Posts Tagged ‘Southwood Lane’

Almshouses, Museum, Hospital & Shops – Highgate 1989

Monday, December 23rd, 2024

Almshouses, Museum, Hospital & Shops – Highgate: More from my walk in Highgate on Sunday 19th November. You can read the previous part at Into Highgate Village.

Wollaston and Pauncefort, Almshouses, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-12
Wollaston and Pauncefort, Almshouses, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-12

The Wollaston and Pauncefort Almshouses were set up by wealthy City goldsmith Sir John Wollaston who was Lord Mayor of London in 1643 and a among many other positions was a Governor of Highgate School and briefly Lord of the manor of Hornsey. In his last years he had these almshouses built for “six men and women of honest life and conversation‘ from Hornsey and Highgate, and his will in 1658 made the governors of Highgate school trustees of the almshouse.

His endowment provided those living in the almshouses an income of 50 shillings a year and for money for the repair of the premises. The school governors selected the residents and laid down strict rules for them, including attending services in the school chapel.

However by 1722 the building was beyond repair and school governor and treasurer Edward Pauncefort had them rebuilt, doubling the number of residents to 12 and adding a charity school for girls. His endowment and other bequests also gave the residents a rise to £7 a year.

The Grade II listed almshouses were altered internally over the years and finally the year before I made this picture significantly modernised and provided with indoor bathrooms and toilets by merging pairs of the units, reducing the number of residents to the original six. Only one of each pair of doors is now in use.

My picture includes a phantom cyclist, blurred almost to extinction by the slow shutter speed I used.

Highgate School Museum, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-13
Highgate School Library, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-13

The Highgate Tabernacle at 20a Southwood Lane was built as a Baptist chapel in 1836, replacing an earlier Presbyterian chapel and was Grade II listed in 1974. In 1976 the chapel was bought by Highgate School and served as their library for almost 30 years. It now houses the archive and museum of the school, open to researchers and occasionally to the public.

Among its holdings are the “Royal Charters of Queen Elizabeth I, authorising our founder Sir Roger Cholmeley to found a school at Highgate, 29 January 1565, 6 April 1565“.

Southwood Hospital, 70, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-53
Southwood Hospital, 70, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-53

The Limes was built in 1815 and in 1921 was bought for use as an orphanage by the Furniture Trades’ Provident and Benevolent Institution who renamed it Radlett House. In 1940 they moved to larger premises and leased the property to Middlesex County Council who converted it to a small hospital. After becoming a part of the NHS it was renamed Southwood Hospital.

Southwood Hospital, 70, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-54
Southwood Hospital, 70, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-54

The hospital was still in use though on a reduced scale when I made these two pictures, but a notice beside the main entrance (part visible on my first picture) makes clear it offered no casualty or accident and emergency services. It simply housed a few beds for chronically ill patients needing nursing care.

The hospital closed in 1991 and in 2004 was was converted into a terrace of large private houses.

Shops, 164-198, Archway Rd, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-45
Shops, 164-198, Archway Rd, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-45

Archway Road was designed in 1808 as the world’s first bypass to provide a less steep route out of London than Highgate Hill for heavy waggons by building a 900ft long tunnel. Work started in 1810 but unfortunately the tunnel collapsed in 1812 when it was almost finished. Fortunately nobody was killed but it was decided to convert the tunnel into a cutting. This then needed a bridge to carry Hornsey Lane over the new road, and John Nash came up with an elegant brick design with a tall narrow arch for traffic and above that a three arch bridge carrying the road.

But the arch was too narrow as traffic increased and was replaced with the current bridge in 1900. This row of shops begin around 200 metres north of the bridge.

Shops, 164-198, Archway Rd, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-33
Shops, 164-198, Archway Rd, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-33

Steps lead up from Archway Road to Winchester Road from where I was able to make this second picture of the long row of shops. The conservation area appraisal describes this as late Victorian and “very distinctive with original balustrades above many of the shops” and notes the “top floor balconies set back under large arches with half timbering” and the “very eye-catching” roofscape though it notes only some of the stone finials have survived. These details are clearer in the previous picture.

Still more from Highate to come in a later post.


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Houses, Trees & Walks – Highgate 1989

Saturday, December 7th, 2024

My wandering around Highgate on Sunday 19th November, continued. You can read the first part of it at Highgate – Mirrors, Mansions & Luxury Cars which had ended at the Kingdom Hall on North Hill.

Tree, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-25
Tree, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-25

One thing that I seldom resist on a walk is a passage and a little further down North Hill I found Park House Passage. And after photographing the rather fine house beside it (4 North Hill, not digitised) I went down it to The Park, confusingly not a park but a street, with houses only on the north side. I took several more pictures not on line including two of a large block of flats two the south on Hillcrest, perhaps built later on the parkland which had given the street its name. But trees along the road meant they could not be seen as clearly as I would have liked.

But I saw the ash tree in this picture after I turned on to Southwood Lane in front of some modern housing largely hidden behind an old wall. Both house and tree are still there, though of course the tree has grown considerably. Most of the ash leaves had fallen but some were still holding on and contrasted greatly with the evergreen shrub at the bottom of the frame.

Highstone House, Jackson's Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989, 89-11e-11
Highstone House, Jackson’s Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989, 89-11e-11

A little further down Southwood Lane I turned into Jackson’s Lane, named after Joseph B Jackson, who lived in a house named Hillside, demolished to build the late Victorian Hillside Mansions and the street Hillside Gardens.

Highstone House is the first house down the street on a very narrow section of the road and it is now rather hidden as the wrought iron gate has been replaced by a solid wooden one.

House, 62, Jackson's Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-14
House, 62, Jacksons Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-14

I photographed another house on the opposite side of Jackson’s Lane and then turned around to return to Southwood Lane photographing this house close to the junction at 62 Jackson’s Lane.

Park Walk, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-52
Park Walk, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-52

Almost opposite was Park Walk, leading from Southwood Lane to North Road, so I had to go down it. I think the white house on Southwood lane is possibly a detached part of the property on Jackson’s Lane in the previous picture.

Park Walk, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-53
Park Walk, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-53

The flats which can be seen through the trees are I think on Hillcrest, and are perhaps Cunningham House or Tedder House. Park Walk took me back to North Hill, opposite the High Point flats.

Highpoint, North Road, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-44
Highpoint, North Road, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11f-44

Berthold Lubetkin designed the Grade I listed High Point 1 flats built in 1931 in the International Modern style as housing for the employees of Sigmund Gestetner but they never got to live in them. Also involved as structural engineer was Ove Arup. I think my picture deliberately avoided taking a standard view of them showing them as a modern masterpiece but instead concentrated on what I take to be an architectural joke at the entrance with pilotis and caryatids.

The flats are on one of the highest points in Highgate and the name above the entrance is clearly High Point, but they are usually referred to as Highpoint. This is Highpoint 1 and later in 1938 Lubetkin added the adjoining more luxurious Highpoint 2 in a similar design. He lived in the penthouse on Highpoint 1 until then.

Le Corbusier visited the flats in 1935 and called them “an achievement of the first rank” and many architectural critics consider them among the finest flats built and among Britain’s finest buildings. Of course they have been much photographed and I didn’t on this occasion do more than take a few frames as I walked past – only this one online.

More from Highgte in a later post.

Highgate – Mirrors, Mansions & Luxury Cars – 1989

Wednesday, December 4th, 2024

Highgate – Mirrors, Mansions & Luxury Cars: My next photographic walk in 1989 was on Sunday 19th November, and began At Highgate Station on the Northern Line, from where long escalators took me up to Archway Road.

Mirrors, Archway Rd, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-66
Mirrors, Archway Rd, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-66

The picture is a double self-portrait with me appearing – if dimly – in two of the mirrors in a shop window with the message ‘IF YOU DO NOT SEE WHAT YOU REQUIRE IN THE WINDOW PLEASE ASK INSIDE. My Olympus OM4, held in my right hand (left in the mirrors) covers most of my face.

Mirrors have often featured in photographs and seem endemic in film, and in 1978 John Szakowski staged an exhibition of American photography since 1960 and a book, Mirrors and Windows exploring what he felt was the distinction between photographers whose work largely reflected their own subjective view and others who used photography as a window on the world. It is of course not a dichotomy and we all do both, though perhaps at different positions on the spectrum.

I wandered around a bit up and down Archway Road and can’t remember exactly where this shop was, but not far from the station. Eventually I turned south down Southwood Lane.

Southwood Mansions, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-53
Southwood Mansions, Southwood Lane, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-53

Southwood Mansions is an imposing late Victorian mansion block build in 1897 and although its entrance (one of a pair) looked rather down-at-heel in 1989, the large flats here now sell for well over a million pounds. This is a very desirable location, close both to the Underground station and to Highgate village.

Car Sales, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-42
Car Showroom, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-42

I went back to Archway Road and wandered a little around the area, taking few pictures. This rather grand car showroom had some rather expensive cars – I was told they are 930 and 964 Porsches and would be worth a fortune now and the first advert that came up on Google lists them at £64,995 to £449,995. I can’t find this showroom now and think it has probably been demolished.

North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-45
North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-45

These houses are a part of a small estate on North Hill, Bramalea Close and Cross Crescent. They are among those featured on a walk along the street by the Highgate Society which states “Arguably no other road in London, Britain, Europe or, who knows, even the world compares with North Hill in terms of the diversity of its domestic architecture” though it gives rather little information about these. They were built between 1976 and 1982.

BMW, Garage, The Victoria, Pub, 28, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-46
BMW, Garage, The Victoria, Pub, 28, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-46

More expensive cars at Highgate dealer Hexagon, founded by Paul Michaels in 1963. The company is still in business but this site has been demolished and replaced by housing.

The pub building is still there but closed in 2017 and planning permission was granted for the site to be developed with extra residential building but retaining the pub. Some think the developers are waiting until the pub is in such a poor condition they will be able to demolish it and develop the entire site. But so far it does not seem to have been treated to the usual fire started by persons unknown.

House, 53, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-31
Houses, 53, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-31

Thes building are not mentioned in the Highgate Society walk on North Hill, though I did photograph some of the others. I found it interesting for the porch and the balcony above at 51 and the 1930s style windows of 53 to the right (since replaced) and the unusual fenestration of 53 and 55, clearly a later addition to 51.

Kingdom Hall, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-35
Kingdom Hall, North Hill, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11e-35

There is something very odd about these walls and steps that lead up to the door of the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses at 33 North Hill, and it seems perverse in the era of accessible entrances. It was certainly not the straight gate of Matthew 7 verse 14. The The steps from the pavement now seem to have been levelled out and there is now I think step-free access to a lower level of the building.

More to come from my walk in Highgate.


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