Gospel Oak to Barking Railway. Crouch Hill
The Gospel Oak to Barking railway line continues from Upper Holloway Station in a north easterly direction
TQ 29954 87678
Suburban area including old industrial sites hidden in the back streets
Post to the north Crouch End
Post to the west Archway
Post to the east Finsbury Park
Ashley Road
St.Mary and St.Stephen. Built for the new community of Hornsey Rise in 1860 and subsequently took in St.Stephen Elthorne Road. It was designed by A.D. Gough, in ragstone and extended in 1883-4. Inside is some panelling brought from Teulon's St Paul, Avenue Road.
Church Hall and Community Centre built 1878
40 Church of the Kingdom of God (Philanthropic Assembly). This church is now in an old cinema in Seven Sisters Road and this house appears to flats.
43 Ashley Road Care Home in what was Blythe Mansions Health Clinic. This was before 1984 the City of London Maternity Hospital Nurses Home.
Blythwood Road
Holly Hall Community Centre. This is a Christian Science Church.
Entrance to the Parkland Walk
Courtauld Road
This is the renamed north end of Elthorne Road. Courtauld took over the Betts works in the 1960s, the new road name apparently dates from 1981.
Cutler's Steam Joinery Works.
Crouch Hill
The road is thought to be part of Ermine Street and of a pre-14th route out of London to the north.
Bridge over the Parkland Walk – the ex-railway to Highgate. Down in the trackbed there is still some original retaining wall on the north side. This is a bridge which replaced an earlier one which collapsed following a gas explosion in October 1994, and was built wide enough to cover a railway line, rather than a footpath.
103 On the pavement outside is a borough marker stone and this is the boundary between Islington and Haringey
1-3 The Old Dairy. A building of 1891 with sgraffito panels, built for the Friern Manor Dairy Farm Company. The earliest reference to Friern Manor Farm is in 1853 and originated in south London, with a Head Office in Farringdon Street. They had branches elsewhere but began in south London. It supplied Dr Gaertner's Humanised Milk. The building was let in the 1920s until 1968 to United Dairies. The builder and designer are unknown. It is built of red rubbed bricks made by Tommy Lawrence of Bracknell. In each bay is a panel with a mural of dairying in the past and as practised at Friern Manor Farm - grazing, milking, cooling, country delivery, making butter, and to the right of the entrance, old style delivery and 1890 delivery. Converted to a restaurant 1990s.
Crouch Hill Station. This was opened in 1868 by the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction railway as one of the initial stations on the line. It now lies between Harringay Green Lanes and Upper Holloway Stations. The original station building are now in private use and the brick platform buildings have been replaced.
Signal Box. This lay east of the down platform and was replaced in 1888 and eventually closed in 1959
Ilex House, tower block owned by Islington Council. It is a 17 storey Bison system point block built in 1972.
29 The Noble. This pub was a Marler Bar and after that a Tap & Spile. Also seems to have been called The Flag, the Big Fat Sofa and The Racecourse
Brick gate pillars at the entrance to Vicarage Path. This is remains of the entrance to Hill Hall.
Holly Park Methodist church. The Church was founded in 1875, although a permanent hall was not built until 1882.
Crouch Hill Presbyterian Church, Holly Park, originated in an iron chapel built locally in 1873. The Holly Park site was bought with the help of Sir George Bunce and a lecture hall and vestries were built in 1876. A permanent chapel opened in 1878. The church closed in 1975 and the buildings demolished.
Dickenson Road
Crouch Hill House became St.Gilda's Convent School. One of the few remaining posh villas probably built in the late 18th.
St Gilda’s' Catholic Junior School. In 1915, the Sisters of St. Gilda’s’ established a school in Crouch Hill House as an all-age private school. In the late 1960s St.Gilda's School was rebuilt as a Voluntary Aided Junior School on the original site. In 1989 the school transferred to the Diocese of Westminster and is now a two-form entry Junior School providing a Catholic Education for primary age boys and girls.
Dulas Street
Asquith Day Nursery. This is on the site of previous housing
Everleigh Street
18 Stroud Green Christian Assembly. This was founded in the 1920s and held meetings in various venues. The congregation joined the Assemblies of God and the present building was acquired in 1955
Roman Catholic chapel of St. Mellitus opened in 1938 and a church opened on a different site in 1959.
Everleigh Street Open Space is a garden designed for families with toddlers and open to key holders. It is by a local Friends Group.
Evershot Road
Open space with flower beds
Granville Road
Holy Trinity Church. As the suburbs of London expanded in the 19th there was a need to provide additional Churches. In 1878 Holy Innocents church opened a temporary mission hall here called the Iron Room. A permanent church was built here a year later designed by B. Edmund Ferrey, and built by Mattock Bros. The Iron Room then became the church hall and was replaced by a brick hall in 1913. In July 1944, the church was damaged by a V1 and it was decided to put any money into re-building houses rather than a church. By 1951 the building was unsafe and closed and the church hall was used instead. The church was later demolished and the hall became the church,
Peace Garden. This is on the triangle of land between Granville Road and Stapleton Hall Roads. Early on 16 July 1944 a V-1 fell here killing 15 people and injuring 35 others. Twelve houses and Holy Trinity Church were hit. Later prefabs were put up, now replaced by the Spinney. The Stroud Green Residents Association put up this memorial up to those who were killed. The site was once part of the church grounds
Grenville Road
Grenville Road Gardens. Small local public garden with a Friends group. The Allotment Garden is a student and community project. It was developed by the American Intercontinental University with Buro Happold. Built on a site with Japanese knot-weed, the garden has hovering planters at varied heights and an elevated rain-water harvesting system.
Timbuktu Adventure Playground. Free play activities for local children with indoor and outdoor facilities
Grenville Workshops – post war industrial buildings on both sides of the street.
Hanley Gardens
Housing Association homes built in 1986, partly on the site of the City of London Maternity Hospital.
Hanley Road
51 Primary Health Centre. Doctor’s surgery in building of 1982 built as an Islington Neighbourhood Centre by Chris Purslow, Borough Architect.
75 Hanley Road Day Centre. NHS Employment and Education Project; plus Mind’s Hanley Road Resource Centre
Arthur Simpson Library. This was at the far end of the road and there is now a block of flats on the site. The Library opened in 1952 and named after the then chair of the Libraries Committee.
North London Houses for Aged Christian Blind Men and Women. This was founded by Rev. Henry Bright and his wife – he was blind from birth- in a building used as a school and known as ‘Mansion House’. They continued in charge of the home till their deaths in 1919 and 1918. There was also a seaside home at Southend. The site was later sold to the City of London Hospital.
City of London Maternity Hospital. The City of London Lying-In Hospital for Married Women and Sick and Lame Out-Patients founded in an apartment in Aldersgate Street in 1750. In 1773 it moved to City Road and had 36 beds and following other moves and a name change the building was destroyed in Second World War bombing. It then amalgamated with the Gynecological and Obstetric Department at the Royal Northern Hospital and in 1949 reopened in buildings bought from the Institute of the Blind. A new building was added in 1955. In 1983, it amalgamated with the Whittington Hospital and the Hanley Road building was closed. The site is now Hanley Gardens.
127 this is the older part of the ‘Old Dairy’ in Crouch Hill. It was used as a dairy from the middle of the 19th. The Crouch Hill building was added to it.
St.Saviour's Church. In 1878, the Vicar of St. Mark’s leased from the Rt. Hon. the Earl Beauchamp a plot of ground here on which to build an iron church. By 1883 a new plot of land had been found and a church was built designed by J.E.K and J.P. Cutts and the parish formed in 1888.
Church hall to the rear
Haselmere Road
Kink in the road curves round the site of Oakfield House to the south which was demolished in the 1930s.
Signposts to a network of footpaths which leads south of which Waverley Road, to the north, is part.
Hillrise Road
Called Upper Hornsey Rise 1852-1936. A footpath leads uphill to the site of the former Crouch Hill Recreation Centre.
Holly Park
Holly Park Estate – local authority housing named for a former large house here.
Hornsey Rise
Elthorne Park – eastern side of this Islington park.
Hornsey Rise Health Centre. Opened by Islington Council 1984
Hornsey Rise Children’s Centre. Margaret Macmillan Nursery.
Hornsey Road,
The road was once called Tallington Lane and formed a boundary between manors here.
493 Plumb butcher’s shop from 1900. W Plumb butcher's shop. Only open two days a year. Inside is art nouveau wall tiling, a geometric tiled floor, scrolled meat rails and mahogany cashier's booth with etched and brilliant cut glass.
472 The Corner Flag. This pub has had several different names – originally The Railway Tavern, but also more recently The Salt Bar, and All Points West and The Blarney Stone
465b Johrei Centre. This is a centre for a Japanese system of spiritual enlightenment begun in the early 20th by Mokichi Okada. JOHREI is the name given to the channeling of a spiritual energy or Divine Light to purify one’s spiritual body and awaken our divine nature. I
425 North London Spiritualist Church. This was previously a primitive Methodist chapel. The Primitive Methodists had previously met at Jubilee House and then at Station Parade but built this chapel in 1908. It closed in 1930 and was taken over by the Spiritualists.
Hornsey Road Station. Opened by the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway in the cutting on the south west of Hornsey Road. In 1943 it closed. In the 1950s the buildings were removed and demolished although the booking office was used by a watch mender for a long time.
Signal box. This was on the down side west of the station and replaced an earlier box in 1892. The box was removed in 1937.
471 Newton and Wright, electrical and scientific instrument makers. They made a number of important devices, including the Snook Machine, mainly for medical applications. They were here from 1905 until 1937 when they were taken over, eventually becoming part of AEI.
471 this was originally a coffee tavern called the Jubilee Hall used by many local organizations. High on the gable is a mural of a town cryer, its origins do not seem to be known.
498 Hornsey Rise Piano factory. Thomas Harper made Harper Overstrung and Vertical Pianos here in the 1920s. Buildings appear to date from then
Japan Crescent
Named for Japan House, villa which stood in the area in the 19th
Langdon Motors – building may be on the same site as the Japan House.
Lambton Road
Britains Toy Factory. The factory was on the site of new housing between Lambton and Spears roads. In 1893 William Britain developed the hollowcast toy soldier process hitherto dominated by the Germans but Britain’s process was cheaper. The firm expanded with works in other areas and in the 1920s introduced the farm series of figures. In the 1950s the introduction of plastic figures led to change and Britains switched to plastic figures in the 1960s.
Mount Pleasant Villas
Railway Bridge. The carries the now Parkland Walk, the old railway to Highgate. From here the line begins to climb at 1 in 72. Gradients were against the locomotive all the way from Finsbury Park to Highgate and trains were time-tabled to take two minutes longer when travelling in this direction
Mount View Road
Mount Pleasant was the 18th name for Crouch Hill.
Two covered reservoirs. These were for filtered water for the New River Co., holding 12m gallons before 1885. Some water is received here by gravitation from Fortis Green. There are also wells on site.
Parkland Walk – the old railway to Highgate is crossed by it the road. The trackbed below has some original retaining wall on the north side.
Oakfield Court
Flats on the site of Oakfield House private boys school founded in 1859, replaced in 1933 and closed.
Parkland Walk
The walk follows the line of a railway which began as a steam service off the East Coast Main Line with suburban services for the Great Northern Railway authorized in 1862 and opened in 1867. It became part of the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923. Before the Second World War it was planned to extend the line to Elstree but The designation of the 'Green Belt' killed the economic case for this and passenger services ended in 1954. The tracks from Highgate depot to Finsbury Park remained to move stock for used on the Northern Line but this ended in 1970 following the opening of the Victoria Line. The track was then removed and the land was transferred to the local authorities and re-opened as a linear park.
Electricity substation, now used as a council youth centre. To be refurbished and to incorporate a new ecology centre into the building. It was intended as a sub-station for the proposed pre-war electrification, abandoned after the Second World War and never used
Crouch Hill Community Park. The sites designated Metropolitan Open Land while of ecological significance. It is in two parts. The lower part is the Parkland Walk which is a heavily treed wood with secondary Remnants of railway heritage. The upper part contains a derelict community building, a nursery and a multi-use games area. The project was initiated by Islington Council's Children services because they needed to rehouse a primary school and the new build primary school sparked a more ambitious project. So along with the new Ashmount School combined with Bowlers private nursery, plus a district heating system, generated by a gas CHP and biomass boiler. The architects for the £16.5m scheme were Penoyre and Prasad
Crouch Hill Recreation Centre. This was accessed via a carved gateway on Crouch Hill leading to the Youth Centre. Beyond this was Bowlers Nursery and then the Recreation Centre. It dated from the 1920s and may have been used by American GIs in the 1920s and bunkers were said to be under the building. It was ruin by Trustees. It closed in 2004 and became derelict, and later redevelopment includes a new school.
Crouch Hill Forest Garden. A sustainable edible landscape, with fruit trees, perennial vegetables and herbs - part of the sustainable gardening system known as Permaculture.
Porter Square
Site of Shackell and Edwards printing ink and varnish factory. "A lamp-black and printers' ink factory was built here in 1827 by Thomas Davision, printer of Whitefriars Street. It was burned down three times before 1833, and at the same time a steam-engine was installed . It was sold to Shackell & Edwards by 1853. There was an explosion at the factory in 1932 and it was rebuilt.
Regina Road
Elim Pentecostal Church. Prominent building with a star shaped roof designed in 1961 by John Diamond. Built to succeed New Court Congregational Church but now in use by the Elim church, which originated in Ghana.
New Court was one of the earliest nonconformist chapels in London. In 1662 Dr. Thomas Manton was ejected from St. Paul's, Covent Garden and was established in a chapel in Bridges Street. In 1682 this was forced to close but reopened in 1687 and by 1606 was in Drury Lane. In 1705 they moved to New Court, Carey Street and remained there until 1866 where it became a Congregational chapel. A new church was built at Tollington Park but in 1961 they moved here and closed in 1976.
Sparsholt Road
Hanley Crouch Community Centre and The Laundry Club. Youth and community facilities in old laundry buildings. This dates from the 1970s. Hanley Hall itself dates from 1902 but was bombed. It was reopened in 1952.
Stapleton Hall Road
Stapleton Hall. This house is noted in 1577 rebuilt later by Sir Thomas Stapleton. It stood at the north-west end of Stapleton Hall Road. In 1765 it was the Stapleton Hall tavern. It was the Stroud Green Conservative club by 1888. It has now been included in a modern housing development.
Baptist Church Stroud Green Chapel. Built in 1888 by J. Walls Chapman. It is a red brick group sine converted to housing and school. It was established in 1878 and registered by Particular Baptists in 1884.. in 1928, they had joined the London Baptist Association,
Parkland Walk. The walk here crosses the Tottenham & Hampstead line which is deep in cutting below. Since Finsbury Park the walk had been on an embankment but crosses the road here on a viaduct.
Stroud Green Station. Opened by the Great Northern Railway on the line to Highgate as a later addition to the line which opened in 1881. It had two side platforms, partly built on the viaduct and above the Road. The entrance was on the west side of the road and was built of wood with a steep wooden stair connecting the two. The station site is now on the Parkland Walk where there is a clearing marks at the site of the platforms. The buildings were burnt down in 1966. There seems to be no reference to any thought of an interchange with the Tottenham and Hampstead line below
Station House. This is on the west side of the road and provided accommodation for the Station Master. It later became a community centre and information office.
Stroud Green Road
White Lion of Mortimer. Wetherspoons Pub
Sussex Way
Housing on the site of an Islington Council Depot. Corner of Courtauld Road.
Duncombe Primary School. The school is named after Thomas Slingsby Duncombe who was MP for Finsbury in 1834-1861. He was described as ‘probably the most radical Member’ of his period and In 1842 he presented the second Chartist petition to Parliament calling for universal male suffrage and other democratic reforms. The Duncombe Road Board School was opened in 1878. The school building is an attractive well-constructed building originating from the late 19th . the school commissioned a local artist Magnus Irwin to design and paint a rain forest mural on the main park wall. The school is on a site previously used by Cottenham Road School, a technical school and Duncombe Road School, an elementary school. The school was a relief station for the emergency services during the Second World War.
Thorpedale Road
Wray Crescent Open Space
Tollington Park
Named from the manor of Tollington. 1810. Was laid out between the routes of Hornsey Road and Stroud Green Road, as a superior development planned c. 1840, but built up slowly and irregularly and much eroded since. The survivals display the range of classical variants current in the mid c19. Group of big austerely treated three-bay villas
Park Tavern. Pub dating from at least the 1860s
St Mellitus. Roman Catholic Church. A large and imposing classical church, built as the New Court Congregational Church. It has a large pedimented Corinthian portico. There s a schoolroom now used as a hall in the basement, and a wing now the presbytery. The Catholic mission was founded in 1925 from St Peter-in-Chains, Stroud Green. A temporary chapel was built in Everleigh Street in 1938. In 1959, Canon George Groves acquired the present building from the New Court Congregational Church founded in 1662 who had moved to the Regina Road Chapel now in use by the Elim Pentecostal Church. The foundation stone for the church had been laid in 1870 and the architect was C. G. Searle, who also was a deacon of the church and lived nearby at Tollington Villas. An building now used as the presbytery originally housed vestries, classrooms and a hall for weekday services. The firm of Gordon Reeves adapted the building for Roman Catholic use. this involved the removal of the bow-fronted pulpit and the partitioning of part of the ground floor. The church retains two stained glass windows including The Good Shepherd of c.1877 as a memorial to Henry Mason a former deacon of the church; and the Virgin Mary 1910, W.G. Langford, which commemorates a former superintendent of the Sunday School. Most of the furnishings are modern. The organ is from 1920 by A. Hunter.
158 maggot machine. nearby was an Old slot machine for the sale of milk, which had been adapted for a new use. You could buy live maggots from it for fishing, say in the middle of the night when shops were shut. The maggots were kept cool by the refrigeration system and there was quite a choice of flavours and colours.
Turle Road
Islington Arts and Media School. This secondary school was previously the George Orwell School. Before that it was Tollington Park Secondary School and the original 19th building was Montem Street School. The school thus opened on 1886 as Montem Street Board School and later called Montem Street Higher Elementary School until 1910 when it became Montem Street Central School. It was reorganized in 1947-51 as Montem Primary School and then moved to a different site. The central school had been renamed Marriott Road Central School in 1914 and in 1925 became Tollington Park Central School, Turle Road. In 1957 having been amalgamated with Isledon Secondary School it became Tollington Park Secondary school. A technical block was built in the 1960s, and a drama hall early 1970s. In 1981 it amalgamated with Archway School as George Orwell School. It has now beenrenamed and rebuilt yet again.
Vicarage Path
The footbridge over the Parkland Walk collapsed in the 1970s and was rebuilt in 1983 to railway standards
Sources
AIM25. Web site
British History Online. Islington
Camden History Review
Carswell. The saving of Kenwood
Connor. Forgotten Stations
Grace’s Guide. Web site
Friends of the Parkland Walk. Web site
Highgate Walks
Hillman. London Under London
Hinshelwood. The Old Dairy
Hornsey Road. Blog
London Borough of Haringey. Web site
London Borough of Islington. Web site
London Encyclopedia
London Gardens Online. Web site
London Railway Record
London Transport. Country Walks
Lost Hospitals of London
Lucas. London
Northern Wastes
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Stevenson. Middlesex
St. Mellitus. Web site
Summerson. London Georgian Houses
Walford. Highgate and Hampstead to the Lea
Willatts. Islington Streets
TQ 29954 87678
Suburban area including old industrial sites hidden in the back streets
Post to the north Crouch End
Post to the west Archway
Post to the east Finsbury Park
Ashley Road
St.Mary and St.Stephen. Built for the new community of Hornsey Rise in 1860 and subsequently took in St.Stephen Elthorne Road. It was designed by A.D. Gough, in ragstone and extended in 1883-4. Inside is some panelling brought from Teulon's St Paul, Avenue Road.
Church Hall and Community Centre built 1878
40 Church of the Kingdom of God (Philanthropic Assembly). This church is now in an old cinema in Seven Sisters Road and this house appears to flats.
43 Ashley Road Care Home in what was Blythe Mansions Health Clinic. This was before 1984 the City of London Maternity Hospital Nurses Home.
Blythwood Road
Holly Hall Community Centre. This is a Christian Science Church.
Entrance to the Parkland Walk
Courtauld Road
This is the renamed north end of Elthorne Road. Courtauld took over the Betts works in the 1960s, the new road name apparently dates from 1981.
Cutler's Steam Joinery Works.
Crouch Hill
The road is thought to be part of Ermine Street and of a pre-14th route out of London to the north.
Bridge over the Parkland Walk – the ex-railway to Highgate. Down in the trackbed there is still some original retaining wall on the north side. This is a bridge which replaced an earlier one which collapsed following a gas explosion in October 1994, and was built wide enough to cover a railway line, rather than a footpath.
103 On the pavement outside is a borough marker stone and this is the boundary between Islington and Haringey
1-3 The Old Dairy. A building of 1891 with sgraffito panels, built for the Friern Manor Dairy Farm Company. The earliest reference to Friern Manor Farm is in 1853 and originated in south London, with a Head Office in Farringdon Street. They had branches elsewhere but began in south London. It supplied Dr Gaertner's Humanised Milk. The building was let in the 1920s until 1968 to United Dairies. The builder and designer are unknown. It is built of red rubbed bricks made by Tommy Lawrence of Bracknell. In each bay is a panel with a mural of dairying in the past and as practised at Friern Manor Farm - grazing, milking, cooling, country delivery, making butter, and to the right of the entrance, old style delivery and 1890 delivery. Converted to a restaurant 1990s.
Crouch Hill Station. This was opened in 1868 by the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction railway as one of the initial stations on the line. It now lies between Harringay Green Lanes and Upper Holloway Stations. The original station building are now in private use and the brick platform buildings have been replaced.
Signal Box. This lay east of the down platform and was replaced in 1888 and eventually closed in 1959
Ilex House, tower block owned by Islington Council. It is a 17 storey Bison system point block built in 1972.
29 The Noble. This pub was a Marler Bar and after that a Tap & Spile. Also seems to have been called The Flag, the Big Fat Sofa and The Racecourse
Brick gate pillars at the entrance to Vicarage Path. This is remains of the entrance to Hill Hall.
Holly Park Methodist church. The Church was founded in 1875, although a permanent hall was not built until 1882.
Crouch Hill Presbyterian Church, Holly Park, originated in an iron chapel built locally in 1873. The Holly Park site was bought with the help of Sir George Bunce and a lecture hall and vestries were built in 1876. A permanent chapel opened in 1878. The church closed in 1975 and the buildings demolished.
Dickenson Road
Crouch Hill House became St.Gilda's Convent School. One of the few remaining posh villas probably built in the late 18th.
St Gilda’s' Catholic Junior School. In 1915, the Sisters of St. Gilda’s’ established a school in Crouch Hill House as an all-age private school. In the late 1960s St.Gilda's School was rebuilt as a Voluntary Aided Junior School on the original site. In 1989 the school transferred to the Diocese of Westminster and is now a two-form entry Junior School providing a Catholic Education for primary age boys and girls.
Dulas Street
Asquith Day Nursery. This is on the site of previous housing
Everleigh Street
18 Stroud Green Christian Assembly. This was founded in the 1920s and held meetings in various venues. The congregation joined the Assemblies of God and the present building was acquired in 1955
Roman Catholic chapel of St. Mellitus opened in 1938 and a church opened on a different site in 1959.
Everleigh Street Open Space is a garden designed for families with toddlers and open to key holders. It is by a local Friends Group.
Evershot Road
Open space with flower beds
Granville Road
Holy Trinity Church. As the suburbs of London expanded in the 19th there was a need to provide additional Churches. In 1878 Holy Innocents church opened a temporary mission hall here called the Iron Room. A permanent church was built here a year later designed by B. Edmund Ferrey, and built by Mattock Bros. The Iron Room then became the church hall and was replaced by a brick hall in 1913. In July 1944, the church was damaged by a V1 and it was decided to put any money into re-building houses rather than a church. By 1951 the building was unsafe and closed and the church hall was used instead. The church was later demolished and the hall became the church,
Peace Garden. This is on the triangle of land between Granville Road and Stapleton Hall Roads. Early on 16 July 1944 a V-1 fell here killing 15 people and injuring 35 others. Twelve houses and Holy Trinity Church were hit. Later prefabs were put up, now replaced by the Spinney. The Stroud Green Residents Association put up this memorial up to those who were killed. The site was once part of the church grounds
Grenville Road
Grenville Road Gardens. Small local public garden with a Friends group. The Allotment Garden is a student and community project. It was developed by the American Intercontinental University with Buro Happold. Built on a site with Japanese knot-weed, the garden has hovering planters at varied heights and an elevated rain-water harvesting system.
Timbuktu Adventure Playground. Free play activities for local children with indoor and outdoor facilities
Grenville Workshops – post war industrial buildings on both sides of the street.
Hanley Gardens
Housing Association homes built in 1986, partly on the site of the City of London Maternity Hospital.
Hanley Road
51 Primary Health Centre. Doctor’s surgery in building of 1982 built as an Islington Neighbourhood Centre by Chris Purslow, Borough Architect.
75 Hanley Road Day Centre. NHS Employment and Education Project; plus Mind’s Hanley Road Resource Centre
Arthur Simpson Library. This was at the far end of the road and there is now a block of flats on the site. The Library opened in 1952 and named after the then chair of the Libraries Committee.
North London Houses for Aged Christian Blind Men and Women. This was founded by Rev. Henry Bright and his wife – he was blind from birth- in a building used as a school and known as ‘Mansion House’. They continued in charge of the home till their deaths in 1919 and 1918. There was also a seaside home at Southend. The site was later sold to the City of London Hospital.
City of London Maternity Hospital. The City of London Lying-In Hospital for Married Women and Sick and Lame Out-Patients founded in an apartment in Aldersgate Street in 1750. In 1773 it moved to City Road and had 36 beds and following other moves and a name change the building was destroyed in Second World War bombing. It then amalgamated with the Gynecological and Obstetric Department at the Royal Northern Hospital and in 1949 reopened in buildings bought from the Institute of the Blind. A new building was added in 1955. In 1983, it amalgamated with the Whittington Hospital and the Hanley Road building was closed. The site is now Hanley Gardens.
127 this is the older part of the ‘Old Dairy’ in Crouch Hill. It was used as a dairy from the middle of the 19th. The Crouch Hill building was added to it.
St.Saviour's Church. In 1878, the Vicar of St. Mark’s leased from the Rt. Hon. the Earl Beauchamp a plot of ground here on which to build an iron church. By 1883 a new plot of land had been found and a church was built designed by J.E.K and J.P. Cutts and the parish formed in 1888.
Church hall to the rear
Haselmere Road
Kink in the road curves round the site of Oakfield House to the south which was demolished in the 1930s.
Signposts to a network of footpaths which leads south of which Waverley Road, to the north, is part.
Hillrise Road
Called Upper Hornsey Rise 1852-1936. A footpath leads uphill to the site of the former Crouch Hill Recreation Centre.
Holly Park
Holly Park Estate – local authority housing named for a former large house here.
Hornsey Rise
Elthorne Park – eastern side of this Islington park.
Hornsey Rise Health Centre. Opened by Islington Council 1984
Hornsey Rise Children’s Centre. Margaret Macmillan Nursery.
Hornsey Road,
The road was once called Tallington Lane and formed a boundary between manors here.
493 Plumb butcher’s shop from 1900. W Plumb butcher's shop. Only open two days a year. Inside is art nouveau wall tiling, a geometric tiled floor, scrolled meat rails and mahogany cashier's booth with etched and brilliant cut glass.
472 The Corner Flag. This pub has had several different names – originally The Railway Tavern, but also more recently The Salt Bar, and All Points West and The Blarney Stone
465b Johrei Centre. This is a centre for a Japanese system of spiritual enlightenment begun in the early 20th by Mokichi Okada. JOHREI is the name given to the channeling of a spiritual energy or Divine Light to purify one’s spiritual body and awaken our divine nature. I
425 North London Spiritualist Church. This was previously a primitive Methodist chapel. The Primitive Methodists had previously met at Jubilee House and then at Station Parade but built this chapel in 1908. It closed in 1930 and was taken over by the Spiritualists.
Hornsey Road Station. Opened by the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway in the cutting on the south west of Hornsey Road. In 1943 it closed. In the 1950s the buildings were removed and demolished although the booking office was used by a watch mender for a long time.
Signal box. This was on the down side west of the station and replaced an earlier box in 1892. The box was removed in 1937.
471 Newton and Wright, electrical and scientific instrument makers. They made a number of important devices, including the Snook Machine, mainly for medical applications. They were here from 1905 until 1937 when they were taken over, eventually becoming part of AEI.
471 this was originally a coffee tavern called the Jubilee Hall used by many local organizations. High on the gable is a mural of a town cryer, its origins do not seem to be known.
498 Hornsey Rise Piano factory. Thomas Harper made Harper Overstrung and Vertical Pianos here in the 1920s. Buildings appear to date from then
Japan Crescent
Named for Japan House, villa which stood in the area in the 19th
Langdon Motors – building may be on the same site as the Japan House.
Lambton Road
Britains Toy Factory. The factory was on the site of new housing between Lambton and Spears roads. In 1893 William Britain developed the hollowcast toy soldier process hitherto dominated by the Germans but Britain’s process was cheaper. The firm expanded with works in other areas and in the 1920s introduced the farm series of figures. In the 1950s the introduction of plastic figures led to change and Britains switched to plastic figures in the 1960s.
Mount Pleasant Villas
Railway Bridge. The carries the now Parkland Walk, the old railway to Highgate. From here the line begins to climb at 1 in 72. Gradients were against the locomotive all the way from Finsbury Park to Highgate and trains were time-tabled to take two minutes longer when travelling in this direction
Mount View Road
Mount Pleasant was the 18th name for Crouch Hill.
Two covered reservoirs. These were for filtered water for the New River Co., holding 12m gallons before 1885. Some water is received here by gravitation from Fortis Green. There are also wells on site.
Parkland Walk – the old railway to Highgate is crossed by it the road. The trackbed below has some original retaining wall on the north side.
Oakfield Court
Flats on the site of Oakfield House private boys school founded in 1859, replaced in 1933 and closed.
Parkland Walk
The walk follows the line of a railway which began as a steam service off the East Coast Main Line with suburban services for the Great Northern Railway authorized in 1862 and opened in 1867. It became part of the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923. Before the Second World War it was planned to extend the line to Elstree but The designation of the 'Green Belt' killed the economic case for this and passenger services ended in 1954. The tracks from Highgate depot to Finsbury Park remained to move stock for used on the Northern Line but this ended in 1970 following the opening of the Victoria Line. The track was then removed and the land was transferred to the local authorities and re-opened as a linear park.
Electricity substation, now used as a council youth centre. To be refurbished and to incorporate a new ecology centre into the building. It was intended as a sub-station for the proposed pre-war electrification, abandoned after the Second World War and never used
Crouch Hill Community Park. The sites designated Metropolitan Open Land while of ecological significance. It is in two parts. The lower part is the Parkland Walk which is a heavily treed wood with secondary Remnants of railway heritage. The upper part contains a derelict community building, a nursery and a multi-use games area. The project was initiated by Islington Council's Children services because they needed to rehouse a primary school and the new build primary school sparked a more ambitious project. So along with the new Ashmount School combined with Bowlers private nursery, plus a district heating system, generated by a gas CHP and biomass boiler. The architects for the £16.5m scheme were Penoyre and Prasad
Crouch Hill Recreation Centre. This was accessed via a carved gateway on Crouch Hill leading to the Youth Centre. Beyond this was Bowlers Nursery and then the Recreation Centre. It dated from the 1920s and may have been used by American GIs in the 1920s and bunkers were said to be under the building. It was ruin by Trustees. It closed in 2004 and became derelict, and later redevelopment includes a new school.
Crouch Hill Forest Garden. A sustainable edible landscape, with fruit trees, perennial vegetables and herbs - part of the sustainable gardening system known as Permaculture.
Porter Square
Site of Shackell and Edwards printing ink and varnish factory. "A lamp-black and printers' ink factory was built here in 1827 by Thomas Davision, printer of Whitefriars Street. It was burned down three times before 1833, and at the same time a steam-engine was installed . It was sold to Shackell & Edwards by 1853. There was an explosion at the factory in 1932 and it was rebuilt.
Regina Road
Elim Pentecostal Church. Prominent building with a star shaped roof designed in 1961 by John Diamond. Built to succeed New Court Congregational Church but now in use by the Elim church, which originated in Ghana.
New Court was one of the earliest nonconformist chapels in London. In 1662 Dr. Thomas Manton was ejected from St. Paul's, Covent Garden and was established in a chapel in Bridges Street. In 1682 this was forced to close but reopened in 1687 and by 1606 was in Drury Lane. In 1705 they moved to New Court, Carey Street and remained there until 1866 where it became a Congregational chapel. A new church was built at Tollington Park but in 1961 they moved here and closed in 1976.
Sparsholt Road
Hanley Crouch Community Centre and The Laundry Club. Youth and community facilities in old laundry buildings. This dates from the 1970s. Hanley Hall itself dates from 1902 but was bombed. It was reopened in 1952.
Stapleton Hall Road
Stapleton Hall. This house is noted in 1577 rebuilt later by Sir Thomas Stapleton. It stood at the north-west end of Stapleton Hall Road. In 1765 it was the Stapleton Hall tavern. It was the Stroud Green Conservative club by 1888. It has now been included in a modern housing development.
Baptist Church Stroud Green Chapel. Built in 1888 by J. Walls Chapman. It is a red brick group sine converted to housing and school. It was established in 1878 and registered by Particular Baptists in 1884.. in 1928, they had joined the London Baptist Association,
Parkland Walk. The walk here crosses the Tottenham & Hampstead line which is deep in cutting below. Since Finsbury Park the walk had been on an embankment but crosses the road here on a viaduct.
Stroud Green Station. Opened by the Great Northern Railway on the line to Highgate as a later addition to the line which opened in 1881. It had two side platforms, partly built on the viaduct and above the Road. The entrance was on the west side of the road and was built of wood with a steep wooden stair connecting the two. The station site is now on the Parkland Walk where there is a clearing marks at the site of the platforms. The buildings were burnt down in 1966. There seems to be no reference to any thought of an interchange with the Tottenham and Hampstead line below
Station House. This is on the west side of the road and provided accommodation for the Station Master. It later became a community centre and information office.
Stroud Green Road
White Lion of Mortimer. Wetherspoons Pub
Sussex Way
Housing on the site of an Islington Council Depot. Corner of Courtauld Road.
Duncombe Primary School. The school is named after Thomas Slingsby Duncombe who was MP for Finsbury in 1834-1861. He was described as ‘probably the most radical Member’ of his period and In 1842 he presented the second Chartist petition to Parliament calling for universal male suffrage and other democratic reforms. The Duncombe Road Board School was opened in 1878. The school building is an attractive well-constructed building originating from the late 19th . the school commissioned a local artist Magnus Irwin to design and paint a rain forest mural on the main park wall. The school is on a site previously used by Cottenham Road School, a technical school and Duncombe Road School, an elementary school. The school was a relief station for the emergency services during the Second World War.
Thorpedale Road
Wray Crescent Open Space
Tollington Park
Named from the manor of Tollington. 1810. Was laid out between the routes of Hornsey Road and Stroud Green Road, as a superior development planned c. 1840, but built up slowly and irregularly and much eroded since. The survivals display the range of classical variants current in the mid c19. Group of big austerely treated three-bay villas
Park Tavern. Pub dating from at least the 1860s
St Mellitus. Roman Catholic Church. A large and imposing classical church, built as the New Court Congregational Church. It has a large pedimented Corinthian portico. There s a schoolroom now used as a hall in the basement, and a wing now the presbytery. The Catholic mission was founded in 1925 from St Peter-in-Chains, Stroud Green. A temporary chapel was built in Everleigh Street in 1938. In 1959, Canon George Groves acquired the present building from the New Court Congregational Church founded in 1662 who had moved to the Regina Road Chapel now in use by the Elim Pentecostal Church. The foundation stone for the church had been laid in 1870 and the architect was C. G. Searle, who also was a deacon of the church and lived nearby at Tollington Villas. An building now used as the presbytery originally housed vestries, classrooms and a hall for weekday services. The firm of Gordon Reeves adapted the building for Roman Catholic use. this involved the removal of the bow-fronted pulpit and the partitioning of part of the ground floor. The church retains two stained glass windows including The Good Shepherd of c.1877 as a memorial to Henry Mason a former deacon of the church; and the Virgin Mary 1910, W.G. Langford, which commemorates a former superintendent of the Sunday School. Most of the furnishings are modern. The organ is from 1920 by A. Hunter.
158 maggot machine. nearby was an Old slot machine for the sale of milk, which had been adapted for a new use. You could buy live maggots from it for fishing, say in the middle of the night when shops were shut. The maggots were kept cool by the refrigeration system and there was quite a choice of flavours and colours.
Turle Road
Islington Arts and Media School. This secondary school was previously the George Orwell School. Before that it was Tollington Park Secondary School and the original 19th building was Montem Street School. The school thus opened on 1886 as Montem Street Board School and later called Montem Street Higher Elementary School until 1910 when it became Montem Street Central School. It was reorganized in 1947-51 as Montem Primary School and then moved to a different site. The central school had been renamed Marriott Road Central School in 1914 and in 1925 became Tollington Park Central School, Turle Road. In 1957 having been amalgamated with Isledon Secondary School it became Tollington Park Secondary school. A technical block was built in the 1960s, and a drama hall early 1970s. In 1981 it amalgamated with Archway School as George Orwell School. It has now beenrenamed and rebuilt yet again.
Vicarage Path
The footbridge over the Parkland Walk collapsed in the 1970s and was rebuilt in 1983 to railway standards
Sources
AIM25. Web site
British History Online. Islington
Camden History Review
Carswell. The saving of Kenwood
Connor. Forgotten Stations
Grace’s Guide. Web site
Friends of the Parkland Walk. Web site
Highgate Walks
Hillman. London Under London
Hinshelwood. The Old Dairy
Hornsey Road. Blog
London Borough of Haringey. Web site
London Borough of Islington. Web site
London Encyclopedia
London Gardens Online. Web site
London Railway Record
London Transport. Country Walks
Lost Hospitals of London
Lucas. London
Northern Wastes
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Stevenson. Middlesex
St. Mellitus. Web site
Summerson. London Georgian Houses
Walford. Highgate and Hampstead to the Lea
Willatts. Islington Streets
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