Haringey | >Re-PHOTO

Salvation, Statuettes, a Sexy Model, Spendel & More – 1989

Salvation, Statuettes, a Sexy Model, Spendel & More: Continuing my walk on Sunday 5th November 1989 from Green Lanes where the previous post, Stroud Green to Grand Parade had ended I walked some way down West Green Road before taking my next picture.

*Salvation Army, 2, Terront Rd, West Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-16*

The Salvation Army building is still there on Terront Road though I think no longer in use by them. I was clearly attracted both by this building and by the car on a trailer to its left, rather dramatically marked with large Xs.

I wondered if this car might be connected with the clearance of the Harringay stadium site, about a kilometre away. Stock car racing and Banger racing were among the events held at Harringay Stadium from the 1950s on. The stadium had opened as Britain’s third greyhound racing stadium in 1927, adding speedway the following year. The stadium finally closed in 1987 and was acquired by Haringey council and some years later demolished for housing and a Sainsbury’s superstore.

It was only the 5th November so the Salvation Army were perhaps getting in rather early with advertising a Christmas Bazaar to be held on 18th Novemeber.

*Shop window, West Green Rd, West Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11c-62*

And perhaps this pair of Greek statuettes were the ideal Christmas Gift for someone, though I think it would have to be someone you didn’t like. But as you can tell from the price label they were quite small, and at £2.49 definitely a gift.

I decided not to make a great effort to correct the overall flare which renders their upper regions rather diffuse when making this digital copy from the original negative.

*Shop window, Green Lanes, Haringey, 1989 89-11c-64*

My walk was coming to an end and I walked back towards Turnpike Lane station finding another shop window which caught my interest on Green Lanes. There was something unusually real about this heavily made-up mannequin, wig, pose, and clothing, a sexual energy whose spell was only really broken by the clearly visible joint on her lower left arm and a rather porcelain quality to the highlights. I think this was probably in the window of a shop selling wedding dresses.

*Spendel, Hairdresser, Langham Rd, Turnpike Lane, Haringey 1989 89-11c-66*

I took a number of pictures of this shopfront, which was I think part of the extensive station and bus station development. Most were in colour apart from this and a slightly tighter cropped black and white image. At least one of the colour images – also on Flickr – shows the the entire shopfront dominated at the top by the large word ‘HAIRDRESSER‘. In very small type at the top of the window it states ‘GENTS SALOON’ and scattered on the surface at the base of the windows in front of the shutters are boxes containing tubes of related products including Ingram shaving cream.

The window at left of the entrance contains two rather unhealthy looking pot plans and behind them is a poster for the pantomime Aladdin starring Michael Barrymore and Frank Bruno.

My walk on 5th November ended at Turnpike Lane, where I caught the Piccadilly Line to make my way towards home. But a week later I was back in the same area, returning first to Walthamstow – an easy journey on the Victoria Line before returning to Turnpike Road. I think I had gone back to Walthamstow to retake some colour images, hoping to find better light.

Cemetery, Queen's Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11c-52 — *Cemetery, Queen’s Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11c-52*

I’d photographed a large angel on my previous walk in the cemetery and this time I took a picture of a rather smaller one, but my main interest was in the shadows cast on a couple of the stones, one of my head and shoulders as I made the picture along with the fence and to the right a clear cross on a rather less clear fence shadow. I think I was probably standing outside the cemetery fence looking in.

Queen's Rd, Lansdowne Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11c-53 — *Shandar, Queen’s Rd, Lansdowne Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11c-53*

The Shandar Take Away Restaurant at 65 on the corner of Queen’s Road and Lansdowne Road had a colourful mural along its Lansdowne Road side, and most of the pictures I took of it were in colour, but I stood a little further away on Queen’s Road to make this picture including a van with an open rear door parked on the pavement in front of a shop on the opposite corner.

Shandar is a name used by a number of Indian restaurants, a Hindi word implying excellence or high quality, which could be translated as ‘Splendid’ or ‘Grand’.

More from my walk on 12th November in a later post.

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Stroud Green to Grand Parade, November 1989

Stroud Green to Grand Parade: Continuing my walk on Sunday 5th November 1989 from where the previous post left me on Stroud Green Road close to Finsbury Park Station.

*Boys Entrance, Stroud Green Primary School, Ennis Rd, Stroud Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-46*

The Girls Entrance to Stroud Green Primary is still there on the corner of Perth Road and Woodstock Road, but the BOYS was recently removed from above the gate at the other end of the school site in Ennis Road, where extensive building work was taking place – so perhaps it will return. The two entrances were over a 100 metres apart, an unusually safe distance. There is also a similar gate for INFANTS on Woodstock Road.

I think most of the school dates from 1897, although Google’s AI unhelpfully told me “Stroud Green Primary School was established in 1997” when I asked when it was built. The Grade II listing text for Woodcock Road School begins “Late C19 building of shallow U-shape with projecting gabled wings and slightly projecting 5 bay centrepiece under higher hipped roof crowned by cupola.” The area had fairly recently been developed with housing, some of which had to be demolished to build the school.

*Oxford House, Oxford Rd, Stroud Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-33*

I turned left into Woodstock Road and then right into Oxford Road, heading for the Oxford Road Gate to Finsbury Park.

On the right just before the gate is Oxford House. In the 1960s this was the cinematographic film processor Kay Laboratories, later absorbed into MGM (possibly via Rank Xerox). For some years it was a studio and office space and housed a private college. For some years this 1930s Art Deco building was in a poor state but has recently been refurbished as offices and co-working space.

Pipe Bridge, New River, Houses, Endymion Rd, Haringay, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-23 — *Pipe Bridge, New River, Houses, Endymion Road, Harringay, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-23*

I walked through Finsbury Park on what is now part of Section 12 of the Capital Ring a circular walking route around London, first put forward as an idea the following year but only completed in 2005, but turning north onto the New River Path to exit onto Endymion Road where the houses on this picture are.

*Houses, Endymion Rd, Stroud Green, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-24*

These south-facing houses on Endymion Road were lit by early afternoon winter sun. The road was the first constructed in the area after Finsbury Park was established and the development was begun by the Metropolitan Board of Works around 1875. The road goes around the northwest and north sides of the park, giving the houses attractive views over it. Development of the area to the north, West Harringay, began shortly after.

Endymion was in one of several Greek myths a handsome shepherd prince who moon goddess Selene fell in love with and persuaded Zeus to make immortal and to put in eternal sleep so she could visit him every night. John Keats wrote a famous extremely long poem in four sections, each around a thousand lines base on the myth and first published in 1818.

But the name more likely came to Harringay from HMS Endymion, “the fastest sailing-ship in the Royal Navy during the Age of Sail“, built in 1797 and in active service during the Napoleonic Wars and until the First Opium War around 1850 and only finally broken up in 1868.

*Building, Green Lanes area, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-25*

I think this building was probably on Warham Road, just a few yards down from Green Lanes, but if so there is no trace of it now. I wonder what it was built for, but there are few clues in the picture – perhaps someone local to the area can tell us in the comments.

*Shop Window, Grand Parade, Green Lanes, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-11*

The Grand Parade on the east side of Green Lanes of shops with middle class flats above them was developed by J C Hill and completed in 1899, with its relatively consistent facades interrupted only by an earlier bank, built five years earlier.

I can’t think who the peculiar bedroom suite in the window of this shop might appeal to, but it seemed like something out a a peculiar nightmare to me, but I guess it was someones’ dream.

*Tory Scum, Grand Parade, Green Lanes, Haringey, 1989 89-11d-13*

Also and rather more prosaically on Grand Parade on an empty shop front, fly-posting and the carefully stencilled graffiti:

TORY SCUM
OFF OUR BACKS
WE CAN’T PAY
WE WON’T PAY
NO POLL TAX

My walk continued, and I’ll post more soon.

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Car Park, Angel, Works, Off-Sales, Co-op & Carnival Hats – Walthamstow 1989

Car Park, Angel, Works, Off-Sales, Co-op & Carnival Hats: I started my walk on Sunday 5th November 1989 at Walthamstow Central Station, and walked west down Selbourne Road.

*Car Park, Selbourne Rd, Vernon Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11b-15*

This is Sainsbury’s multistory Car Park on the corner of Selbourne Rd and Vernon Rd and there is a very solid looking rectangular box brick building under the curves of the incline up to the parking space, with anther rectangle, the back of the sign and a very small circle of a car tyre at the extreme right.

Angel, Cemetery, Queen's Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11d-51 — *Angel, Cemetery, Queen’s Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11d-51*

I think I walked into Walthamstow cemetery to photograph the chapel there which I’ve not digitised but I also photographed several memorials including this one which I think attracted me because of the feathers on the wing and roses.

*Industrial Estate, Lennox Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11d-52*

There is still a Lennox Trading Estate here, and I think the same gates, although the writing on it is smaller and more regular but otherwise everything looks much the same.

Lennox Road is a short street and its southern side has no buildings but simply the fence of Thomas Gamuel Park, which was re-designed in the 1990s. So the consecutive numbering 82-83 made some sense. The area to the west of the trading estate and the park has been comprehensively redeveloped with low rise housing around Lennox Road.

Thomas Gamuel “was a rich London grocer living in Walthamstow who bequeathed six acres of land known then as Honeybone Field and Markhouse Common, to six trustees, so that rent and profits from this land would be paid to the poor of the parish.”

*Shop, Collingwood Rd, Chelmsford Rd, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11d-54*

Chelmsford Road runs down the east side of Thomas Gamuel Park and this former off-license on the corner looked as if it had recently closed with a notice on its side ‘SHOP / YARD & GARAGE STORE TO LET NO PREMIUM’.

The sign and the lamp at the corner suggested to me it had once been a pub rather than just an off-licence though the building seemed too small, but I can find no evidence for this. Both these and the shop front have now gone and the property is now residential including a first floor flat.

*Former Co-op, Hoe St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11d-42*

I walked down Collingwood Road into St Barnabas Road where I photographed the Safford Hall and the church (not digitised) and then made my way north to Queens Road to cross the railway line and get to Hoe Street, where I made this image.

The beehive was a common cooperative symbol and appears several times on this building along with its date, 1915. For many years it was all the London Co-operative Society store but now only a small section at the northern end is a part of the Co-op, Wathamstow Funeralcare. The London Co-operative Society was formed in 1920 by the merger of the Stratford Co-operative Society and the Edmonton Co-operative Society and I think this was built for the Stratford society.

*Wholesalers, Albert Rd, Hoe St, Hoe St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-11d-43*

A few yards north along Hoe Street I took a couple of pictures of the business on the corner with Albert Road

I loved the detailing here with a rather glum looking face holding up a column beside the door. Unfortunately I can’t read the first word of the name of the company here from the angle I photographed this or the next frame, just DISTRIBUTORS LTD. But it did seem a slightly unusual trade to be WHOLESALERS OF CARNIVAL HATS & NOVELTIES.

This property is now entirely residential a has a new fence on top of a low wall around it with a small garden area.

*House, 62a, Stroud Green Road, Finsbury Park, Haringey 1989 89-11d-45*

At this point I went to Walthamstow Central Station and took the Victoria Line to Finsbury Park. I can’t now remember why I decided to move to a different area but perhaps I simply thought the park at Finsbury Park would be a pleasant place eat my sandwich lunch. I left the station by the Wells terrace entrance and walked along to Stroud Green Road.

As well as the slightly unusual doorway, it seemed to be almost barricaded by the plants growing in front to the door, but the stairs on the outside suggested an alternative entry.

More from Finsbury Park in a later post.

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A Short Walk in Tottenham

A Short Walk in Tottenham: My next London walk came on Friday October 27th 1989 when I rushed to jump on a train after finishing a morning of teaching and then took the Victoria Line to Tottenham Hale, arriving around 2pm. I’d managed to arrange my teaching timetable by including an evening class so that I finished on Fridays at noon but this was the last time it would be worth travelling to London to take photographs before the clocks went back to GMT at the weekend.

*The Hale, Tottenham Hale, Haringey, 1989 89-10i-42*

The first two pictures I made were both of this scene, a strangely blank building with signs on it which informed it it was the home of ‘Garbi Ltd‘ and ‘Short Stories of London‘, both manufacturers of men’s wear. Perhaps ‘Short Stories of London’ might be a good title for a book of my pictures one day.

Despite considerably redevelopment in the area I think this building is still there at No 33, thought with a rebuilt frontage and still in the clothing trade though now wholesale and retail sales, open to the public. It became Soniez House and more recently since around 2011 Morelli with two large ground floor windows and a wide glass door, but retaining the first floor windows in my picture.

I think the traffic flow in this area has altered and there are no longer the traffic signs I made use of – although the tree which it amused me to use with them as a framing device is I think still in place.

*Mountford House, Tottenham Green East, Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-10i-43*

I walked west from The Hale to Tottenham Green East, just off the High Road, opposite the Council Offices. Mountford House, a late 18th or early 19th century Grade II listed pair of houses, was then in use as offices for Haringey Health Authority, but is now private flats on the road at the edge of the small open space.

*Mountford House, Tottenham Green East, Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-10i-45*

This is a later extension to Mountford House and it doesn’t appear to be included in the rather strange listing text which calls this “Pair of houses in north east part of Prince of Wales’s General Hospital grounds.” Whatever its date I think it was nicely done an complements the simpler porch to the northern of the two houses.

*Main Entrance, Prince of Wales Hospital, Tottenham Green East, Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-10i-44*

And this is that Prince of Wales Hospital, then surrounded by a solid fence over which I could see some broken windows and its Fleur-de-Lys symbol with the motto ‘Ich Dien’ around the crown, the Prince of Wales’s badge and coat of arms. The motto, ‘I serve’, was perhaps more suitable for a hospital than for many of the Princes, who got up to some very odd things.

According to the Lost Hospitals of London, the hospital had started in 1867 as the Evangelical Protestant Deaconesses’ Institution and Training Hospital in a converted cottage and moved into a house on this site in 1861. It got a new building in 1881 and was extended in 1887, becoming Tottenham Hospital in 1899 and after another extension the Prince of Wales General Hospital in 1907. It closed in 1983 and was converted to flats in 1993 as Deaconess Court.

*Tottenham High Cross, High Rd, Tottenham, Haringey 1989 89-10i-31*

This brick cross erected around 1600 replaced a wooden cross first recorded in 1409. In 1809 the plain brick cross was covered in stucco and the Gothic style ornamentation in my picture. The Grade II listed cross is still present but has been moved a little to fit in with new road layout since I photographed it.

Behind it is the fine Estate Office of George Ellis on the corner of Rawlinson Terrace, sadly rather defaced around ten years ago. The terrace itself with its crenellated parapet replaced ‘Turner’s House’ lived in by a vet called Turner with his brother, a farrier in the yard next door. When a horse ridden by a ‘gentleman from Stamford Hill‘ slipped and broke its leg outside the vet set it and the horse’s owner was so impressed he gave the horse to the vet on condition that he did not part with it. And he didn’t, even after its death, when he “fixed the skeleton by means of iron supports, and placed it over the farrier’s shop, where it served the purpose of an advertisement for the veterinary surgeon as well as for the farrier.”

The house was demolished and replaced by Rawlinson Terrace in 1881, named after Emma Rawlinson, the wife of the builder James Stringfellow. The horse’s skeleton was then for some years displayed on top of an undertakers on the opposite side of the road.

*Ritzy, Venue, High Rd, Tottenham, Haringey 1989 89-10i-22*

Built as a roller skating rink designed by architect Ewen S. Barr in 1910, it included an electric theatre, but the roller skating craze slumped quickly and the whole building opened as the Canadian Rink Cinema in 1911. It was converted into a dance hall, the Tottenham Palais, and later when owned by Mecca Dancing Ltd, The Tottenham Royal.

When I took this picture it was the Ritzy, ‘A Perfect Place for a Great Night Out’, but it had a whole string of names including the Mayfair Suite, the Aztec Temple, Club U N, and the Zone before being demolished around 2004.

*The Old Well, Philip Lane, High Rd, Tottenham, Haringey 1989 89-10i-24*

The Lord of the Manor who lived in Bruce Castle had this well dug in 1791 and it was used by locals until 1883 when it was found to be polluted, which was rather a shame as they had added the current structure over it only seven years earlier. It was restored in 1953 to commemorate the coronation of Elizabeth II.

Behind the well the High Cross Infants School, later called Holy Trinity School, dates from 1847, one of the schools linked to the National Society for Promoting Religious Education established to provide a Church of England elementary education for poor children who paid two pence a week (later raised to three) ‘School Pence’ to attend. Condemned in 1924 it survived to be Grade II listed in 1974 and so remains there to this day.

Time was getting on and I walked the short distance down the High Road to Seven Sisters Underground Station to start my journey and get home in time for dinner.

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Haringey Development & Ritzy Strike – 2017

Haringey Development & Ritzy Strike: On Saturday 23rd September 2017 hundreds marched from a rally in North London against the council’s plans to make a huge transfer of council housing to Australian multinational Lendlease, which would result in the demolition of thousands of council homes, replacing them largely by private housing. I left the march close to its end taking the tube to Brixton where strikers at the were marking a year of action with a rally.

Haringey Against Council Housing Sell-Off

People had come to a rally and march against Haringey Council’s ‘Haringey Development Vehicle’, HDV, which proposed a £2 billion giveaway of council housing and assets to a private corporation run by Australian multinational Lendlease.

This would result in the speedy demolition of over 1,300 council homes on the Northumberland Park estate, followed by similar loss of social housing across the whole of the borough.

Similar ‘regeneration’ schemes in other boroughs such as Southwark, Lambeth and Barnet had resulted in the loss of truly affordable housing, with the result of social cleansing with many of the poorer residents of the redeveloped estates being forced to move out of these boroughs to areas with cheaper private housing on the outskirts of London and beyond.

London’s housing crisis has been made much worse by the activities of wealthy foreign investors buying the new properties and keeping them empty or only occasionally used as their values rise. Among the groups on the march were those such as Class War and Focus E15 who have down much to bring this to public attention.

In London it is mainly Labour Councils who are in charge and responsible for the social cleansing of the poor and the loss of social housing that is taking place on a huge scale.

Along with speakers from estates across London where similar schemes are already taking place there were those from Grenfell Tower where cost cutting and ignoring building safety and residents’ complaints by private sector companies including the TMO set up by the council created the disaster just waiting to happen.

On My London Diary I quoted part of a speech by then Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn a few days later at the Labour Party conference which condemned current practice on estate ‘regeneration’ and housing of which the HDV is the prime example.

“The disdain for the powerless and the poor has made our society more brutal and less caring. Now that degraded regime has a tragic monument: the chilling wreckage of Grenfell Tower, a horrifying fire in which dozens perished. An entirely avoidable human disaster, one which is an indictment not just of decades of failed housing policies and privatisation and the yawning inequality in one of the wealthiest boroughs and cities in the world, it is also a damning indictment of a whole outlook which values council tax refunds for the wealthy above decent provision for all and which has contempt for working class communities.”

You can hear the speech in full on the article by Architects For Social Housing on the conference, where they give their comments and more detail on the section I quoted above:

“Indeed it has. And high in the list of that brutality is the estate regeneration programme that threatens, is currently being implemented against, or which has already privatised, demolished or socially cleansed 237 London housing estates, 195 of them in boroughs run by Labour councils, which vie with each other for the title of ‘least caring’, and among which the councils of Hackney, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Lambeth and Haringey could give the Conservative-run Kensington and Chelsea council a lesson in disdain, privatisation, failed housing policies and the inequality they produce. But it’s good to hear Corbyn discard the Tories’ contemptuous terminology of ‘hardworking families’ and ‘ordinary people’ and finally – if belatedly – refer to the ‘working class’.“

They go on to comment less favourably on Corbyn who they say had ignored “the estate regeneration programme that is at the heart of London’s transformation into a Dubai-on-Thames for the world’s dirty money” and so had failed to perceive that “every estate undergoing demolition and redevelopment could produce a similar testimony of inept and incompetent local authorities, bad political decisions and a failed and broken system of democratic accountability.”

The grass roots revolt against the HDV plans resulted in a political change and the scrapping of the plans. But the Labour Party has also changed radically, and those very people responsible for those ‘least caring’ local authorities in London and across the country are now in government.

More pictures at Haringey against council housing sell-off.

One year of Ritzy strike – Brixton

A quite different vehicle was the star of the show in Brixton, where BECTU strikers at the Ritzy Cinema were celebrating a year of strike action with a rally supported by other trade unionists, including the United Voices of the World and the IWGB and other union branches.

The strikers continued to demand the London Living Wage, sick pay, maternity and paternity pay, for managers, supervisors, chefs and technical staff to be properly valued for their work, and for the four sacked union reps to be reinstated.

After speeches in English and Spanish, came the surprise. The vehicle in Brixton was the newly acquired ‘Precarious Workers Mobile’, a bright yellow Reliant Robin, equipped with a powerful amplifier and loudspeaker, and after more speeches this led the protesters in a slow march around central Brixton.

Various actions at the Ritzy had started three years before this, when workers called for a boycott of the cinema. In 2019, after an industrial tribunal had won some of their claims BECTU suspended the boycott and the Living Staff Living Wage campaign although still continuing to fight for equal pay and against other dismissals.

More pictures at One year of Ritzy strike.

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South Tottenham & Stamford Hill

South Tottenham & Stamford Hill: Continuing my walk on Sunday 8th October which had begun at Seven Sisters Station from where I had walked south down the High Road – the pictures start some way down my post Abney Park & South Tottenham.

On the High Road in South Tottenham I found another of the 20 images which were a part of my web site and book ‘1989’, ISBN: 978-1-909363-01-4, and above is the page from that.

The Emerald Bar, St Ann's Rd, 1989 South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-10d-63 — *The Emerald Bar, St Ann’s Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-10d-63*

I turned from the High Road into St Ann’s Road and a short way down came to this sign for the Emerald Bar. Now disappeared this was obviously an Irish bar (the Shamrock as well as the name was a clue!) and only a short walk from St Ignatius Catholic Church on the High Road. It appeared to be in a part of the yard of St Ignatius Primary School.

The brickwork at the entrance and the rather curious design of the sign both had a curiously amateur feel. On the large noticeboard below the bar’s name I could just make out the words STRIPPER and HERE; there were a few other letters but nothing I could make sense of.

*High Rd, Stamford Hill, 1989 89-10d-52*

I took another picture on St Ann’s Road (not online) but soon returned to the High Road and continued south, where this road becomes Stamford Hill, past Phililp Kosher Butcher at 292 (picture not online) crossing the busy road to photograph some rather grander houses which I think are actually at 11-15 High Road on the border of Haringey and Hackney.

*The House of Value, Ravensdale Rd, Stamford Hill, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-53*

Back on the other side of the street was the turning into Ravensdale Rd where above Beeny’s Fresh Fish is still one of London’s best-known ‘ghost signs’. When I made this picture most of the signs for Yager’s Costumes were covered by two large billboards and only the YAGER’S, BUY YOUR WINTER COATS HERE AND SAVE MONEY and THE HOUSE OF VALUE could be read.

*The House of Value, Ravensdale Rd, Stamford Hill, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-54*

I think the Yagers who owned Yager’s Costumes were probably a part of the Yager family, Jews with Austrian/Romanian parents who came to England at some time before the 1901 census. By 1911 they were living not far away in Downs Park Road Hackney. Harry Yager started a number of businesses including a timber merchants and Park Royal Coachworks. He had a hall named after him at Stamford Hill Synagogue. But the family history has no mention of a clothing company.

A company, Yager’s (Stamford Hill) Ltd, Company number 23013, was apparently registered in 1928 but dissolved by 1932 but Companies House records available online do not go back far enough to find information.

Benny’s Fresh Fish is now a shop offering shoe repairs and key cutting and the rest of the shop is a café.

*Rookwood Court, Rookwood Rd, Castlewood Rd, Clapton, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-43*

I continued down Stamford Hill and then turned east along Clapton Common. On reaching the grass and trees I went to there left along Castlewood Road where after some rather dreary postwar blocks I came to this fine 1930s block of flats, Rookwood Court, on the corner of Rookwood Rd. These private flats with a view (for some) across the common were built in around 1936. New windows installed around 2011-12 doubtless make the flats more comfortable but have lost some of the appeal of the building.

Next door to them you can see the tower and spire of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rookwood Road, now the Georgian Orthodox Church. More about that in the next post.

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Abney Park & South Tottenham

Abney Park & South Tottenham: I ended my walk on Sunday 1st October 1989 (which had begun at Finsbury Park) in Abney Park Cemetery, one of London’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ garden cemeteries laid out after an 1832 Act of Parliament encouraged the establishment of private cemeteries in the outer suburbs of London as graveyards in the inner city were dangerously overflowing.

Abney Park Cemetery was laid out on the grounds of Abney House and its neighbours and named after Sir Thomas Abney, Lord Mayor of London in 1700–1701, who had Abney House built for him in 1676 – it was demolished for the cemetery which opened in 1840.

Those involved with setting up the cemetery were members of the Congregational Church but it was set up on a wholly non-denominational basis. For the next 40 years was the burial place of choice for many leading non-conformists. Among those who had played a part in the landscaping of the area around Abney House long before it became a cemetery was the prolific Congregational hymn writer Isaac Watts, many of whose hymns are still well-known and loved, and there is a statue of him in the cemetery.

Unusually, as well as a cemetery it was also established as an arboretum and retains a magnificent collection of trees and a significant example of landscape design. From 1880 it was run strictly on commercial lines, but when the company went into administration in the 1970s the cemetery became hugely overgrown. In the 1980s it was taken over by Hackney council, but at first they did little to improve its condition other than establishing it as a nature reserve. More recently it has been considerably improved with the help of lottery funding.

Rev Henry Richard, (1812–1888), the Apostle of Peace, Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10c-42 — *Rev Henry Richard, (1812–1888), the Apostle of Peace, Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989*

According to Wikipedia “Henry Richard (3 April 1812 – 20 August 1888) was a Congregational minister and Welsh Member of Parliament between 1868–1888. Richard was an advocate of peace and international arbitration, as secretary of the Peace Society for forty years (1848–1884). His other interests included anti-slavery work. “

The memorial over his grave was erected by public subscription in 1891, and his statue in the Square in Tregaron where he was born was unveiled in 1893.

*Young Angel, Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10c-31*

I can tell you nothing about George Clayton other than is recorded here, but I was attracted both by the young angel and surrounding flowers in this relatively recent example of a memorial, shortly before the cemetery fell out of use.

I didn’t spend long in the cemetery on this occasion, walking through it to get to Stoke Newington Station as by the I was in a hurry to get home. I took around a dozen pictures in my walk through the park but have so far only put two of these online. But I did return to it on my next walk a week later – and have been back quite a few times since.

My next walk began from Seven Sisters Station a week later, and I walked from the Victoria Line exit south down the High Road.

*Motor Auctions, High Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-10c-22*

Sometimes I came across what seemed to me, at least in a photograph, a kind of visual conundrum and this was one of them. Probably standing where I was to take the picture I could have sorted out why what appears to be a view through a rather smeared tranparent sheet in some places shows what is behind it but elsewhere replaces it with a different view. Kind of seeing through a glass darkly. And what is this strange structure which holds this sheet. I can’t now tell you. But the empty can of Ginger Beer spiked on the fence is quite clear.

*Posters, High Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-10c-23*

Turkey and Africa meet on the posters here. The Türkiye Devrimci Komünist Partisi – Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey – is, according to Wikipedia, “a clandestine communist party in Turkey” and “Not to be confused with Revolutionary Communist Party (Turkey).” Kahrolsun Fasist Diktatorluk! I think translates as ‘Down With Fascist Dictatorship’ and presumably means that of Turkey rather than Haringey Council.

Underneath is a poster for and event at Dougie’s Nightclub in the Lower Clapton Road, which would appear to feature sounds from Africa and Zimbabwe in particular. Dougie’s was in a function room for the White Hart pub, which later became the Clapton Cinematograph before becoming a night club, Dougie’s in 1983. Later it was the Palace Pavilion nightclub where stabbings and shootings made this road known as ‘Murder Mile’

And underneath these, other posters which little or almost nothing can be seen. It was a well-used post, just south of the railway bridge and then just to the side of a small shop or cafe, the former station ticket office, since demolished to provide a path to South Tottenham Station.

*The Dutch House, High Rd, Crowland Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-10c-24*

The Dutch House public house at 148-156 High Road, Tottenham has recently been renamed The Station House and is now an Irish pub. This area was developed around 1880-1900 and this building dates from shortly after 1894. Locally listed it was not built as a pub, but possibly as a music hal. It it has some incredible Venetian and Moorish detailing as this picture shows. It is by far the most interesting architecture in the area and I think should be given proper listing.

The Dutch House, High Rd, Crowland Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-10c-26 — *The Dutch House, High Rd, Crowland Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989*

Originally this building was completed with a spire above that incredible corner tower which perhaps seems oddly truncated now. But of course I would have had to stand much further back to take the picture were it still there. As well as a pub, the building also housed clothing factories and fashion shops.

Seven Sisters Road – 1989

Seven Sisters Road: on Sunday 1st October 1989 I took the Victoria Line tube to Finsbury Park (a couple of pictures here) and walked through the park to its most easterly corner, the junction between Green Lanes and Seven Sisters Road at Manor House.

*Finsbury Park, The Manor House, Manor House, Haringey, Hackney, 1989 89-10a-53*

A view from beside the wall to Finsbury Park by the gate. This area was know as Woodberry Down before the Manor House Tavern was first built here on 1830-4 at the crossroads with Green Lanes, a turnpike or toll road, after a 1829 Act of Parliament had allowed the building of Seven Sisters Road.
Local builder Thomas Widdows had owned and lived in a cottage on the site and saw a business opportunity, though it is unclear why it was given the name Manor House – probably because it sounded posh.

It opened as a ‘public house and tea-gardens’ in 1834 and its first landlord advertised it, writing “The Grounds adjoining are admirably calculated for Cricket, Trap-ball, or any other amusement requiring space. There is likewise a large Garden and Bowling green, good Stabling, lock-up Coach-houses, &c. Dinners for Public and Private Parties.

The original pub was demolished in 1930 when the road was widened and the Piccadilly line Manor House station built here, and replaced by this attractive Flemish style building with just a hint of Art Deco. The pub and tube station led to the area becoming known as Manor House, with the name Woodberry Down being revived for the large post-war housing estate built a little to the east by the LCC from 1948-62.

You can learn more about its interesting history and varying clientele – including its time as a major Blues venue in the 1960s – in the Wikipedia article cited. The pub closed around 2000 and its ground floor became a supermarket in 2004.

*Shops, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-42*

Finsbury Park was a rather run-down area in 1989 and some friends were worried about my safety as I walked around the area carrying a bag full of expensive camera equipment, but I had no problems. People were friendly though sometimes clearly thought I was mad to be taking photographs of their streets and shops.

At left is KYPRIAKON KAFENEION, shown more clearly in my next picture. Between the shops are decorated pillars and above them rather odd decorated stone balls. I think the shops were probably added a few years later to the mid-Victorian houses behind.

*Cypriot Social Club, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-43*

You can still see this row of shops on Seven Sisters Road, in the parade between Yonge Park and Medina Road*, and I think this Cypriot cafe is now a dentists. In 1989 there were many Cypriot businesses in the area, but the area is now more diverse and has a large Muslim community. None of the businesses in my previous picture are still present.

* I have now decided that these shops are those at 218-230 Seven Sisters Road which can clearly be seen in a photograph I took later on this walk. They were very similar to those further down the street but have been more altered since 1989, and some demolished.

*Sisters Gowns, Coleridge Rd, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-44*

Sisters Gowns, a few yards down Coleridge Road was also clearly a Cypriot business, and one of many clothing manufacturers in the area, which has now become one of London’s most vibrant fashion areas, particularly around nearby Fonthill Road.

This doorway could still be seen iin a derelict building n 2008, but the whole corner site was demolished soon after, although the site was still empty in 2022.

*Shop Interior, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-31*

I think this busts and bodies were for wale along with other pieces of equipment for use in shop displays, but it looked to me like some kind of kinky torture chamber. Though shopping for clothes is often a torture, particularly when accompanying others who are looking for them. I’m not sure what the football is doing here.

*Shops, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10a-32*

An extremely motley assortment of buildings from different periods, including BANGS, established in 1907, but I think the frontage at least is from the 1930s.

Rather to my surprise, these buildings are still there, though the shops have changed and below BANGS rather than JANE CAST LTD is now a Tesco. Even the building at the right of the row which appeared in my photograph to have no visible support is still there as well as the pub surrounded by scaffolding have survived. The Eaglet, built in 1869, was apparently badly damaged by a Zeppelin in 1917 but recovered and is still open.

North London Drapery Store, Axminster Rd, Seven Sisters Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10a-35 — *North London Drapery Store, Axminster Rd, Seven Sisters Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1989*

Built in 1938 as North London Drapery Store this Art Deco store was damaged in the war. In 1989 it was used by a variety of businesses including London International College. It has recently been converted to provide 118 expensive flats, with shops on the ground floor.

*Nags Head Market, Enkel St, Seven Sisters Rd, Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10a-36*

According to ‘Streets With A Story‘, “Robert Enkel from 1830-49 owned property and
occupied the nursery until 1834 when Cornelius Crastin and his family took over and continued as nurserymen until at least 1890. The street name disappears by 1975.” Enkel’s family came from Holland and his name was given to the street which dated from around 1875-6. As you can see the street name was actually still there in 1989.

There is still an Enkel Arms pub a few yards away on Seven Sisters Roadm but Enkel Street disappeared with the development of the Nags Head Shopping Centre in 1992. And there is a Nags Head Market indoors at 22 Seven Sisters Road, apparently since 1975.

More to come from Seven Sisters Road.

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Seven Sisters and Walthamstow High St – 1989

Seven Sisters and Walthamstow High St: On Sunday 24th September 1989 I returned to north-east London to continue my walks, this time starting a little to the west on the Middlesex side of the River Lea at Seven Sisters in Haringey. The Lea (or Lee), London’s second largest river, has been a significant boundary at least since the Iron Age when it separated the Catuvellauni from the Trinovantes, later the Middle Saxons from the East Saxons, then England from the Danelaw and until 1965 Middlesex from Essex (though some of Middlesex by then was in the County of London.) It still separates Haringey on the west from Waltham Forest on the east.

House, 176, St Ann's Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-44 — *House, 176, St Ann’s Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-44*

I can’t remember now why I got off the Victoria Line at Seven Sisters and took a short walk from there on my way to Walthamstow, but possibly there was a temporary problem on the Victoria Line which terminated My train there. But I found this part-demolished house, once quite grand, at 176 St Ann’s Rd in South Tottenham.

The sign above the door is for N Nicolau who had manufactured dresses, jackets, skirts and slacks here, though I think the advertisement for vacancies for machinists, finishers and pressers was rather out of date. There were still plenty of clothing sweatshops in the area, and many were Greek or Cypriot run companies.

This house has been rebuilt in a rather plainer fashion, but there are still some other houses of a similar age on the street, largely developed in the later Victorian period. This is now in the St Ann’s conservation area around the church which was consecrated in 1861. The new building here is mentioned; “constructed of London stock brick … white rendered square bays and a slate roof and respects the character and appearance of this part of the Conservation Area.“

J Reid, Pianos, St Ann's Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-45 — *J Reid, Pianos, St Ann’s Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-45*

I liked the PIANOS sign surrounded by keyboards, though the 13 octaves on both top and bottom seemed excessive – our Broadwood manages with only seven and a few extra keys.

J Reid Pianos was established in 1928 and are still in business at 184 St Ann’s Road. You can buy a Reid Sohn piano from them, though these are now made in Indonesia, and they sell other makers too, with the “largesst selection of quality pianos in London“. They have also restored many pianos from “Barraud, Bechstein, Bell, Bernstein, Bluthner, Bosendorfer, Boston, Brinsmead, Broadwood, Carl Schiller, Challen, Challen, D’Este, Erard, Fazioli, Fenner, Feurich, Gaveau, Gebruder, Grotrian, Hoffman, Ibach, Kawai, Kemble, Knake, Knight, Lipp, Matz, Pleyel, Pleyel, Reid-Sohn, Ronisch (Rönisch), Sames, Samick, Sauter, Schiedmayer, Schimmel, Seiler, Squire, Steck, Steinmayer, Steinway (Steinway & Sons), Steinweg, Thurma, Weber, Welmar, Yamaha.“

*1858 Model Cottages, Avenue Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-46*

Model cottages were an early form of social housing for the working class and began with the help of Prince Albert who was the President of Society for Improving the Conditions of the Labouring Classes. He was unable to persuade the commissioners of the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park to include the model cottages designed by the SICLC in the exhibition as they were felt to be too political but he had them built next door at Knightsbridge Barracks – and later they were rebuilt where they still are in Kennington Park.

Following this, many of the housing societies set up in the Victorian era to provide relatively cheap and decent homes for the working class built model cottages at various sites across London. Rents were set at levels those in manual work could afford but still gave a decent return to the company investors.

These Grade II listed Model Cottages are some of the earliest to be built and were perhaps a local initiative linked with the neighbouring St Ann’s School and church. They have been restored since I took this picture, and the doorway at left now has a rather austere woman’s head above it – perhaps a modern version of a Mercer Maiden?

The next picture, Car, House, Leaves, Bedford Rd, 148, West Green Rd, West Green, Haringey, 1989 89-9c-32, was one of those included with text in my book ‘1989‘.

*High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-33*

Finally I got back onto the Victoria Line to Walthamstow Central and walked to the High St, a very different scene on a Sunday Morning that the crowded market I had photographed recently on a Saturday afternoon.

*Palmerston Rd, High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-34*

I liked the font used for BEAU.BAGGAGE as well as the STOP PRESS around the window advertising the end of season sale. There was also the three signs at the top right of the shop which somehow seemed joined together. Then there was the street furniture – the waiting man on the traffic lights, the telephone unbox at left and a lamp post with a ‘No Entry’ sign at right.

All very carefully positioned in my frame with probably a little help from the 35mm shift lens which enabled me to choose my position and then slide the lens and view a little to the right or left (and up or down) to position the frame edges where I wanted them. Most of the photographs I took were made with this lens.

*High St, Walthamstow, Waltham Forest, 1989 89-9c-35*

Another picture of shops on the High Street, showing post-war and probably late Victorian buildings. At left is the Cakemaker’s Centre, with its picture of a balance and I think the name EASY WEIGH and in the centre the entrance to The Walthamstow Working Men’s Club & Institute.

The club celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2012 and claims to be the oldest surviving working men’s club in the country. It was founded in 1862 by Lord Henry Solly (1813-1903), British Unitarian minister, social reformer, and instigator & founder of the Working Men’s Club movement, the Charity Organisation, and the Garden City Movement.

This was a temperance club, with the aim to educate working men and free them from alcoholism. It had a library, a games room and a discussion room. The club is limited to 50 members and in 2012 all were still men. They said nothing prevented women joining but none had applied. It is still a temperance club, though members might sometimes bring a can of beer in, and as it is affiliated to the CIU, members can go to many other clubs across the country (including I think a couple in Walthamstow) and buy a beer.

Unlike most other working mens clubs which rely on bar sales this club gets an income from several of the shops whose premises it owns – I think including some in my picture.

More from Walthamstow on this walk in a later post.

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Gun & Knife Crime, Equiano & St John’s – 2007

Gun & Knife Crime, Equiano & St John’s: I went to two events in North London on Sunday 14th October 2007, a local march against gun and knife crime and then a Black History Month event in Abney Park Cemetery. And on my way home I stopped to take a few pictures of the church opposite Waterloo Station.

Communities Against Gun and Knife Crime, Hackney

In the 2000’s a stretch of road between Upper Clapton and Lower Clapton attracted the title ‘Murder Mile’ in the press after eight people were shot dead on the street or in the streets just off the main road over a period of two years. Of course there are some other cities around the world – including in the USA – where that number of deaths in a week or even a day would not be unusual. But London is generally a very safe city and Clapton is one of a number of areas which has more than its share of gun and knife crime.

This is an area with a number of night clubs and where drug dealing is common and a large proportion of the shootings and deaths are related to these, often involving people from outside the area.

But young people who live in and around the area are also caught up in gun and knife crime and one death is one too many, particularly when it involves your friends or family. Like many areas of London it houses a wide social mix, and these crimes particularly involve the poorer members of the community, many of whom are black.

The march organised by Communities Against Gun And Knife Crime appeared to have no support from either of the two London Boroughs concerned – Hackney and Haringey – or from the Met police, who did escort it. The only other organisation which I could see was supporting it was Hackney Respect, a local group of the left-wing Respect party.

The march began at Clapton Pond with a prayer by a Black Church Sister, and then moved slowly north up the Lower Clapton Road and across the Lea Bridge Roundabout and up the Upper Clapton Road. I had to leave before the end for my second event.

The march was smaller than I had expected with fewer than a hundred people taking part, and although it atrracted waves and shouts of support from people as it passed, few if any of them came to join it. As I commented, “marches like this are surely useful in raising community awareness, and it is hard to see why there was so little support from either the public, local authorities or other local groups – including the other political parties, churches and other community groups.” Apart from myself there was a photographer from a local paper reporting on the event, but no other media interest. I don’t think any of the pictures or my report which I filed to an agency were ever used.

Here is my final comment from my 2007 article:

The real challenge in cutting youth crime – and gun and knife crime is mainly youth crime – is getting people, and especially young people – real jobs that offer training and possibilities for advancement. At the moment there are too few jobs for young people, and many pay below a living wage, especially a living wage for London. While crime offers the only way to money, prestige and apparent success, many will take that route.
Communities Against Gun and Knife Crime

Equiano Society – His Daughter’s Grave – Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington

I joined a Black History Month walk led by Arthur Torrington OBE, the secretary of the Equiano Society which ended around the grave of Joanna Vassa, the daughter of Olaudah Equiano.

As the web site Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, the African shows he was a truly remarkable man. Probably born around 1745 in what is now Nigeria he was kidnapped and sold into slavery as a child and taken to Barbados. In 1745 he became slave to a captain in the Royal Navy who renamed him Gustavus Vassa, and taught him to be a seaman and also sent him to school in London to learn to read and write. Later was bought by a Quaker merchant in Philadelphia who set him to work on one of his trading ships. Equiano was also able to engage in some trading for himself, and in four years made the £40 that his master had paid for him and was able to buy his freedom.

After various adventures in 1743 he came to London and became involved in the fight against slavery, although at first he was engaged in projects to set up black colonies in Central America and Sierra Leone, becoming for the latter the first black civil servant – but after he pointed out corruption among some officials he was quickly sacked.

He then wrote the book which made him famous, ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, the African‘ which was an autobiography, a description of the horrors of slavery and a polemic calling for its abolition. It was a success when published in 1789 and he earned a considerable income from it. In 1792 he married an English woman, Susanna Cullen, at Soham in Cambridgeshire and they had two daughters, one of whom after his death in 1797 inherited his estate of £950 (equivalent to around £100,000 now.)

Joanna Vassa later married the Congregational minister, Henry Bromley, and in 2005 their joint grave (also of Henry’s second wife) was discovered in Abney Park Cemetery, fallen down and covered by moss and undergrowth. Much of the inscription was worn away, but the names remained and the stone was restored and re-erected.

Equiano’s daughter

St John’s, Waterloo – A Waterloo Church

St John’s Church, now opposite Waterloo Station was one of a number of churches built in the years of national triumph following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 with money granted by acts of Parliament to the Church Building Commission in 1818 and 1824 totalling £1.5 million. A total of 612 new churches were built by the Church Commissioners, mainly in the new and expanding industrial towns and cities, but initially “particularly in the Metropolis and its Vicinity“.

London south of the river was expanding rapidly, with new industries and a great deal of housing. The church was designed by Francis Octavius Bedford and built in 1822-1824 in a Greek Revival style – as were his other churches for the commissioners in Camberwell, West Norwood and Trinity Church Square, Southwark.

The site chosen, close to the foot of Waterloo Bridge was a difficult one, being a pond and a swamp, and John Rennie the Younger was consulted for advice about the foundations. This has proved sound as the building, despite being badly bombed in 1940 and standing in ruins until 1950 and the construction of the Jubilee Line underneath is still sound. It was restored and rededicated in 1951 as a part of the Festival of Britain, and again controversially in recent years which removed some of the later features.

I think I probably had just missed a train home from Waterloo Station opposite, a later development which opened as Waterloo Bridge Station in 1848, and had some time to wait for the next. Soon I was on a train home.

St John’s Waterloo