piano factory | >Re-PHOTO

Tufnell Park and Kentish Town: More from my walk on Sunday February 25th 1990 which began at Around Finsbury Park – 1990. The previous post was Toys, Taverns, Timber & More – 1990.

*Flats, Pemberton Gardens, Archway, Islington, 1990, 90-2h-64*

This long run of flats – numbered 1-64 is St John’s Park Mansions.

Sir James Pemberton was a goldsmith and Lord Mayor of London in 1611, and was one of the eight freeholders of the Manor of Highbury. The street was developed around 1870 on land owned by the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, a charity set up in 1655 by merchants of the City of London and priests of the Church of England to support clergy who had lost their livings thanks to Oliver Cromwell – and which still (now as the Clergy Support Trust) supports Anglican clergy and they named it after him. The street was renamed Pemberton Gardens in 1895.

These flats were built in 1899-1900 and have nine blocks extending out to the rear to accommodate 32 flats as well as the 32 in those in the buildings on the street.

*House, Cathcart Hill, Tufnell Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2h-66*

I continued my walk down Junction Road, turning briefly into Cathcart Hill to photograph this house where considerable building work was taking place. The house probably dates from the 1860s and I think is 1 Cathcart Hill. Although the web page for the Cathcart Hill Historical Society is dedicated to the history of numbers 1-16 Cathcart Hill, it has as yet no information about No.1.

Boston Arms, pub, Junction Rd, Tufnell Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2h-54 — *Boston Arms, pub, 178 Junction Rd, Tufnell Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2h-54*

This pub designed by Thorpe and Furniss was built in 1899 for Bass & Co Ltd replacing an earlier earlier building, there in 1860, the Boston Arms Tavern on the corner with Dartmouth Park Hill. A few years later it changed its name to simply ‘The Boston’ and this was the name when it was rebuilt, though it is now ‘Boston Arms. It was Grade II listed in 1994 and remains in use.

*Boston Arms, pub, Junction Rd, Tufnell Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2h-56*

Attached to the pub – but not in my pictures – is the Boston Music Room, also Grade II listed. It was built in 1884 with a ground floor 60ft swimming bath and above this an assembly hall. In 1909 the swimming bath was converted into a second assembly hall and used as a cinema, called the Electric Theatre, later the Stanley Theatre. After this closed in 1916 it became the Tufnell Park Palais, used for wrestling and concerts.

It reopened in 1981 as an independent music venue, with the upstairs called The Dome and downstairs The Boston Music Room. Among those appearing there have been Coldplay, Bring Me the Horizon, Blur, Primal Scream, Noel Gallagher,Madness, The White Stripes, U2, Florence & The Machine, and Cradle of Filth.

*Surroundings Ltd, Burghley Rd, Tufnell Park, Camden, 1990, 90-2h-55*

Opposite the west side of the pub on Dartmouth Hill Road (and so in the London Borough of Camden) is Burghley Road where a few yards down at No 118 I photographed Surroundings Ltd, a company which appears to have disappeared without trace. The building is now residential.

*Montrose Products, Fortess Rd, Kentish Town, Camden, 1990, 90-2h-44*

Turning back to Dartmouth Hill Road I walked the few yards down to the junction and then continued down Fortess Road to photograph Montrose Products at Nokeener House, No. 28-34. This private limited company, L.& M.(MONTROSE PRODUCTS)LIMITED was incorporated in 1954, moved its registered office from here in July 1990 and was finally dissolved in 2024. A mail order company it occupied the first floor while at street level was Everbond Limited, who I can find nothing about. More recently the ground floor was occupied by Major Travel.

This was built as a factory for piano makers T & G Payne who began here in 1891 and it has has some interesting decorative detail. In 2012 permission was granted for its conversion into luxury flats as The Piano Works, retaining most of its external features.

*Fortess Grove, Fortess Rd, Kentish Town, Camden, 1990, 90-2h-45*

Fortess Grove is at the north side of the old piano factory and twists here around the side of the Fortess Works, then occupied by L C Bennett (Mechanical Handling) Ltd. Later it became home to vehicle repair shop M. & A. Coachworks but since the end of 2015 has been transformed into “a modern, flexible, and contemporary work environment” called Fortess Grove and some housing.

The street still continues past it more or less as in my photograph, a charming little curved cul-de-sac of early Victorian (or possibly late Georgian?) small houses.

This walk continues in later posts.

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Fonthill & Tollington continues my walk on Sunday February 11th 1990 which began at Kings Cross with the post Kings Cross and Pentonville 1990. The previous post was Caledonian Road, Barnsbury & Lower Holloway – 1990.

*Tower House, 149, Fonthill Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2c-32*

The Tower House it at the south end of a late Victorian terrace at 141-9 Fonthill Road close to the junction with Seven Sisters Road. This was the factory and showroom for Witton, Witton & Co. In an advertisement in Musical Opinion & Music Trade Review they describe it as ‘BRITAIN’S FINEST FACTORY’ producing ‘”THE IDEAL BRITISH PIANO” Specially made for Variable Climates’. According to the Pianoforte-makers in England web site the company was formed in 1874, although earlier Wittons had made pianos from 1838. They held two patents related to pianos. The name continued in use after production went abroad in the 1930s. Their grand pianos are said to be not well made.

By 1990 the tower had lost its top floor topped by a cupola. Like much of Fonthill Road the building was mainly in use by clothing manufacturers and wholesalers in 1990.

*Goodwin St, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2c-35*

The 3 storey house in this picture is still present on Goodwin Street, a turning off Fonthill Road which now leads through City North House to Finsbury Park Station. This is 11 Goodwin St, owned by the Trustees of Peace News and the home of CND, the Campaign Against Arms Trade as the hanging sign above the double door indicates, along with various other groups. I think the right hand door was number 13, though the numbering around here seems rather random.

*Shops, Fonthill Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2c-36*

The rather strangely staggered roofline is still there at 138 Fonthill Road and all the shops are still in the clothing trade, though I think all the names are changed. Photographer Don McCullin grew up in the area in the 1940s and described the area as “a battlefield” and later he was to photograph on many real ones, including in Cyprus.

It was the Cyprus emergency with the UK fighting EOKA in the the late fifties and the later war between Greeks and Turks that led to many Cypriots to come to live in North London – and a number of them set up clothing factories and wholesale businesses here – and others from Turkey, the Caribbean and Africa came too. At first shops here were simply wholesale, but then many began to open on Saturdays for retail sales, and the street was crowded with people – mainly women – buying real bargains.

*Fonthill Metal Co, Fonthill Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2c-21*

I don’t think any trace remains of the Fonthill Metal Co or the garage next door on Fonthill Road which were almost at the end of Fonthill Road close to Tollington Park. There used to be many similar small scrap metal dealers who would pay cash on the spot for non-ferrous metals – Copper, Brass, Lead, Zinc and Ali – aluminium.

BRAIZERY here means copper pipes and other material which has been soldered and so contains small amounts of other metals, particularly tin and lead. If you have a decent load of this you can probably get around £6 a kilo for it – but no longer on Fonthill Road.

*Velvet Touch, Fonthill Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2c-22*

Later retail clothes shops elsewhere in the country found they could buy clothing cheaper abroad than garments made in the UK, and manufacturing here started to fall away. Slowly more and more wholesalers welcomed retail customers and many new wholly retail shops opened.

More recently the retail trade has fallen away too as the area becomes increasingly gentrified. Most of the clothes still on sale are now made abroad, particularly in Turkey.

Velvet Touch at 1 Fonthill Road was at the far end to the other clothing manufacturers, wholesalers and importers and although you can still read that line of their shopfront, (rather faded now) their name and the large sign on the side wall are long gone and I think the building is now residential. The very small window on the first floor is still bricked up.

*St Mellitus, RC, Church, Tollington Park, Finsbury Park, Islington,, 1990, 90-2c-23*

Built as the New Court Chapel in 1871 by Congregationalists from New Court, Carey St, Lincoln’s Inn Field after their chapel had been demolished to build the Royal Courts of Justice.

The Neo-classical church, designed by C G Searle seated 1,340 and in the early years was often full in the early years, but after the war congregations dropped away. It was sold to the Catholic Church in 1959, becoming St Mellitus RC Church. St Mellitus was the first Bishop of London in 604CE and later in 619CE became Archbishop of Canterbury.

*House, Tollington Park, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2c-24*

Tollington Park was one of the first streets in this northern part of Islington in Finsbury Park (estate agents like to call it Stroud Green, but that seems rather a stretch too far) to be laid out and its grand semi-detached villas date from the 1830’s and 40’s.

Before that cows had grazed its fields to supply milk to London across north Islington which had what was claimed to be the largest dairy farm in the country, run by Welsh dairy farmer Richard Laycock.

By WW2 the area had deteriorated and become a poor working-class area. It was heavily bombed in WW2 and much still remained in a mess twenty years later. By the 1970s it was home to many migrants from across the world, including “Welsh, Irish, Jamaican, and others from all over the world.”

*House, Tollington Park, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2c-26*

Many of the damaged properties and some others were demolished in 1970 to form a park, Wray Crescent, and gentrification of the area set in. The Friends of Wray Crescent history page contains a number of pictures of Tollington in the 1960s and 1970s, taken by Leslie William Blake when “local campaigners and the Tollington Park Action Group began to fight to preserve some of the buildings, including the creation of the local conservation zone.”

Houses like those in my picture are now all or almost all a number of flats. Only 4 houses in Tollington Park are Grade II listed (along with the two churches) but many are locally listed including these two at 104 and 106, thought to have been built in 1840.

Tag: piano factory

Tufnell Park and Kentish Town – 1990

Fonthill & Tollington – 1990