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
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
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
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
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
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
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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Cows, Cindy, Fonthill and Finsbury Park – 1989

Milking, Friern Manor Dairy Farm, Stroud Green Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-63
Milking, Friern Manor Dairy Farm, Stroud Green Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-63

Cows, Cindy, Fonthill and Finsbury Park: I couldn’t resist posting another of those sgraffito panels from the former Friern Manor Dairy Farm on Stroud Green Rd, though I suspect even when these were made the conditions for both cows and milkmaids were very different from those enjoyed in the stalls behing the facade.

Modern dairy practice is of course also very different as you can see in Andrea Arnold’s 2021 cinéma vérité-style film ‘Cow‘, not made as vegan propaganda but giving a very direct view of how we use animals to produce food for the masses. Watching it didn’t convert me to the vegan cause but I do think we need to have and enforce much stricter standards of animal welfare – though those in the UK are already firmer than in most countries. I already pay more for milk and would happily pay even more.

Cindy Trading Company, Hanley Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington,1989 89-9f-66
Cindy Trading Company, Hanley Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington,1989 89-9f-66

The Old Diary is on the corner of Hanley Road and I walked down here just a short distance and photographed this shopfront which appeared to be of a former travel agency, possibly the ‘Flight Line Cruise’ whose phone number is written large. The Cindy Trading Company whose name is on the door was later listed as a hardware store selling a range of DIY and home improvement items at 186 Stroud Green Road, a short distance away – and is now a dissolved company.

At right is an advertisement for Metposts and I may have been attracted by this as I had recently put in a fence on one side of my garden at home using these. It wasn’t quite as easy as the advert suggests and by the time I’d finished and put down the sledgehammer I’d decided digging and concrete might have been easier.

Shop, Fonthill Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-45
Shop, Fonthill Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-45

I’m unsure what route I took from Hanley Road to Fonthill Road, possibly going down Regina Road or Evershot Road. I took a couple of pictures – neither digitised – of an interesting yard with two rather strange bell towers in the background, nothing like anything that I can now see in satellite images of the area, possibly a long-demolished public building,

Fortunately the location of this picture is confirmed by the reflection of the street sign for Fonthill Road. Also reflected is a sign for John Rowan Bookmaker, the company which developed the well-known Rowans Tenpin Bowl opposite Finsbury Park Station on Stround Green Road in what had previouly been a tram shed, cinema and Bingo hall.

By 1989 this end of Fonthill Road was already beginning to become one of London’s major fashion centres – and a few pictures I’ve not yet digitised reflect this. A few from 1989 in colour start here.

My walk on 24th September was coming to an end, and I took just one more picture of a shopfront on Seven Sister Road before catching the Victoria Line on my way home. But I was back in Finsbury Park a week later and I’ll include a couple of pictures from the actual park, Finsbury Park to end this post.

Free Nelson Mandela, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-31
Free Nelson Mandela, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-31

Nelson Mandela was released unconditionally from Victor Verster Prison on 11th February 1990 following years of campaigning for his release. Most of the other graffiti on this wall is unintelligible black scribble at least to me, but I can also make out in white ‘PARANOID EYES’ -presumably from the song on Pink Floyd’s 1983 album The Final Cut.

New River, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-21
New River, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-9f-21

The New River was dug in 1613 to supply fresh drinking water to London from Chadwell and Amwell Springs near Ware in Hertfordshire.

Finsbury Park is around three miles from Finsbury which is on the northern edge of the City of London. People in Finsbury in 1841 signed a petition calling for a park that the people living in poverty in the area could make use of, and this was one of four sites that were considered.

This was around the last remains of the old Hornsey Wood, and by around 1800 had been developed with tea rooms and later a pub, as well as an artificial boating lake using water pumped up from the New River, and it was a popular place for shooting and archery “and probably cock fighting and other blood sports.”

There was some local opposition to sharing the area with the poor of Finsbury but the plans for what was originally to be called Albert Park (after Queen Victoria’s husband) went ahead, and the renamed Finsbury Park was approved by an Act of Parliament in 1857, though only completed and opened by 1869.

New River, Finsbury Park, Manor House, Haringey, 1989 89-10a-02
New River, Finsbury Park, Manor House, Haringey, 1989 89-10a-02

Lack of finance meant the park had deteriorate significantly by the 1980s, and the situation – like much in London – was greatly worsened when the Greater London Council was terminated with extreme malice by Thatcher in 1986. Haringey Council became responsible for the park “but without sufficient funding or a statutory obligation for the park’s upkeep.”

More recently £5 million Lottery Funding has enabled significant renovation of the park and its facilities. I last went to the park in March 2023 for the planting of a tree in memory of peace campaigner Bruce Kent by local MP Jeremy Corbyn and Kent’s wife Valerie. Both Kent and Corbyn were members of the Friends of Finsbury Park, with Corbyn now being a patron.

More from my October walk later.


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New River, Nuclear Waste, Wandle, Orange Order & Syria

Saturday April 17th 2010 was a long and varied day for me, travelling to various parts of London and making a couple of short walks as well as photographing three events.


New River & Harringay – Finsbury Park

New River, Nuclear Waste, Wandle, Orange Order & Syria

My journey across London had been rather faster than expected, probably because TfL’s Journey Planner had estimated rather longer times than I needed for connections, and I arrived at Harringay Green Lanes with rather a lot of time to spare.

New River, Nuclear Waste, Wandle, Orange Order & Syria

So I decided to walk around part of the area, walking partly along the New River, a water supply aqueduct opened in 1613 to bring water from Hertfordshire to London. It’s no longer New and was never a river.

New River, Nuclear Waste, Wandle, Orange Order & Syria

The light and sky was rather unusual. Like most of the Europe London was under a cloud of volcanic ash from the impossible to spell Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, and no planes were flying. Thee sky had a slightly different blue to usual and lacked the con-trails and wispy clouds that these decay to and was a little dull from horizon to horizon. It wasn’t ideal for the panoramic views I made.

New River, Nuclear Waste, Wandle, Orange Order & Syria

More at New River & Harringay.


Olympics and Nuclear Trains – Harringey

New River, Nuclear Waste, Wandle, Orange Order & Syria

A few members of the Nuclear Trains Action Group and London CND were handing out leaflets close to the rail bridge on Green Lanes warning of the dangers of trains carrying highly toxic radioactive waste through densely populated North London. The event was given added moment by President Obama’s recent warning that nuclear terrorism is the gravest threat to global security.

Protesters had come to Haringey because nuclear waste from the power station at Sizewell is regularly shipped by rail on the line through here on its way to be reprocessed at Sellafield. Waste from Dungeness also travels through London, but on a route through the south and west of the city.

A terrorist attack on the trains carrying spent fuel rods could contaminate considerable areas of London with highly toxic materials and deaths could result. The protesters also pointed out that the route also goes past the Olympic site and an incident there would give the terrorists a huge amount of publicity.

Journalists had planted a fake bomb on one of these trains in London in 2006 to show the lack of real security and there has been no attempt to provide adequate security along the whole length of the route.

Transport by sea would be safer but would add significantly to the costs, and nuclear power is already hugely uneconomic when the full costs of decommissioning of power stations and safe long-term storage of wastes are included.

Olympics and Nuclear Trains


Wandsworth and the Wandle – Wandsworth

It hadn’t taken long to take a few pictures of the protesters in Haringey, and I still had rather a long time before my next event.

I’d heard that a new section of path had been opened by the Wandle close to where it enters the River Thames and planning my day I’d thought I would have time to take a look at it. It’s a longish journey from Haringey to Wandsworth, south of the river, but I had plenty of time to eat my sandwich lunch on the journey.

I was disappointed to find that although I could walk along the new section of ‘riverside’ path, it was still a short distance from both Wandle and Thames and these were still largely hidden from view by fences.

More at Wandsworth and the Wandle.


Loyal Orange Lodge London Parade – Westminster

My next journey, to Clapham Junction and then Victoria was rather easier, and I arrived in time to photograph the members of the City of London District Orange Lodge and their guests as the prepared to march though central London on their St Georges Day Orange Parade.

They were going to march to lay wreaths in memory of Crown Forces at the Cenotaph and then on to St James’s Square to lay another at the memorial to WPC Yvonne Fletcher, fatally wounded by a shot from the Libyan Embassy on 17 April 1984.

Among other groups taking part were the Corby Purple Star Flute Band and the Churchill Flute Band of Londonderry.

Even with progress towards peace continuing in Northern Ireland and now 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement, parades such as this are still contentious there. But in London they arouse little or no antipathy and are seen simply as a celebration of a particular Protestant culture.

More pictures at Loyal Orange Lodge London Parade.


Release Syrian Political Prisoners – Syrian Embassy, Belgrave Square

I left the Orange parade to make my way to the Syrian Embassy, where Kurds and others were protesting on the 64th anniversary of Syrian independence calling for the release of Kurdish prisoners of conscience held in Syrian jails.

Similar demonstrations, organised by the International Support Kurds in Syria Association (SKS, based in the UK and founded in 2009) were taking place in Brussels, Canada, Switzerland, France and the USA.

The protesters waved both Syrian and Kurdish flags – which are illegal in Syria – and called for the prisoners to be released and for the repeal of Decree 49. Introduced in September 2008, this controls the movement of people in the border area between Syria and Turkey where most Kurds live, and under it people there have to get a licence to build, rent or buy property.

Around 1.7 million Kurds live in Syria and have been systematically denied their basic human rights for many years. In 1973, around 300 villages were confiscated and the land taken from around 100,000 Kurds and handed over to Arab farmers, with the names of Kurdish villages being changed into Arabic names.

Emergency rule had been in force in Syria since 1963 and a 1962 law led to around 120,000 Kurds being stripped of Syrian nationality and becoming stateless. They are not allowed to move house, own land or businesses, are banned from many jobs, have no passports or other travel documents and their access to medical treatment is restricted.

Since the Syrian revolution of 2011, the largely Kurdish northeast of Syria has become the de-facto autonomous region of Rojava, adopting universal democratic, sustainable, autonomous pluralist, equal, and feminist policies.

More at Release Syrian Political Prisoners.


Highgate to Stoke Newington

On the early May Bank Holiday – the one that should have been on May Day but isn’t – Linda and I walked another short section of the Capital Ring, from Highgate to Stoke Newington.

After a short walk along footpaths and roads, the route joins the former railway line which is now the Parkland Walk. Quite a lot of this is in a cutting, though there are some embankment sections, but except where the line has bridges over roads the view is often very limited by trees and bushes which have grown beside the former line.

A long bridge takes you across the East Coast main line and its suburban outliers and into Finsbury Park, where both cafe and toilets were very welcome.

Across the park you join the New River, supplying water to London since 1613, thanks in particular to the efforts of Sir Hugh Myddelton, though I expect he had quite a few others to dig it for him (and it wasn’t his idea in the first place.)

This goes along the edge of the Woodberry Down Estate, a large area bought by the LCC for housing in 1934, but only developed after the war as a ‘utopian estate of the future‘. Building began in 1949 and the 57 large blocks of flats were only completed in 1962. The estate included the country’s first purpose built comprehensive school and a medical estate opened by Nye Bevan, but unfortunately was allowed to deteriorate over the years, and beggining in 2009 became one of Europe’s biggest single-site estate regeneration projects.

The controversial scheme by Berkeley Homes, Notting Hill Genesis and Hackney Council will involve a loss of around a fifth of social housing in the area estimated by the council at around 320 homes and has been described as ‘state-sponsored gentrification‘ with 3 bed flats selling for around £800,000 and many being bought up as investments by foreign investors rather than used as homes.

On the opposite side of the path, across the New River are large reservoirs of open water, part now a nature reserve with public access (and another tea room with toilets) and another used for sailing and other water sports. The remarkable Scottish Baronial castle built as offices for the water board is now a climbing centre.

From there it’s a short walk to Clissold Park (another cafe and toilets – this must be the best provided section of the Capital Ring) and Stoke Newington Church Street, often described as a ‘hipster hub‘. Next to the park are the two churches of St Mary, the older locked but with an atmospheric and overgrown churchyard and the Victorian built in 1858 to the design of Sir George Gilbert Scott,  open and well worth a visit.

As a final climax we came to Abney Park Cemetery, one of London’s finest, set up in 1840 as a burial ground for non-conformists and the final resting place of around 200,000 Londoners, now a nature reserve. We looked up the train times from nearby Stoke Newington station and rather than rushing through to the station spent some time wandering around and finding a few of the better-known graves and some other interesting monuments.

In our rush from there the few hundred yards to the station I lost a little concentration and we went down to the wrong platform and caught a train going into London rather than out and had to re-plan our journey home. It turned out to be almost as fast.

More pictures from the walk at Highgate to Stoke Newington.


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