Samuel Lewis buildings, Samuel Lewis Housing Trust, Liverpool Rd, Islington, 1989 89-10h-63
Samuel Lewis was born in Birmingham in 1837, started work at 13 selling steel pens, then opened a jewellers shop before becoming the most fashionable money-lender of his day. When he died in 1901 he left £2.6 million to his wife, with over £1 million going to charity on her death.
£670,000 of this – equivalent to around £30 million today – went to a charitable trust to provide housing for the poor, and these flats are on the first of eight large estates they built.
This estate was built in 1909-10 for the Samuel Lewis Trust, architects Charles Sampson Joseph, (1872-1948), Charles James Smithem and Ernest Martin Joseph (1877-1960) who worked as Joseph & Smithem until 1916. The two Joseph brothers were sons of Nathan Solomon Joseph (1834-1909) who as well as building many synagogues was the leading designer of social housing as architect for the Guiness Trust and the Four per Cent Industrial Dwellings Company and worked also for the LCC and other London councils and he may also have contributed to the designs for these buildings.
I was amused by the contrast between this street and its namesake palace on the River Thames. This Hampton Court is a short street leading west from Upper Street at Highbury Corner, leading to Swan Yard, which is at the end of the street in my picture.
On the left wall is a sign for J Barrett & Sons, but I can’t make out what their business was at 250 Upper St, now a Starbucks. The posters on the wall at right are for a Socialist Party Public Meeting and I think we have four pictures of Maggie Thatcher; I can’t quite read the text but I’m sure it wasn’t complimentary.
The tall building on the right at the end of the street is now a printers and I think probably was when I made this picture. Those to the right of it have been replaced and I think those on the left considerably refurbished. Those in Swan Yard at the end of the street are still there but have lost their white paint.
Swan Yard, Islington, 1989 89-10h-43
I think Highbury Studios, at 15 Swan Yard and most other workshops on the street have been converted to residential or office use and there is now a new building at the southern end of the street, recently converted into coworking office space with a communal roof terrace overlooking Laycock Green, an urban green open space.
Swan Yard and the southern side of Hampton Court are included in the Upper Street (North) conservation area.
Mallett, Porter & Dowd, North London Engineering Works, 465, Caledonian Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10h-33
This warehouse and works was built in 1874. Its conversion to student housing for University College London was awarded the Carbuncle Cup for the ugliest building of 2013 from Building Design magazine. The red brick building was demolished with its frontage retained a short distance in front of a a new multicoloured building. The judges commented “The original frontage has been retained in a cynical gesture towards preservation. But its failings go deeper,” and said “This is a building that the jury struggled to see as remotely fit for human occupation.” The rooms lack adequate daylight, give little privacy and those behind the facade have no view outside. Islington council had refused planning permission for the treatment of this locally listed building but were overruled.
Those musical among you can sing “We’re Hub-bords Cup-boards, We’re Hub-bords Cup-boards, We’re go-ing to fight, fight, fight – to get your of-fice right” to the tune shown on this shop, Hubbards for Cupboards Tables & Chairs, at Hubbards Corner on Caledonian Rd. 453 Caledonian Rd on the north corner with Market Road is now a large block of flats with a natural food shop at ground level.
Built in an Italianate style in 1870 as a Primitive Methodist Chapel, architects T & W Stone, it became Caledonian Road Methodist church in 1932 and is still in use. It was restored in 1953 and the exterior cleaned in 1980. Grade II listed.
This building, at 18 Market Road opposite the bus stop at Market Road Gardens and the adventure playground was demolished between 2008 and 2012. Peter Darley in The Journal of the Islington Archaeology & History Society says it was a tripe factory when Czech refugge Otto Fischel bought it in the 1950s and made it Otaco Ltd, plastic injection moulders. His wife, artist Käthe Strenitz was fascinated with industrial London and produced many fine pictures.
You can read more in Jane’s London about J. L. Henson tripe dealer whose name was originally on the panel where E.Zee is in my picture. But the elephants and E. Zee remain unaccounted for, but were perhaps linked in some way with the playground opposite. Though I have a nagging feeling that somewhere in the past I have written more about them.
A private limited company EZEE Ltd, Company number 02564140, was incorporated in 1990, had its registered office for a year in 1992-3 at 14-18 Market Rd. Its business was given as Artistic & literary creation etc. It last filed annual returns in 1991 and was finally dissolved in 2015.
My walk continued and there will be another post shortly.
Shops, a Poly, Electricity, Church & Library: Continuing my walk in Islington on Sunday 15th October 1989 which began with the post Memorials, Eros and More.
I walked back from Hornsey Road to Holloway Road and took this picture of Dorset House on the corner of George’s Road, then the Unique Butchers at 217 and Wai Shang Chinese Take Away at 219. This building had changed little by 2022, though the butchers was then a closed cafe up for sale and the Chinese take-away was now Green Jade.
I’m surprised that this building does not appear to be locally listed, though it is a shame that it has lost the balustrade on its left side. On Drawing The Street where you can see a more recent drawing of the building @ronniecruwys points out that the detailing of the balustrade is identical to that of Southwark Bridge, but that dates from 1921, when Rennie’s earlier bridge was rebuilt. A comment on that post states “My 2 x great grandfather lived here in 1881. His name was Henry Appleby and his father in law who was the head of the house in 1881 (census) was a retired Policeman named Walter Tovey.”
My guess is that this house probably dates from the early 19th century, but like others I have failed to find out more about its history. George’s Road was originally George’s Place, built by George Pocock.
Polytechnic of North London, Holloway Rd, Hornsey Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10g-33
Wikipedia tells me the Polytechnic of North London was granted university status to become the University of North London. It existed under that name until 2002, when it merged with London Guildhall University to form London Metropolitan University. It had been formed from Northern Polytechnic, founded in 1896 and North-Western Polytechnic in 1971.
This building mirroring its surroundings is on the corner with Hornsey Road and was rather appropriately I think next to a mirror shop and factory at left of picture, which later in 1994 was redeveloped as the Learning Centre library.
This shop remained in commercial use until recently, though not for joinery, display and general woodwork but most recently as a glass merchant. It was sold in 2012 and extended. The garage on the opposite corner, shown here only by a Michelin Man poster on the wall closed around 2009 and was replaced by a new residential development with a ground floor café.
Caedmon Road was earlier called Spencer Road, renamed in 1938. Developed in 1866 it was renamed after Caedmon the earliest known English poet, a Northumbrian cowherd working at Whitby Abbey whose only known surviving work is the nine lines of Cædmon’s Hymn. You can read this on Wikipedia and will find only a slight resemblance to modern English – though possibly more to Geordie or the other impenetrable dialects of the north-East.
The Vestry of St Mary Islington, Electric Lighting Station, Eden Grove, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10g-26
Conveniently the title of this locally listed building at 60 Eden Grove is shown on its exterior along with the date of 1896. As the Islington Society states, Islington was one of the earlier local authorities to distribute electricity. The vestry’s work was taken over by the Metropolitan Borough of Islington in 1900.
At first this power station was only for street lighting, but soon the wealthier inhabitants of the borough could get power for their homes and they say by 1936 it was supplying “40,000 customers through 106 miles of mains.“
Former St James, church, Chillingworth Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10g-12
This Grade II listed Neoclassical church was built as St James the Apostle Church in Victoria Road (later Chalfont Road, later Chillingworth Road) in 1839, architects Henry William Inwood and E N Clifton. The east end was extended in 1840 by Hambley and he added the tower in 1850. The top section of this was later removed, possibly after bomb damage, in 1944.
The parish was united with St. Mary Magdalen in 1953-4 and a parish hall built in the shell of the church. Converted to offices and recording studio in 1980-82 and renamed St Mark’s Studios. Probably then the concave entrance shown here was constructed and the original pilasters on the facade were replaced by pillars.
This frontage on Holloway Rd dates from 1906, architect Henry T Hare; the building was enlarged in 1973-6, and has recently undergone considerable refurbishment. It is Grade II listed.
The library was built for the Metropolitan Borough of Islington and received funding of £20,000 from Andrew Carnegie and was opened in October 1907 by Sir Arthur Rucker, principal of the University of London. The bust at the left is of Spenser and that at the right, cruelly cropped, of Bacon. It remains open as a public library.
Memorials, Eros and More: On Sunday 15th October 1989 I caught the North London Line from Richmond to Highbury & Islington for the start of another walk in North London.
There had been a series of conflicts between Dutch and British settlers in South Africa for some years as the Boers opposed the British annexation of African countries and resented British attempts to end slavery. The first Boer War in 1880-1 ended badly for the British who signed a peace treaty with Transvaal President Paul Kruger.
But the discovery of huge gold reserves in 1884 created a hug British interest in the area, and Britain again decided to try to take control of Transvaal and the Orange Free State. One of the earliest moves was a failed attempt thought up then by Cape Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes and Johannesburg gold magnate Alfred Beit to provoke an uprising in Johannesburg by an armed raid from Rhodesia, the Jameson Raid over the New Year in 1896. This was followed by an uneasy truce – and an uprising by the Matabele and Mashona peoples against the British South Africa Company whose forces had been greatly weakened by taking part the raid which was suppressed with many Africans killed.
British efforts continued and in 1899 after Britain rejected an ultimatum to withdraw their troops made by Kruger he declared what we generally call the Boer War, though now more widely known as the South African War, which continued until 1902.
The memorial was erected here in 1905 and the inscription reads:
HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE WHO SINK TO REST BY ALL THEIR COUNTRY’S WISHES BLESS’D. IN HONOUR OF NINETY-EIGHT ISLINGTONIANS WHO DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, 1899 – 1903. ERECTED BY THEIR FELLOW-TOWNSMEN JULY 1905.
as well as listing the names of the 98.
The war had repercussions and laid the basis for apartheid in South Africa. It also saw the first ‘concentration camps’ where Boers were imprisoned by the British. And Robert Baden-Powell who had been a scout in the war set up the Scout movement with a uniform and ideas based on his role there.
On the wall behind the cannons is the graffitied message ‘BRITISH STATE HEAR US SAY – IRISH PEOPLE WILL MAKE YOU PAY.
The Court Gardens, Holloway Rd, Highbury, Islington 1989 89-10f-12
This gate to The Court Gardens is, perhaps unsurprisingly, next to Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court on Holloway Road, which perhaps accounts for the uncompromising concrete wall at right. Underneath the name it states PRIVATE PROPERTY. A private road leads into the housing in Court Gardens from Liverpool Road,
Thomas Judd, Memorials, 123 Holloway Rd, Highbury, Islington, 1989 89-10f-13
Thomas Judd, Memorial & Marble Masons remained in this shop until around 2018. The shop had been open since the 1880s and was thought to have been the oldest business in continuous use on the street.
The Camden New Journal reported in 2018 that its owner, Kenneth Howard, was an 81 year-old who had retired and in 2016 had been suspended from the National Association of Memorial Masons register for a year. This meant the company was unable to work in many cemeteries. He was taken to court by some clients who had paid deposits to him for work he had been unable to deliver, claiming he had been let down by a sub-contractor, and was ordered to pay back the deposits with compensation, court costs and a victim surcharge.
Bookbinders of London, Ronalds Road, Highbury, Islington, 1989 89-10g-61
This company is still in existence but moved its registered office from 11 Ronalds Road in 2014 to Hertford and their name across the adjoining gates was replaced the following year by NET.WORKS.LONDON and later by UNCOMMON as serviced offices.
Although the neighbouring former Salvation Army Citadel is locally listed I was a little surprised to find this building is not mentioned.It is well-proportioned with fine doorways.
Bookbinders of London, Ronalds Road, Highbury, Islington, 1989 89-10g-66
According to the fine ‘Streets With Story’ by Eric A Willats, Ronalds Road was named “after Sir Francis Ronalds (1788-1873) who was, with Wheatstone, one of the pioneers of the electric telegraph. The name was suggested by a Mr. M.C. Sharpe who for years had lived at Highbury Terrace. Sir Francis’s father Francis Ronalds took over no.1 Highbury Terrace in 1796 and died in 1806. The new road had run alongside no.1 and the first electric wires ran from a coach-house of no.1 to a cottage in the immediate neighbourhood.”
Ronalds (1788 – 1873) built the world’s first working telegraph system in his mother’s back garden in Hammersmith when he was 28 in 1816. ‘It was infamously rejected on 5 August 1816 by Sir John Barrow, Secretary at the Admiralty, as being “wholly unnecessary“.’
Drayton Park Rd, Highbury, Islington, 1989 89-10g-53
I think this fence and yard has long disappeared together with the figure on it, but is was possibly part of Drayton Park School close to the corner of Arvon Road. I think the picture shows a child holding something just above kitchen scales.
Eros Fashions, Hornsey Rd, Lower Holloway, Islington, 1989 89-10g-43
Much of this section of Hornsey Road close to the impressive Victorian School building at 30-36 has been replaced by modern buildings since 1989 and I think that the building that Eros Fashions occupied has gone. Certainly I can find no trace of it now.
Back then Eros Fashions was still in business, with vacancies for almost everyone involved in the manufacture of clothing:
“‘Eros, fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them.’
Created first out of Chaos, also son to Aphrodite, though argument rages as to whether his Dad was Zeus, Ares or even Uranus.
It must be a bit of a come-down to be running a fashion manufacturer (to be rude you could call it a sweat-shop) in North London. Though he was always a bit of a shady character – those different names for a start – Cupid and Amor – what was he trying to hide? And then there’s that business with Hymen, best not to say too much.”‘”
Which seems a suitable place to end this post, though my walk will continue in further episodes.
Yet More from Stoke Newington: This is the final post about my walk on 8th October 1989 going down Stoke Newington High St towards Dalston with some minor detours. The previous post on this walk was Cemetery, Synagogue & Snooker.
I wondered about the history of these three shops at 75-79 Stoke Newington History with the three-story Golden House Chinese takeaway at its centre. The first-floor brickwork on either side didn’t quite seem to match suggesting to me that the central building may have been a post-war addition to an existing building, or that these first floors may have been a later addition.
This central shop is still a Chinese takeaway but under a different name.
Hovis Bread, Victorian Grove, Stoke Newington High St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10f-55
The Cinema Treasures site states that The Vogue Cinema at 38 Stoke Newington High St opened as The Majestic Electric Palace on 15th December 1910 and was closed on 21st June 1958 as a protest by Classic Cinemas against the landlord’s rent rise.
It remained shuttered and closed for 42 years until in November 2000 the foyer was converted into a Turkish restuarant with housing behind, described to me on Flickr as the “best Turkish restaurant ever.” The restaurant owners restored the Vogue sign.
My picture with the Hovis Bread ghost sign was taken from a few yards down Victorian Grove looking towards the cinema across the High Street. The block at right of the picture has now been replaced by a large building with a Tesco Extra on its ground floor.
House, Victorian Grove, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10f-56
This street was originally called Victoria Grove, but its name was changed some time in the middle of the last century. Much of the area was redeveloped in the 1970s but these houses dating from the early years of Victoria’s reign in the 1840s or 1850s remain.
This Grade II listed pair with the unusual curved bays and balconies have the name ‘BRIGHTON VILLAS’ on a plaque between the first floor windows, hidden by the curvature of the nearer bay in my photograph. The nearer balcony roof has been replaced since I took this, matching the one on its neighbour.
Works entrance, Victorian Grove, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10f-41
The wall beside 3 Victorian Grove is still there, but now has only graffiti on it. There are still some industrial units behind the villas of Victorian Grove, though surely they will soon be replaced by expensive flats, but access to these is now thourgh a gated vehicle entrance further down the street.
Posters, Stoke Newington High St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10f-42
Should you Google – as I did – ‘Trevor Moneville‘ – you will find he was a 33-year-old from Hackney, was found dead at HMP Lewes on April 18, 2021 from Sudden Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) because of insufficient and unacceptable management of his care.
But this was a case of history repeating itself. A copy of the poster at top right is also in the collection of Hackney Museum, where the web site notes:
“Trevor Monerville went missing from Stoke Newington police station after being taken into custody on New Year’s Eve, reappearing after several days on the other side of London in Brixton prison. He had multiple injuries and later underwent emergency surgery in Maudsley Hospital. The case highlighted existing concerns about alleged institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police and led to the formation of the Hackney Community Defence Association in 1988.”
And in the centre of the picture is a poster for another, better known case of police brutality. Blair Peach was a young teacher murdered by the police Special Patrol Group who went beserk when policing an anti-racist protest in Southall on 23 April 1979.
Further south Stoke Newington High Street becomes Stoke Newington Road, and back in 1989 I found myself confusing the two. Andy’s Fashions was at 141 Stoke Newington Road. No longer Andy’s, the shop is now Stitch “N” Time offering tailoring, alterations, repairs. and no longer has its wares on the pavement outside or partly blocking the entry to the Stoke Newington Estate of the Industrial Dwellings Society (1885) Ltd.
The IDS was established as the Four Per Cent Dwellings Company in 1885 by “Jewish philanthropists to relieve the overcrowding in homes in the East End of London” and changed its name in 1952. They opened the Stoke Newington Estate in 1903.
Another shop somewhere on Stoke Newington Road, with a fine formation of net curtains for sale, though in my book ‘1989’ I imagined them rather differently, perhaps as the front of a vast army of angels, “Or a phalanx of klansmen or some strange voodoo creatures about to burst out onto the streets of London.“
The texts in that book were intended to explore the question of why some scenes grabbed my attention enough to make me fix them as photographs, and why they continue to excite my imagination and I hope that of other viewers.
Street Market, Shoreditch High St, Tower Hamlets, Hackney, 1989 89-10f-33
My walk had ended and I got on the bus to take me to Waterloo for the train home. I almost always sit on the upper deck on double-decker buses and enjoy the views from the windows. As the bus went slowly along Shoreditch High Street close to the junction with Commercial Street it passed the informal market on the pavement where I had time to take three frames through the window. The area looks a little different now, but the last time I went past on a Sunday there was still a rather similar market there.
This is the final post about my walk on 8th October 1989. You can find more pictures from London and elsewhere on Flickr, with both black and white and colour images in albums mainly arranged by the year I took them, such as 1989 London Photos and 1989 London Colour.
Cemetery, Synagogue & Snooker continues my walk on Sunday 8th October 1989 which had begun at Seven Sisters Station. The previous post Stoke Newington Shops – 1989 had ended with me opposite the gates of Abney Park Cemetery, which I had visited on a walk the week before, Abney Park & South Tottenham, and I wrote more about the cemetery there.
Angel, Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10e-45
The cemetery has a huge assortment of memorials and I photographed a few of them, including this angel, perhaps a fairly typical depiction, with similar angels in memorials across the country. It also gives an idea of the wilderness which the cemetery had become by 1989.
Angel, Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10e-23
Another angel erected by a husband in sacred memory of his wife Elizabeth who “departed this life” only 28 years old in 1865. This is a rather more unusual monument and I wondered if it might perhaps resemble this young woman who may well like many of the time have died in childbirth. There are two cherubs on the plinth and below them a rather strange pipe with perhaps shoots emerging at both ends. I suspect someone may know the significance of this. I cannot quite make out the name of her husband, although someone had clearly removed the creeper from the stone in order to reveal it.
John Swan, Engineer, Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10e-26
The text on the monument at the right of this picture is clear, and this is the Grade II listed memorial to John Swan (1787-1869), the inventor of the screw propellor for use on ships, and also of the self acting chain messenger which apparently saved the nation around £70,000 a year, for which he “never received the slightest remuneration.”
I took around 20 pictures in the cemetery and have only digitised seven of them – you can find four not included in this post on Flickr.
Built as a Primitive Methodist Chapel in 1875, this building was bought by members of the Beth Hamedrash Ohel Yisrael Synagogue as “more suitable and commodious premises” than their previous synagogue at 46 Brooke Rd in 1953 and consecrated in 1955. It became known as Beit Knesset Ohel Yisrael or Northwold Road Synagogue.
The synagogue closed the month before I made this picture. The building at 16 Northwold Road became the Sunstone Women Only Gym and is now the Tower Theatre.
Northwold Road begins opposite Abney Cemetery gates and its first secition still includes a number of interesting buildings as well as the former synagogue, but these on the north side of the road opposite it have been replaced by a large grey six-storey block of housing.
The flats at right re a part of the George Downing Estate on Alkham Road and are on the other side of the railwa line.
Grade II* listed along with its neighbours 189 and 191, this is part of what the listing text describes as “an Early C18 large scale composition of 3 houses, the centre one projecting, touching at corners”. (It actually says proecting, but this building has a large yard in front and 189 has its porch almost on the street,)
This house was built in 1712 for Silk merchant John Wilmer (1696-1773), a wealthy Quaker. It later became ‘The Invalid Asylum for the Recovery of the Health of Respectable Women’. Substantially rebuilt in 1983 it is now the Yum Yum Thai Restaurant.
Hard to remember why I cropped this so tightly as to remove the S from Snooker and the SLI of Slindon Court, but probably it was just to make what I felt was a more satisfactory composition. I had previously photographed this in colour with a slightly wider view.
Stoke Newington Shops: Continuing my walk on Sunday 8th October 1989 which had begun at Seven Sisters Station from where I had walked south down the High Road and the previous post, Church of the Good Shepherd, Synagogue & Stamford Hill had ended on Stamford Hill.
Star Mews, Cafe, Windus Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-15
I continued walking down Stamford Hill, taking a brief look down each side street, but nothing particularly attracted my attention until I reached Windus Road. Some way down this I came to the entrance to Star Mews.
The archway to Star Mews is still there between 52 and 54 Windus Road but there is no longer a cafe, the property is now residential with a small walled front garden. Star Mews is one of two mews in the street and leads to two single storey (now with roof windows) in the area behind which were presumably once stables.
The houses here are not grand, and I think these were probably built for small businesses who will have had horse-drawn carts for delivery rather than the carriages of mews in grander districts.
I went back to Stamford Hill and at the entrance to Stoke Newington Station turned into a small pedestrian side-street, Willow Cottages with this row of three shops, one of them Marshall’s School of Motoring so had to take this picture. These are still there beside the new station building, and G’s Car Service is now Ron’s Car Service. – the old station was almost invisible at street level – but this small area has altered so much I can’t be sure. The jewellers is now a hair salon and Marshalls have left the building, now occupied by Ria money transfer and a takeaway.
I crossed the busy A10 Stamford Hill and went down Manor Road opposite where there was this row of shops on the north side. These three shops are single storey buildings, at the end of the two storey buildings of Manor Parade, but seem to have been built in the same style, probably like their larger neighbours in 1906, according to an ornamental date on their gable.
The site with two large advertising hoardings at right is on the side of the railway line, here in a cutting, and there is be little level land behind these shops.
This noticeboard without notices on the top of what was until fairly recently a private hire service office, Hill Cars, is another of the pictures which I used in my web site, exhibition and self-published book ‘1989’, ISBN: 978-1-909363-01-4, still available, and this picture is from those. The first paragraph refers to the page before this one in ‘1989’.
The house here is still at 16 Manor Road and is now residential and without the clutter and signage. Andora’s builders yard is now commercial premises on the ground floor with flats above and a vehicle entrance to more in the yard behind.
L T Locking, Estate Agent, 18, Manor Rd, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10e-65
This short row of shops was just beyond the builders yard, all at 18 Manor Road, although they seem to have been built at different times. Locking’s estate agency is in a taller and more elegant four storey tower, and the closer building at right was, according to a ghost sign under its first and second floor windows, the DEPOSITORIES of T HARRIS, though his name is not clear. This industrial warehouse is now an events and filming venue and was the birthplace of the original TV “Dragons Den” where the first season was shot in 2005.
Also now I think a filming location as ‘The House Next Door‘ (or possibly a part of The Depository’ and that is the next shop.) Earlier it had been home to the curiously named Balloon Lagon (lagon is French for lagoon), which sold odd balloons and then a property agency.
The post at left looks like a lamp post, perhaps for a gas lamp, but could also have simply held an advertising sign. Srill on the pavement it has now lost its upper half.
Back on the A10, I walked down to the end of Stamford Hill at Cazenove Road, where it becomes Stoke Newington High Street, and went briefly down Cazenove Road and photographed a couple of the shops there. I’d previously photographed Madame Lillie on a walk in July 1989 so haven’t digitised the picture I took this time, but this one of Rabinowitz, Kosher Butcher & Poulter and The Metaqphysical & Inspirational World Universal Book Shop at 2 and 4.
I returned to the main road and crossed it to the gates of Abney Park Cemetery where the next post on this walk will begin.
Church of the Good Shepherd, Synagogue & 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 previous post, South Tottenham & Stamford Hill had ended on Rookwood Road.
Church of the Good Shepherd, Ancient Catholic Cathedral, Rookwood Rd, Castlewood Rd, Clapton, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-34
This Grade II* listed church was built in 1892-5 for the Agapemonites, aka the Community of the Son of Man, a group founded by former Church of England minister Henry Prince who set up the Agapemone community whose name means ‘Abode of Love’.
Various scandals ensued when it emerged that this love was sometimes rather more than spiritual. Prince died in 1899 and John Smyth-Pigott became leader of the sect and his relations with numerous female followers caused greater scandal. In 1902 Smyth-Piggot declared the Second Coming had arrived and that he was Jesus Christ, the Son of Man.
An angry mob chased his carriage across Clapton Common and he retired to Somerset where he died in 1927.
St Luke, Ox, St John, Eagle, Church of the Good Shepherd, Ancient Catholic Cathedral, Rookwood Rd, Clapton, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-36
The church was built by Joseph Morris and Sons of Reading, the sculptures were by A G Walker and the church apparently has remarkable stained glass by Arts & Crafts artist Walter Crane. When the last Agapemonites died it became in 1956 the Ancient Catholic Cathedral Church of the Good Shepherd and in 2007 the Georgian Orthodox Cathedral Church of the Nativity of Our Lord.
St Mathew, St Mark, lion, Church of the Good Shepherd, Ancient Catholic Cathedral, Rookwood Rd, Clapton, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-22
Another picture of the sculptures on the church by A G Walker. The stained glass which I was unable to see was by Walter Crane. There is a lengthy description of the building in its Grade II* listing, first made when it was the Church Of The Ark Of The Covenant.
New Bobov Synagogue, Egerton Rd, Clapton, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-24
Built around 1914-15 in an Edwardian Baroque style the Grade II listed New Synagogue was bought in 1987 by the Babov Community Centre from the United Synagogue. The Bobov congregation (Beth Hemedrash Ohel Naphtoli) was founded in Poland but now has its headquarters in New York and is Strictly Orthodox Ashkenazi.
Newsagent, Used Cars, Stamford Hill, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-11
The Hill Candy & Tobacco Stores Ltd at 141 Stamford Hill was well covered with advertising for Camel, Marboro and others as well as sensational posters for the Evening Standard, ‘LONDON MURDER SPARKS ‘RIPPER’ FEAR. Tabloid journalists were probably the only people in London who were affected by this particular anxiety.
The shop is now an off-licence. The used car sales with its bunting at right is no longer but there is a parking area in front of the offices there now. The Turnpike House pub just visible in the distance on the corner with Ravensdale Road closed in 2021 and is now boarded up.
Eshel Hotel, Stamford Hill, Hackney, 1989 89-10d-12
Eshel is the Hebrew for Tamarisk. Genesis chapter 21 verse 33 states that Abraham planted one at Beersheba and prayed there to Yahweh in thanks for God’s covenant with him. That species of tamarisk is a slow growing desert tree and at some times in the year it secretes a sticky honeydew which some think was the manna which provided food for them in the wilderness.
I think this building is now offices for Orthodox Jewish organisations. The delicate wrought iron gates and railings with the menorahs in them were replaced a few years ago by rather more secure fencing.
My walk continued to Stoke Newington – another instalment shortly.
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.
Shop window, High Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1989 89-10c-13
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, 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.
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.
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
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
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.
Highbury to Stoke Newington Church Street: Continuing my walk from Sunday 1st October 1989 which had begun at Finsbury Park and continued to the Nags Head before returning to Finsbury Park. The previous post ended on Blackstock Road.
Blackstock Road continues south into Highbury as Highbury Park and I walked some way down this before turning east into Northolme Road. Highbury Park was developed in the 1870s but the houses in Northholme Road date from the 1890s. This and neighbouring roads were built on the Holm Estate and the LCC applied for permission to develop these roads in 1890.
North Holme is near Helmsley, North Riding of Yorkshire and although it has been described as a “township” is a small cluster of buildings, more a farm than even a village close to the River Dove. “The Revd Joseph Parker, DD (1830-1902) … lived in 1866 at a house in Highbury Park he called ‘North Holme‘. The sites of Northolme Road, Sotheby Road and Ardilaun Road were on part of the grounds of his house.” He was the “Minister of the City Temple, 1869-1901, author, preacher and twice Chairman of the Congregational Union“.
This house is at the eastern end of Northolme Road, where it meets Kelross Road and is a detached villa rather larger than the terraces along long the rest of the road.
Clissold Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-35
From here Kelross passage leads to Highbury New Park, a street with villas built from around 1850. But I pressed on across it into Collins Road, making my way towards Clissold Park and Stoke Newington Church St.
Clissold House was built as Paradise House for Quaker City merchant Jonathan Hoare, a noted philanthropist and anti-slavery campaigner and brother of banker Samuel Hoare Jr. The water here was a stretch of the New River which brought clean drinking water from Hertfordshire to London, but I think at some point the river here was culverted, although the bridge taking Stoke Newington Church St across it remained until the 1930s.
The park was first created as grounds for this GradeII listed house. Hoare got into financial difficulties and lost the house and grounds, which passed through several owners before being owned by Augustus Clissold. When he died in 1882 the estate was bought by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners who intended to make money from developing it as housing, but the Metropolitan Board of Works were persuaded in 1887 to buy it to be a public park.
By 1989 the house and park were in a poor condition and Clissold House was put on English Heritages ‘at risk’ register in 1991. Since then both park and house have been restored with the aid of lottery money.
Park Crescent, Spensley Walk, Stoke Newington Church St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-23
Grade II listed Park Crescent at 207-223 Stoke Newington Church Street was built in 1855, but by the 1980s was in a very dilapidated state and became home to around 90 squatters alongside only a handful of legal tenants. The houses were then owned by Hackey council who planned to sell them to housing associations.
Park Crescent, Spensley Walk, Stoke Newington Church St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-11
Three motorbikes parked outside one of the houses of Park Crescent. You can clearly see the poor state of the buildings which need Acrow props to support the porches, with the steps at right being roped off to block access to the unsafe building.
Park Crescent now looks very neat and tidy compared to this.
The building at 185 Stoke Newington Church St had been sold when I made this picture in October 1989, but The Modern Man, a hairdressers, was still alive in another shop on the street, shown in my next picture.
This row of buildings with ground-floor shops is still there and like the rest of the area has become rather better kept and is now that epitome of gentrification, an estate agents which has also expanded into 187.
Perhaps surprisingly the 5 Star Cleaners at 189 is still a dry cleaners, though under a different name.
The Modern Man, Stoke Newington Church St, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1989 89-10c-52
I found The Modern Man still in business at 121 Stoke Newington Church St at the corner with Marton Road. It didn’t survive the gentrification of the area and the shop has passed through several hands as ‘frere jacques’, ‘search and rescue, ‘Ooh Lou Lou Cakery’ and ‘The Caffeine Fix’.
I don’t know how long Tanya’s Cafe-Diner Take away lasted but around 2009 it became Lydia Cafe Restaurant and retained the name Lydia until recently becoming ‘The Tiffin Tin.’.
My walk was almost at an end, but I’ll share are few more pictures in a later post.
