Gospel Oak to Barking Railway. Upper Holloway
Gospel Oak to Barking Railway
From the site of Junction Road Station the railway goes north eastwards
Post to the north Archway
This posting covers only the north east corner of the square. The other squares are
Archway to the north west
Upper Holloway to the north east
Tufnel Park to the south west
Boothby Road
Before 1907 this was Summerfield Road and the site of Summerfield Villas. Much of the road is taken up with the rear portions of what were Holloway Mills
Davenant Road
Davenant Road Park. Green open space on the site of 19th houses.
Elthorne Road
In the late 19th this was Red Cap Lane. The Old Mother Red Cap Pub is in Holloway Road opposite the corner of Elthorne Road.
1a Job Centre Plus. In 1914 this was the Integral Propeller Co. making wooden propellers, and moved to Hendon the following year. It was later used by Crosfield electronic and printing works. In the late 19th the site had been part of the tramway depot based in Holloway Road.
2 Glen Byam Shaw School of Art. This was founded by artists John Byam Shaw and Rex Cole in 1910 as a school of drawing and painting. It was originally in Kensington but moved here in 1990. It became part of Central Saint Martin’s in 2003 and this now consists of their first year BA Fine Arts
2 In the 1930s this was Giuseppe Leonardi, making lighting standards and table lamps
4 Bellside House. Office units.
5 New River College. This is a special school coordinating a secondary level young people from a number of other schools who have experienced problems in main stream schools. They also coordinate a school for hospitalised young people at the Whittington Hospital. Previously here was Harborough School for Autistic Children. This moved here in 1913 as Elthorne Road School for delicate children. I 1937 it was a school for the physically handicapped which closed in 1951. It then became school for the partially sighted opened and, in 1967, a school for autistic children. It closed in 2002.
6 Brookstone House. Offices and trading units
7 Former Presbyterian Mission Hall, built for Highgate Presbyterian church in 1907. It was designed by George Lethbridge and is in yellow and orange brick. The Boothby Road front has gables with a plaque. It was closed in 1954 and used by the National Assistance Board. It was modernised in 1989 and is offices for various charities, etc.
7a Elthorne Learning Centre. Provides a service to socially excluded groups to meet their socio-economic, cultural, health and training needs. In the late 1950 it was owned by J. F. Crosfield Ltd., electronic and printing equipment manufacturers, whose admin block was designed by Newman Levinson & Partners,
9-15 Kogan Academy of Dramatic Arts. This was until recently the Academy of the Science of Acting and Directing. The Academy is in the building previously known as Holloway Mills. The mills are shown on maps from the 1870s but the firm which occupied them dated from 1804 but founded in Bordeaux by J.T. Betts. His son, W. Betts, opened a works in London in 1840. Holloway Mills is first noted as a steam saw mill and Betts made boxes and other items for packaging of many sorts. They later moved into metal items and became specialists in metal packaging capsules of many sorts. During the Great War it became a respirator factory. They were eventually taken over by Courtauld's in 1960.
9-15 Elthorne Studios. Central Saint Martin’s College of Arts and Design. This was formed in 1989 from a merger of the Central School of Art and Design founded in 1896, with Saint Martin’s School of Art founded in 1854. Saint Martin’s consists of four schools and is based in Kings Cross. At Elthorne Road Studios the MA Art and Science and MA Fine Arts courses are based
Batavia Mills. This was also one of Betts works. Described before the Great War as a lead works – lead would have been rolled and processed into foil for use in lining packing cases and tea chests.
Terminal house. This is now the site of Kinver House. It was the works of Ross Courtney & Co who had extended from an engine works at 25 Ashbrook Road, Upper Holloway. They dated from the 1890s and made various electrical and similar components, specialising eventually in motor trade items.
From the site of Junction Road Station the railway goes north eastwards
Post to the north Archway
This posting covers only the north east corner of the square. The other squares are
Archway to the north west
Upper Holloway to the north east
Tufnel Park to the south west
Boothby Road
Before 1907 this was Summerfield Road and the site of Summerfield Villas. Much of the road is taken up with the rear portions of what were Holloway Mills
Davenant Road
Davenant Road Park. Green open space on the site of 19th houses.
Elthorne Road
In the late 19th this was Red Cap Lane. The Old Mother Red Cap Pub is in Holloway Road opposite the corner of Elthorne Road.
1a Job Centre Plus. In 1914 this was the Integral Propeller Co. making wooden propellers, and moved to Hendon the following year. It was later used by Crosfield electronic and printing works. In the late 19th the site had been part of the tramway depot based in Holloway Road.
2 Glen Byam Shaw School of Art. This was founded by artists John Byam Shaw and Rex Cole in 1910 as a school of drawing and painting. It was originally in Kensington but moved here in 1990. It became part of Central Saint Martin’s in 2003 and this now consists of their first year BA Fine Arts
2 In the 1930s this was Giuseppe Leonardi, making lighting standards and table lamps
4 Bellside House. Office units.
5 New River College. This is a special school coordinating a secondary level young people from a number of other schools who have experienced problems in main stream schools. They also coordinate a school for hospitalised young people at the Whittington Hospital. Previously here was Harborough School for Autistic Children. This moved here in 1913 as Elthorne Road School for delicate children. I 1937 it was a school for the physically handicapped which closed in 1951. It then became school for the partially sighted opened and, in 1967, a school for autistic children. It closed in 2002.
6 Brookstone House. Offices and trading units
7 Former Presbyterian Mission Hall, built for Highgate Presbyterian church in 1907. It was designed by George Lethbridge and is in yellow and orange brick. The Boothby Road front has gables with a plaque. It was closed in 1954 and used by the National Assistance Board. It was modernised in 1989 and is offices for various charities, etc.
7a Elthorne Learning Centre. Provides a service to socially excluded groups to meet their socio-economic, cultural, health and training needs. In the late 1950 it was owned by J. F. Crosfield Ltd., electronic and printing equipment manufacturers, whose admin block was designed by Newman Levinson & Partners,
9-15 Kogan Academy of Dramatic Arts. This was until recently the Academy of the Science of Acting and Directing. The Academy is in the building previously known as Holloway Mills. The mills are shown on maps from the 1870s but the firm which occupied them dated from 1804 but founded in Bordeaux by J.T. Betts. His son, W. Betts, opened a works in London in 1840. Holloway Mills is first noted as a steam saw mill and Betts made boxes and other items for packaging of many sorts. They later moved into metal items and became specialists in metal packaging capsules of many sorts. During the Great War it became a respirator factory. They were eventually taken over by Courtauld's in 1960.
9-15 Elthorne Studios. Central Saint Martin’s College of Arts and Design. This was formed in 1989 from a merger of the Central School of Art and Design founded in 1896, with Saint Martin’s School of Art founded in 1854. Saint Martin’s consists of four schools and is based in Kings Cross. At Elthorne Road Studios the MA Art and Science and MA Fine Arts courses are based
Batavia Mills. This was also one of Betts works. Described before the Great War as a lead works – lead would have been rolled and processed into foil for use in lining packing cases and tea chests.
Terminal house. This is now the site of Kinver House. It was the works of Ross Courtney & Co who had extended from an engine works at 25 Ashbrook Road, Upper Holloway. They dated from the 1890s and made various electrical and similar components, specialising eventually in motor trade items.
Housing Infill scheme GLC 1976
Giesbach Road
Giesbach Road Open Space. This small corner space has flower beds and a seating area
Dick Whittington Junior Library. This opened in 1962 and closed in 1982. The building is now St John’s Ambulance. Highgate Division, Archway Training Centre.
Postmen's Sorting office. This is now housing.
Hatchard Road
Electricity sub station. UK Power Networks
Community centre. A Catholic mission was founded by the Passionists of St Joseph’s and in 1928, an iron chapel was built here but only in 1964 that St Gabriel’s become an independent parish. It was then that plans were made to build a church on a different site. After the completion of the new church, the iron chapel became the church hall. In 1973-74, a community centre was built on its site. Gerard Goalen, who had designed the new church, was the architect.
Wild life area on the railside.
Holloway Road
Holloway Road narrows as it climbs towards Highgate.
557 The building has signage on the gable which idnicates that this was the Norfolk Arms. "Rebuilt 1900" "Whitbread’s fine ales". It is now part of a block of shops selling building and decorators' materials to the trade.
563 The Floirin. Irish pub, previously called Bailey’s Corner, or The Mulberry Tree
Whittington Park entrance with giant topiary cat. This was installed to commemorate the story of Dick Whittington arriving here with his cat.
Upper Holloway Station. This was opened in1868 and now lies between Crouch Hill and Gospel Oak Stations. It was built on the Tottenham to Highgate Road section of the Midland Railway line and closed for some months in 1870. From 1871 it was called Upper Holloway for St. John’s Park and Highgate Hill and just as Upper Holloway for St. John's Park in 1875. From 1903 it has had its current name. It is in a cutting and there are few facilities with little at street level other than a few signs. The original buildings were demolished in the 1960s. There are small brick rain shelters on each platform and there is a container sized portable office. The building which used to be the ticket office remains beside the south entrance. A footbridge over the track remained in place but was not used and the line has to be crossed by Holloway Road itself where steps and a ramp go down to the platforms. There are also unused sections of platform.
Signal box. This was put in place in 1985 and is a portacabin two storey arrangement.
Upper Holloway signal box replaced an earlier one in 1893. Closed 1985
St John’s the Evangelist Church. As a 19th church is was built as part of an evangelical. It was built in 1826, and consecrated in 1828 and was inaugurated through Daniel Wilson the then Vicar of Islington and in 1826 a procession went from St. Mary in Upper Street to this site. The land was part of the Palmer Estate left by the Rev. James Palmer, vicar of St Bride's Fleet Street and given for building a church by the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy. It was designed by Sir Charles Barry with a ground floor, gallery and crypt. Daniel Wilson’s directions for the interior were to follow ‘Islington usage; and consisted of a central three-tier pulpit a Communion table in the Sanctuary, and a slight hint only of a Chancel. Rows of box-pews remain and were rented out. Children from a local orphanage sat in a room in the gallery called the Orphan's room where they could hear the service but not be seen. There is a spire and bell tower with a still working chiming clock. Burials took place in the crypt until 1855. The church was united with St Peter's Church, Dartmouth Park Hill in 1978 to become the parish of St Peter with St John, Upper Holloway
623 St John’s Institution with a gym and other facilities. These lay on the north side of St.John’s Grove and were managed by trustees. They are now the site of flats and shops.
643 Highgate Empire Cinema. This Opened as the Pavilion Cinema in 1910 and it was upgraded in 1914 and re-named the Highgate Empire Cinema. It was taken over by Union Cinemas in 1935 and by Associated British Cinemas in 1937. It closed in 1957 and converted into the Gresham Ballroom. It closed in 1998 and lay empty until demolition in 2001. A supermarket is now on the site.
665 Old Mother Red Cap. The pub was there before 1660 and is mentioned in Pepys Diary.
710 The Marlborough pub. It was called Angie's Of Holloway Road before it closed in 2010. Now a shop.
Marlborough Road
61 Mothers Clinic. There is a blue plague here to Marie Stopes who opened the first family planning centre in Britain, here in 1921.
Marlborough Yard
New build housing on site of industrial premises alongside the railway.
John Bird, precision engineering 1970s/
Old Forge Road
Housing on the site of industrial premises which replaced 19th stables.
Pemberton Gardens
A turning off the road leads to a main entrance to the Metroline Holloway Bus Garage.
St John’s Grove
St John’s National School. A school was set up in Hornsey Lane by 1828; and became a National school in 1829. A site adjoining St. John's Church had been intended for a parsonage and was presented to the church by the Corporation of Sons of Clergy in 1830. A School was built there designed by Sir Charles Barry and opened in 1831. In 1945 the school moved to new buildings in Pemberton Gardens. The original buildings remain and were subsequently used as offices.
St John’s Villas
St.Gabriel. The mission was originally founded by the Passionists of St Joseph’s and an iron chapel was built in Hatchard Road. In 1964 the present site was purchased for a new church. It was designed by Gerard Goalen. He also built the adjoining presbytery and in 1981, Gerard Goalen converted the baptistery into a meeting room. The church is a concrete structure faced in dark grey bricks and the roof is a flat concrete deck and there is some aluminium cladding. Two glazed projections house the sacristy, and the porch, above them is a concrete bell with three bells and a metal cross. There are no windows. The inside was altered by Carmel Cauchi and there is a bronze fibreglass sculpture of the Risen Christ and also a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary with Child both by Willi Soukop RA, and there are more statues by him of the Sacred Heart and St Gabriel.
The garden has been planted with evergreen shrubs and herbaceous perennials and Wisteria had been planted to green the concrete walls.
Wedmore Gardens
The road led to sidings and industrial areas connected to the Midland Railway depot to the west
Sources
British History online. Islington
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clunn. Face of London
Dodds. London Then
Grace’s Guide. Web site
London Borough of Islington. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
National Archives. Web site
Pastscape. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Smith. MS on lead works.
St. John’s Church. Web site.
St.Martin's School of Art. Web site
Summerson. Georgian London
Willatts. Streets of Islington
Giesbach Road
Giesbach Road Open Space. This small corner space has flower beds and a seating area
Dick Whittington Junior Library. This opened in 1962 and closed in 1982. The building is now St John’s Ambulance. Highgate Division, Archway Training Centre.
Postmen's Sorting office. This is now housing.
Hatchard Road
Electricity sub station. UK Power Networks
Community centre. A Catholic mission was founded by the Passionists of St Joseph’s and in 1928, an iron chapel was built here but only in 1964 that St Gabriel’s become an independent parish. It was then that plans were made to build a church on a different site. After the completion of the new church, the iron chapel became the church hall. In 1973-74, a community centre was built on its site. Gerard Goalen, who had designed the new church, was the architect.
Wild life area on the railside.
Holloway Road
Holloway Road narrows as it climbs towards Highgate.
557 The building has signage on the gable which idnicates that this was the Norfolk Arms. "Rebuilt 1900" "Whitbread’s fine ales". It is now part of a block of shops selling building and decorators' materials to the trade.
563 The Floirin. Irish pub, previously called Bailey’s Corner, or The Mulberry Tree
Whittington Park entrance with giant topiary cat. This was installed to commemorate the story of Dick Whittington arriving here with his cat.
Upper Holloway Station. This was opened in1868 and now lies between Crouch Hill and Gospel Oak Stations. It was built on the Tottenham to Highgate Road section of the Midland Railway line and closed for some months in 1870. From 1871 it was called Upper Holloway for St. John’s Park and Highgate Hill and just as Upper Holloway for St. John's Park in 1875. From 1903 it has had its current name. It is in a cutting and there are few facilities with little at street level other than a few signs. The original buildings were demolished in the 1960s. There are small brick rain shelters on each platform and there is a container sized portable office. The building which used to be the ticket office remains beside the south entrance. A footbridge over the track remained in place but was not used and the line has to be crossed by Holloway Road itself where steps and a ramp go down to the platforms. There are also unused sections of platform.
Signal box. This was put in place in 1985 and is a portacabin two storey arrangement.
Upper Holloway signal box replaced an earlier one in 1893. Closed 1985
St John’s the Evangelist Church. As a 19th church is was built as part of an evangelical. It was built in 1826, and consecrated in 1828 and was inaugurated through Daniel Wilson the then Vicar of Islington and in 1826 a procession went from St. Mary in Upper Street to this site. The land was part of the Palmer Estate left by the Rev. James Palmer, vicar of St Bride's Fleet Street and given for building a church by the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy. It was designed by Sir Charles Barry with a ground floor, gallery and crypt. Daniel Wilson’s directions for the interior were to follow ‘Islington usage; and consisted of a central three-tier pulpit a Communion table in the Sanctuary, and a slight hint only of a Chancel. Rows of box-pews remain and were rented out. Children from a local orphanage sat in a room in the gallery called the Orphan's room where they could hear the service but not be seen. There is a spire and bell tower with a still working chiming clock. Burials took place in the crypt until 1855. The church was united with St Peter's Church, Dartmouth Park Hill in 1978 to become the parish of St Peter with St John, Upper Holloway
623 St John’s Institution with a gym and other facilities. These lay on the north side of St.John’s Grove and were managed by trustees. They are now the site of flats and shops.
643 Highgate Empire Cinema. This Opened as the Pavilion Cinema in 1910 and it was upgraded in 1914 and re-named the Highgate Empire Cinema. It was taken over by Union Cinemas in 1935 and by Associated British Cinemas in 1937. It closed in 1957 and converted into the Gresham Ballroom. It closed in 1998 and lay empty until demolition in 2001. A supermarket is now on the site.
665 Old Mother Red Cap. The pub was there before 1660 and is mentioned in Pepys Diary.
710 The Marlborough pub. It was called Angie's Of Holloway Road before it closed in 2010. Now a shop.
Marlborough Road
61 Mothers Clinic. There is a blue plague here to Marie Stopes who opened the first family planning centre in Britain, here in 1921.
Marlborough Yard
New build housing on site of industrial premises alongside the railway.
John Bird, precision engineering 1970s/
Old Forge Road
Housing on the site of industrial premises which replaced 19th stables.
Pemberton Gardens
A turning off the road leads to a main entrance to the Metroline Holloway Bus Garage.
St John’s Grove
St John’s National School. A school was set up in Hornsey Lane by 1828; and became a National school in 1829. A site adjoining St. John's Church had been intended for a parsonage and was presented to the church by the Corporation of Sons of Clergy in 1830. A School was built there designed by Sir Charles Barry and opened in 1831. In 1945 the school moved to new buildings in Pemberton Gardens. The original buildings remain and were subsequently used as offices.
St John’s Villas
St.Gabriel. The mission was originally founded by the Passionists of St Joseph’s and an iron chapel was built in Hatchard Road. In 1964 the present site was purchased for a new church. It was designed by Gerard Goalen. He also built the adjoining presbytery and in 1981, Gerard Goalen converted the baptistery into a meeting room. The church is a concrete structure faced in dark grey bricks and the roof is a flat concrete deck and there is some aluminium cladding. Two glazed projections house the sacristy, and the porch, above them is a concrete bell with three bells and a metal cross. There are no windows. The inside was altered by Carmel Cauchi and there is a bronze fibreglass sculpture of the Risen Christ and also a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary with Child both by Willi Soukop RA, and there are more statues by him of the Sacred Heart and St Gabriel.
The garden has been planted with evergreen shrubs and herbaceous perennials and Wisteria had been planted to green the concrete walls.
Wedmore Gardens
The road led to sidings and industrial areas connected to the Midland Railway depot to the west
Sources
British History online. Islington
Cinema Treasures. Web site
Clunn. Face of London
Dodds. London Then
Grace’s Guide. Web site
London Borough of Islington. Web site
London Encyclopaedia
National Archives. Web site
Pastscape. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Smith. MS on lead works.
St. John’s Church. Web site.
St.Martin's School of Art. Web site
Summerson. Georgian London
Willatts. Streets of Islington
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