Woodberry Down
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Post to the south Clissold Park
Amhurst Park
Some big late Victorian villas
91 single storey laboratory in the back garden by Tom Kay Associates. 1986.
Bethune Road.
Lincoln Court. Three tower blocks
1960s. Planned to high density in relation to the proximity of much open
space. By Homes, Jackman & Partners over the reservoirs of the New River
34-36 blocks of late 19th flats. Listed Grade II
but at one time considered to be at risk. ten blocks of three-storey self-contained middle-class flats Built from 1874 by Matthew Allen, a builder associated with Sydney Waterlow and the
Improved Industrial Dwellings Company. Eight blocks have ground-floor
flats and two-storey houses above, with access to the gardens which were
(originally laid out as a communal space with greenhouses and washhouses. dressings in Allen's own patent artificial stone.
99 Synagogue and Talmudical College. Built 1967 for the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations established in the area in 1926.
New River sluice House and reservoirs.
New River. A short distance down the road, on the right, is a cul-de-sac which crosses the New River and affords a good view of a sluice house and the reservoirs
Dunsmure
Road
Grodzinski family acquired a big bakery here in the 1930s. The new mobility and larger ovens enabled Grodzinski to expand the product range, though the traditional barrow round still contributed substantially to company turnover. Barrow rounds, similar to today's milk rounds, were being set up all over the Stamford Hill area, involving roundsmen delivering rolls to the doorstep in time for breakfast, and returning later in the morning with bread. The start of the Second world war saw a second migration, this time to the Home Counties; and once again Grodzinski followed their customers, delivering twice weekly as far out as Letchworth, Amersham, Chesham, Oxford and St. Albans. These deliveries consisted of bread rolls, cakes, biscuits and on Thursdays Challot for Shabbat (the Sabbath). Everything was baked at Dunsmure Road, which kept up full production throughout the war. This period also saw further expansion with new shops in Edgeware, Belsize Park, Swiss Cottage and a Patisserie in St. Johns Wood High Street. Diversification continued in the ensuing years, with the company establishing London's first kosher supermarket and even a kosher freezer centre in Golders Green. In the mid 1960's Emmanuel, Ruby's son, joined the company, running it successfully for 13 years and masterminding the amalgamation of the many small, but uneconomic, bakery units around London into one centralised modern bakery in Tottenham. Grodzinski is the largest kosher bakery in Europe and regularly exports to the continent. Wedding, birthday and bar mitzvah cakes are made to order.
Fairholt Road
Green Lanes
Drove road into London. Site of a tollgate at Manor House.
‘Castle’ pumping station. Stoke Newington pumping station of New River Co. Amazing folly. 1854/6. Unexploded bomb in no 9. Built to look like a castle by William Chadwell Mylne in 1855 in order not to offend local property owners. The Pumping Station was built to house three steam engines. Boulton and Watt installed a beam engine at Green Lanes in 1856, known as the 'Lion and Lioness'. The connecting rods and pumps, not being rigid enough, had to be trussed with wrought iron, giving a striking appearance to the engines. These were compounded thirty years later by Simpson & Co. Also in 1856, Simpson and Co. supplied two pairs of their recently introduced compound rotative engines. Another development was the installation of the horizontal compound engine by Henry Worthington in 1888. The steam engines were removed in 1942, and replaced by an electric system. the great flywheels of the beam engines sat into the buttresses, and the chimney was disguised as a turret. The 'house built' engine used the building surrounding it to hold the various parts of the engine in their working relationship, and the building consequently had to be strong enough to resist the working forces of the engines. the main cylinder floor is divided into two uneven bays. The smaller bay held the Watt engine and the larger bay held the two Simpson engines. the engine house is divided by a screen of cast iron columns supporting an entablature which supported the main beam bearings and was an integral part of both the engine and the engine house. Inside the engine house was a packing stage intermediate between the main floor and the beam floor, covering about a quarter of the total area. This floor gave access to the top cylinder cover for lubrication and maintenance and disappeared with the removal of the engines. In order to reduce the amount of excavation needed, the massive foundations for the engines were usually only partly below ground floor level so the engine house on a plinth. The station stood in carefully landscaped and well tended garden. The remaining cast iron railings are locally listed. The pumping station was listed Grade II* in 1972. The family name MYLNE is repeatedly emblazoned in gold letters around the base of the building. Converted to a climbing centre. Architects Nicholas Grimshaw & Partner's got listed building consent and the approval of English Heritage to convert the building into an indoor centre for mountain climbing enthusiasts. 24 metres high overhanging competition wall, and a 34 metres high abseiling and rope-training tower. Dance studio, lecture hall and public cafe and bar overlooking the climbing wall.
Ancillary buildings, a boiler house, coal
sheds, workshops and offices. The boiler house sat below the level of the
engines to ensure that any condensate in the pipes drained back into the
boilers and not into the engine cylinders. The L-shaped building to the
northeast corner of the engine house group was probably a workshop. There were
also offices to the north of the pumping house and a later addition to the
complex of buildings is a shed between the offices and workshop, which appears
on the map of 1897. This group of ancillary buildings is listed grade II. *
Primary Filter House. Large red building
back from the castle. 1936. The Primary Filtration Plant was built in 1936. It was built in response
to an increasing demand for water, since the slow sand filtration method was an
inhibiting factor, precisely because it was slow. This was overcome by
introducing rapid filtration, by which the water, after circulating in the
reservoir, is pumped through filters at high pressure, and then the partially
filtered water is supplied to the filter beds. This process makes it possible
to double the output of the slow filters, which now form the second part of a
two-stage filtration process. The plant was built to house twelve primary
filters and comprises a central three-storey block flanked by single storey
wings. The central block
contains control equipment on the ground floor and water storage on the upper
floor, which is expressed externally in the use of glass block in the bays.
Internally, the plant is spacious and austere. The walls and floors are
finished in ceramic tiling. The control panels for the filtration process are
clad in marble and the woodwork in the doors and cupboards are executed to a
high degree of craftsmanship and finish with fine brass fittings. The
Filtration Plant was erected by W. and C. French, Ltd., with the primary filtration
apparatus by the Paterson Engineering Company, Ltd. and the pumps by Gwynne’s
Pumps, Ltd. Now a sailing centre and cafe.
Filter beds built in 1852. Stoke Newington pumping station and the filter beds date from the mid 1850s and
were built to supply the local area with drinking water. The filter beds at Stoke Newington were
originally installed for water purification by slow sand filtration. Despite
subsequent modification of the filtration process structurally the filter beds
were very much as built and of considerable industrial archaeological
significance.
New River The present course of the New River terminates at Stoke Newington though much of the old course may be traced beyond here. It supplies Water via the Lea and some wells works supply to City and Westminster 13 boroughs
Reservoirs. To accommodate the extra flow,
the New River's original ten-foot width was doubled here. Chadwell Mylne, who
succeeded to his father's office in 1811, had by 1819 replaced the old wooden
distribution pipes by cast iron. In 1831 and 1833 he created these reservoirs
at Stoke Newington. Green Lanes runs between the filter beds and the
reservoirs, while Lordship Road splits the two apart. Shaped like a pair of
spectacle lenses with the river as the top frame, the reservoirs are well known
for waterfowl, while the river—although
an aqueduct—has an extensive range of wetland plants. In Hackney most of the
New River lies underground while the reservoirs it feeds occupy old gravel
workings that were expanded in the 1830s to quench the thirst of the growing
metropolis. The new ring main around London will not need either the river or
the reservoirs and filter beds built in the 1930s and 1940s. Over 225 plant species have been identified
down the course of the river . The general depth of these is around 5-6 metres with
emergent vegetation concentrated on the West Reservoir because of its gently
sloping edges. Grassland with an area of woodland in the SE of the East
Reservoir . Around 23 bird species breed here, with around
77 species regularly visiting. . In winter the
reservoirs assume even more importance as the water tends to remain ice free,
giving vital respite to birds. The nine shallow rectangles of open water attract geese, and tufted
duck, which also benefit from the surrounding four hectares of relatively
undisturbed grassland. The Stoke Newington Reservoirs were
formed in the years 1828-1833 on land acquired from the prebendal manor of
Stoke Newington. They were constructed under the direction of William Chadwell
Mylne. A Private Act of Parliament was
required before development on the reservoirs could go ahead, since most of the
land was copyhold land, held only for the term of three lives. This Act
received Royal assent in July 1829. By May 18 31, the west reservoir was well
underway. The reservoirs were built on the site of old brickworks, on a bed of
brown clay, with clay core, which provided a waterproof membrane. The internal
linings of the walls of the banks were formed from rubble from the old London
Bridge. Both reservoirs were completed and filled by the spring of 1833. The
Reservoirs were intended partly as a reserve supply, but principally they were
to be settling beds, where the water from the New River could be held and
allowed to deposit particles and impurities before being pumped along pipes to
its destination. At this time, the reservoirs provided water to the new
northern suburbs. Following a cholera
epidemic of 1850, the Metropolitan Water Act of 1852 the New River Company
embarked on an improvement programme. In Stoke Newington, the existing
reservoirs were deepened, new filter beds were constructed to the west of Green
Lanes and, most prominently, a new engine house was constructed in 1856 to
house three new pumping engines. There are nine filter beds, which are shallow
open waterbeds, each a brick built pond, approximately the same size as a
football pitch, and employing the slow sand filtration method to purify the
water. The filter beds were built gradually, at intervals from 1855 until 1883,
and those beds constructed in the 1860s are the earliest surviving examples of
their kind in London.
Pumping station was constructed between the
two reservoirs, on the east side of Lordship Road, and housed a Boulton and
Watt Steam engine. This was a classical building of stone or brick and
stucco with a tall cylindrical tower disguising the chimney. Mylne was probably
the architect for this building, though there is a remote possibility that
William Cubitt may have had some involvement, since he was also active as a
builder in Stoke Newington about this time and he had a connection with the New
River Company. In 1832, his firm submitted a successful tender for the building
of a cottage on the banks of the reservoir for the engine worker. Neither
building remains today. The pumping station was demolished in 1902.
Lordship Road.
Reservoirs. The road Runs between two sets of East and West reservoirs. Building beside the East Reservoir plaque about New River on it. This is the remains of the 1830 pumping station. Surmounted columns on the entrance near the pump house to look like important property. Reservoirs and a building beside the East Reservoir bears a stone inscribed "These reservoirs the property of the New River Company were begun in the year 1830 and completed in the year 1833 under the direction of Mr. William Chadwell Mylne, their engineer. Robert Percy Smith Esquire, Governor." This building is all that remains of the 1830 pumping station. The West Reservoir was completed in 1831 and its banks were faced with stones from the old London Bridge, which was being demolished at the time. Nearest to Central London. Lots of birds. Now a cafe
Gas House.
19th north of the reservoir.
To the west of the east reservoir stands the gas house, from which
chlorine is released to purify the water. This dates from the early-mid nineteenth
century and is locally listed. The workshop is at the south end
and the original function of the north end is unclear. In the north wall, a
large stone panel has an entablature with a wolfs head on the frieze, and bears
an inscription recording the building of the reservoirs in 1830-33 by Mylne
Waterman's House. The waterman's house
stands to the west of the east reservoir, near to the gas house on Lordship
Road. This dates from 1911 and is a typical example of popular Queen Anne
revival style of the early twentieth century. This is the only one of the tied
cottages to remain.
It is now in private ownership and is locally listed.
Newnton Close
Ivy House Sluice. Mid 19th with manually operated
sluice gate. The Sluice stands over the New River at the junction with the East
Reservoir. It is an early mid-nineteenth century building, small and square, with
a low pyramidal slate roof and an alternating brick cornice. On the cast and
west sides, segmental brick arches carry the structure over the river. There is
a gauged round brick arch to the doorway on the south side and round arched
blank recesses on the other walls. Inside, the original manually operated
sluice gate machinery is still in working order. The Ivy House Sluice is listed
grade II.
Newnton Close Bridge. This bridge stands to
the eastern side of the east reservoir, and is listed grade II. It dates from
the eighteenth century, but has had alterations since then. It spans the New
River with
a low segmented arch and has no parapet but curved side walls, which are cut off at the east
end but continue at the west to end in square brick piers. The north side of
the bridge is of the original light red brick, and the south side has been
refaced in new stock brick. The bridge originally had wrought iron railings to
both sides.
Rowley Gardens
More standard LCC mixed development point blocks and terraces of 1958-62, in grounds by the New River surviving from an c18 mansion.
Schonfield Square
Housing of the 1990s prefers an eclectic historicism by Hunt Thompson, 1993, for a Jewish Housing Association,
Seven Sisters Road
Manor House was called Beans Green and was one of a series of greens connected up by Green Lanes. The actual manor house of Stoke Newington was formerly situated about a mile south of here near the old church, but most of the area of the parish north of Church Street once belonged to the manorial demesne. he junction of Seven Sisters. Replacement of the Victorian housing was planned from the 1930s
Manor House Pub an ambitious
crowstepped-gabled pub, 1931 by A. W. Blomfield for Watneys. up to 1931 was known as the Manor Tavern when
it was built c.1820. Licensed concert
hall from 1852 and Queen Victoria visited. Demolished and rebuilt when the
Piccadilly Line came through. Rolling Stones played here in 1963, the Who in
1965. Closed in 1990s and a Costcutter
was put on the ground floor.
New River crosses near junction with Amhurst Park
Green Man farm. Stapleton Hall court of Green. Seven elm trees.
Woodberry Down Tavern late 19TH.
Coarsely picturesque in a Norman-French manner, with prominent timberwork to
its large gables.
Manor House Station. 19th September 1932. Between Turnpike Lane and Finsbury Park on the Piccadilly Line named from the Manor House public house. The first station after Finsbury Park And apart from a small structure at the top of one of its stairways had no street level building. The station is below the junction of Seven Sisters Road and Green Lanes and the sub-surface booking hall is accessed by nine separate stairways - Three from Seven Sisters Road, of which one surfaced alongside the pub and the others served an adjoining tram station. There are two island 'platforms', both 80ft long and 9ft wide. These are protected by concrete shelters and approach stairs were fitted with Bostwick gates on the middle landings. four stairways occupied 'Subway No 1' from the south side of the Green Lanes and two were in 'Subway No 2’, north of the crossroads. three MH type escalators descended 44.25 feet to the central circulating area and platforms. the walls were lined in biscuit colour tiling, with courses in blue around advertisement panels. Design and layout were by Charles Holden
tram station. constructed by John Mowlem & Co. designed as a passenger interchange with the Underground and through tickets between the two were issued.
Woodberry
Down Baptist Church. 1882.
New River. Crosses
under Seven Sisters Road near the junction with Amhurst Park.
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