenger line, west of the Crouch End Hill bridge.
Bridge. Under the bridge emerging from the brickwork is the scary figure of a spriggan - said to steal children and leave baby spriggans in their place. The bridge was remodelled in 1970 when the station was demolished and a parapet of inverted arches added so you could look down the Parkland Walk.
83 Unison Housing Associations branch. It is claimed that the building can be seen in a 19th photograph next to the station building and possibly part of it.
Crescent Cafe. These are not the actual station buildings but appear to be something to do with the railway.
Despard Road
Suspect it is named for Edward Despard, soldier, hero executed for alleged plot
Dresden Road
Built in the 1870-80s
Duncombe Road
The road is named for Thomas Duncombe MP for Finsbury 1834-61 who was instrumental in setting up Finsbury Park.
Duncombe Hall. In 1885 this was Duncombe Road Chapel, and became in 1902 a Seventh Day Adventist College. Now site of the housing on the Duncombe Estate.
Mount Carmel School. The building was originally Archway Secondary Boys School. Began as Duncombe Road Board School. It became a primary school in 1945 and renamed in 1951 as a boys secondary school. In 1981 it was an annexe to George Orwell School. Now Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Technology College for Girls
Elthorne Road
At one time this was Redcap Lane
Fitzwarren Gardens
Built up in 1904 and said to be named for Sir Richard Whittington’s wife
Hazelville Road
Hornsey Rise Baptist Church. Founded 1871 in Duncombe Road and on this site in 1881. Bombed and rebuilt 1948
Islington Boxing Club. This is on what was Bovis’s site –a boys club opened by singer Frankie Vaughan
Hornsey Rise Estate on site of Alexandra Orphanage,
Alexandra Orphanage. Opened in 1864 for the infant orphans of respectable mechanics. After moving in the 1920s it became the Royal Alexandra and Albert School.
2 Aged Pilgrim's Friend Society. Opened in 1871 and closed 1973, this was a home for 120 pensioners at the northern corner with St. John's Road. It was a two-storeyed building designed by F. Boreham around a courtyard with chapel, hall, and committee rooms.
Arthur Henderson House. Local authority housing of 1939. Named for Arthur Henderson, first Leader of the Labour Party, and a Cabinet Minister.
Bruce Glasier House. This is local authority housing of 1939. Named for Glasier who was the second leader of the Independent Labour Party
Caroline Martyn House. This is local authority housing of 1939. She was an Independent Labour Party member who founded the Socialist Sunday Schools.
Enid Stacey House local authority housing of 1945. She was an Independent Labour Party member, suffragist and member of the Clarion movement.
John Wheatley House local authority housing of 1945. Wheatley was a member of the Independent Labour Party and an activist in the Red Clydeside movement.
Kier Hardie House, local authority housing of 1945 rebuilt 1963. Leader of the Independent Labour Party and early Labour Member of Parliament.
Louise White House local authority housing of 1977
Margaret McMillan House local authority housing of 1945. She was a Nursery education pioneer
Mary McArthur House. This is local authority housing of 1939. She founded the National Federation of Women Workers.
Elthorne Park. Local park, with laurel-lined walkways and woodland. The Noel Baker Peace Garden - named after the 1959 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize - is an example of late-20th garden design. Centred around a water feature and bronze sculpture, it uses brick and York stone paving with planting, in green, grey and white and some brighter colour. It was designed by Steve Adams and laid under the supervision of Islington Council in 1983 when five cherry trees were planted in the central lawn around a circular stone plaque.
Sunnyside Community Garden. This garden at the end of St. Johns Way includes a wildlife area with ecology and horticultural therapy centre, woodland and nature pond.
Henfield Close
Flats around large communal gardens, with playground.
Highgate Hill
Highgate Hill forms a part of the ancient road from Islington to Highgate, which is said to have been constructed by one of the hermits who was extracting gravel from the ponds (so that’s what hermits did) In 1884 the first cable tramway in Europe was opened but closed following an accident in 1894.
89 Whittington and Cat. Irish pub in a mid 19th building.
Calvert Court. Site of Unitarian Church which closed in 1961 and was demolished, and also Spears Memorial Hall named for Robert Spears who founded Channing School later became the first minister of Highgate Unitarian Church
The Academy. Flats in the buildings of Whittington School. The date of 1880 is outlined in brickwork on one of the gables. The school was opened by S.B.L. for boys and girls. It was subsequently reorganised in 1932 for and used senior girls and then in 1947 when it became a primary, It was Closed 1957 and used as part of Archway George Orwell Schools.
Holmesdale Road
The road skirts the cutting of the old Finsbury Park – Highgate line and then follows it downhill. The tunnel mouths can be seen below at the end of the tree-lined cutting. The road was built up with varied housing in the 1880s and 1890s.
Hornsey Lane
This was once called Duval's Lane – and he was a handsome highwayman. It is the continuation of a medieval road which linked Watling Street at Kilburn with Ermine Street at Tottenham – an old road on the Islington/Haringey borders. It was cut in two by the Highgate cutting.
Highgate Archway - bridge across the cutting of Archway Road with spectacular views. The present bridge is 1897-1900 by Alexander Binnie with elaborate decoration and railings. The dolphin lamps are copies of the Embankment design by Vulliamy. There is a telephone for potential suicides and other facilities under consideration.
Ashmount Primary School – the wall to this school, in Ashmount road, is of frosted green glass and on the boundary wall a scary bronze cockerel by John Willaas
St Aloysius’ College. Founded in 1879 by the Brothers of Mercy as a Roman Catholic Independent part boarding and day school it then became a Grammar School and College was passed to the De La Salle Brothers in 1960. It became a Comprehensive school in 1971. It is the oldest surviving foundation of its kind in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster.
War Memorial outside St. Aloysius’ School. In the form of a wayside Calvary, with marble relief and wrought iron screen. It includes the inscription TO THE SACRED AND LOVING MEMORY OF THE ALOYSIANS WHO GAVE THEIR COUNTRY IN THE GREAT WAR. 1914-1918. AT SEA, ON LAND, AND IN THE AIR. DUTY WELL DONE: REST WELL WON. REMEMBER THEM IN YOUR THOUGHTS. REMEMBER THEM IN YOUR PRAYERS.
12 Highgate Nursing Home. This was the Bethanie Convent Nursing Home and designed for them – there are rooms with balconies overlooking the view. Gardens landscaped with decking and a sensory garden
Fitzwarren House, within the same grounds, as the Highgate Nursing Home and also BUPA.
Oldfield Mews. Earlsmead House. In the Great War this was the Earlsmead Home of Recovery. In 1918 Mr. E.G. Harrop loaned the use of his home, Earlsmead, to the Great Northern Central Hospital for use as a convalescent home.
Reservoir. New River Company built covered reservoir storing water for local consumption pumped from Fortis Green. New River Company Engine House, which pumped to the higher parts of Highgate and Hampstead with two pumping engines, 1859, stock brick with stucco pediment. Base of large chimney
Garton House. Nine storey tower block designed for single people in 1980 by Colquhoun & Miller for Haringey.
Ridgeway Gardens. Gated house project with six storey towers built in 1988 by Douglas Paskin Associates.
Northwood Hall. Vast complex of 194 art deco flats. Built in 1935 by Richard Costain Limited to designs by George Edward Bright.
Hornsey Rise
Street on the steep rise on the way up to Highgate. Once many speculative villas now largely local authority housing
Hornsey Rise Gardens
Previously called Crouch End Crescent.
Langdon Park Road
St Augustine Vicarage and Church Hall by J.S. Alder, 1901 and 1905.
Milton Avenue
Manholes on the corner with Milton Park and by the steps to the Parkland Walk. These mark the line of Cholmeley Brook which has come under the walk from the corner of Northwood road
Miranda Road
Up to the 1880s the road was Albert Place and Albert Road
Mulkern Road
The Royal Oak Pub
31 The Fisherman. In the 1930s this was Evans Concisnum, Limited. Cigarette making machines
Northwood Way
The road is crossed by a narrow single file railway arch under the trackbed of the old Finsbury Park to Highgate line. The brickwork of this bridge must represent some of the most original infrastructure on the whole line. A LNER trespass board stood above it alongside the line.
Pauntley Street
Pauntley is the village where Dick Whittington was born.
Blue plaque to the site of the toll gate on Archway Road.
Collins and Hayes furniture factory 1940s.
Whitehall Park Garden – small community maintained garden on the slip road
Pilgrim Way
Housing dating from 1976
St John's Way
129 Caxton House Community Centre. Opened 1976. This was a development of the Caxton House Settlement set up in the 1940s in a church hall to improve the area pre-redevelopment.
Islington Workhouse. The main building, stretching right along half of the road, and served then whole area. The institution had its own infirmary and chapel in its grounds. It was built in 1869-70 to designs by RH Burden in brick and was T-plan layout typical of its time. It had a central section with administrative offices and Master quarters, with male inmates accommodated in the west wing and females in the east. There was a dining-hall with the chapel behind, and beyond that the infirmary with four blocks .The central section had a large cupola and tower with a clock. It was taken over by the London County council and renamed Hillside. It closed in 1972, and has been demolished apart from the board-room and office
Flats in what was the Eastgate wing of the workhouse latterly the Roger Casement Irish Centre
Singing Kettle – the workhouse was used for Hungarian Refugees in 1956 who opened their own cafĂ© there,
Hillside Park – opened on a steep slope on the site of some of the workhouse grounds.
Stanhope Road
The Cholmeley Brook crosses the road at its lowest point
2-6 blocks of flats for Ideal Homesteads 1975 three blocks of busy Neo-Regency flats, 1959-61 by Walter Grant
The Highgate to Finsbury Park railway line – as the Parkland Walk lies in a cutting, climbing up towards an embankment. It passes above the road on a bridge
Archway signal box was on the south side of the line here but closed by the mid-1930s.
Sunnyside Road
Steeply sloping road with a wide variety of blocks of flats of many styles from the 1920s onwards
Tile Kiln Lane
Studio flats by Beavan, 1978, with white concrete-block walls,
Waterlow Road
14 Scene of one of the Brides in the Bath murder
Whitehall Park
This covers the area of a big house called Whitehall sold in 1910. The road was the area of an estate designed by R. W. Hill and begun in 1889. The road being completed in 1891.
St.Andrew's Church. Built on a sloping site in 1894-5 by Frederick Hammond in red brick, Two 16th figures of St James and St Simon from Ram's Chapel, Homerton. An associated hall has been demolished
Wychwood End
Modernist houses built 1975 by Duncan Medhurst.
Sources
Ashmount school web site
Byway 7
Camden History Newsletter
Caxton House web site
Friends of Elthorne Park web site
Charlotte Despard web site
Clunn. Face of London
Dodds. London Then,
Field. Place names of London
Francis. Cement Industry
GLIAS Newsletter,
Graces Guide web site
Highgate walks
Highgate Nursing home web site
London Borough of Islington web site
London Railway Record
London’s Water Supply. MWB
Lost Hospitals of London web site
Northern Wastes,
Northwood Hall Residents Association web site
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Pinching and Bell. Haringey’s Hidden Streams
Records of the Chelsea Speleological Society
Smyth. City Wildspace
St.Aloysious college website
Stevenson. Middlesex
Walford. Highgate to the Lea
Webster Great North Road
Willatts. Streets of Islington
Workhouses web site
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