Tree | >Re-PHOTO

Brownswood Park Finsbury Park – 1990

Brownswood Park Finsbury Park: My walk on April 1st 1990 began at Finsbury Park Station. I walked a short distance past the gates to the park and then turned right down Queens Drive.

Queen's Drive, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-3m-13 — *Queen’s Drive, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-3m-13*

Queen’s Drive was laid out and developed from 1869, the same year that the park, misleadingly named Finsbury Park despite being a couple of miles from Finsbury, was opened, just a few years after the opening of Seven Sister Road station in 1861. In 1870 the station was renamed Finsbury Park. Most of the street was built up by the 1871 census, largely with substantial and well decorated four-storey terraces.

Queen’s Road – later renamed Queen’s Drive – was built as the ‘best road’ in a new select suburb then known as Brownswood Park, developed at first by John Brookes Porter in 1862. You can read more of its history in the Brownswood Conservation Area Appraisal.

Like many such areas it went downhill over the years. Wartime bombing including a V2 rocket damaged and destroyed a number of houses in it and nearby streets. By the 1950s most of the houses were in multiple occupation by “students, migrants, and the working class.”

This picture is of the rear of the Pembury Hotel which is on the corner of Queen’s Drive and Seven Sisters Road, just a few yards down the road and is a post war addition.

*Houses, Princess Crescent, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-3m-15*

Princess Crescent, also in Browsnwood Park, is not a crescent but two straight lengths of road at an angle joining Queen’s Drive and Gloucester Drive. The houses here were rather smaller than those in Queen’s Road. The other section of road has a two large blocks of council flats, St John’s Court on one side and a primary school on the other. From 1934 until 1960 the Finsbury Park Synagogue was there.

I walked back onto Queen’s Drive and continued to Brownswood Road, turning east and crossing Green Lanes into Lordship Park – not a park but a street.

*Lordship Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 90-4a-01*

Taken on Lordship Park and looking up Allerton Road towards the ‘castle’ designed by architect William Chadwell Mylne for the New River Company on Green Lanes, to house steam engines to pump water which had been cleaned in the adjoining reservoirs and filter beds to consumers.

The water was pumped to a large tank at the top of the main structure and then gravity fed to consumers. The towers and turrets disguise the huge industrial engines inside, initially giant single cylinder steam engines linked to pumps. These were later replaced in the 1930s by diesel and electric pumps. The gothic fantasy was felt to be more acceptable in this then select suburb than an industrial-looking building.

When the water board closed down this facility in 1971 it was saved from demolition by Grade II* listing and three years later converted into a climbing centre.

*House, Tree, Lordship Park, Stoke Newington, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-03*

A pollarded tree in front of semi-detached houses on Lordship Park. The two story houses have some fine decoration on their doorways and windows. There are larger houses close to Green Lanes.

*House, Cars, Green Lanes, Brownswood Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-4a-61*

Notices on the house say ‘NO BALL GAMES; and NO PARKING’ but there seems to be some kind of car scrap business running here in front of once fine derelict houses.

*House, Cars, Green Lanes, Brownswood Park, Hackney, 1990,, 1990, 90-4a-64*

I think these houses were just to the north of Portland Rise on the west side of Green Lanes and have since been demolished and replaced by to modern blocks of flats at 291 and 293 Green Lanes. The building at extreme left is still there.

*House, Cars, Green Lanes, Brownswood Park, Hackney, 1990,, 1990, 90-4a-54*

Unusually I took 11 frames here and there are six of them on Flickr – but I’ll only post three here.

These houses were a short walk from the West Reservoir where my my next post from this walk will begin.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

Westcombe Park and Blackheath 1990

Westcombe Park and Blackheath: On Saturday 20th January I got off a train at Westcombe Park station to begin another walk. Westcombe Park is in the London Borough of Greenwich and is at the east of Greenwich and north of Blackheath. Twelve years after I made this walk the Westcombe Park Conservation Area was designated in 2002.

*House, 146, Humber Rd, Westcombe Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1h-21*

Banker John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823) bought a large part of what had been parkland around a large country house to build his own house, Woodlands, now a Steiner School and the only listed building (Grade II*) in the area.

It was only when a large area of land was sold in 1876 that residential development of the area was begun – after a false start the Westcombe Park Estate Company was formed in 1878. They laid out roads, drains and sewers and offered freehold and leasehold plots for sale with only fairly loose guidelines over what could be built.

The Woodlands, Mycenae Rd, Westcombe Park, Greenwich, 1990, 1990, 90-1h-23 — *The Woodlands, 90, Mycenae Rd, Westcombe Park, Greenwich, 1990, 1990, 90-1h-23*

The development from then on was piecemeal and sporadic and by 1900 much was still undeveloped – and the estate company went into liquidation and the remaining land was sold off cheaply. There are a few properties from the 1880s, rather more from the 1890s particularly in the roads close to the station from which city clerks could travel into work. Although Woodlands is the only nationally listed building in the area, there are many locally listed buildings.

*The Woodlands, Mycenae Rd, Westcombe Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1h-24*

*Houses, Beaconsfield Rd, Vanburgh Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1h-12*

These houses are in the Blackheath Conservation Area and are on the north side of Vanburgh Park, so their frontages facing south with views across the common. The road at right angles in the picture is Beaconsfield Rd. These 3 storey locally listed Victorian villas date from 1860-1866 and were designed by architect Henry William Spratt.

*Tree, Bower Avenue, Greenwich Park, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1i-62*

From Vanburgh Park I walked across into Greenwich Park and then went down Bower Avenue where I found this massive tree trunk.

Vanbrugh Terrace, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1i-32 — *Vanbrugh Terrace, Blackheath, Greenwich, 1990, 90-1i-32*

The Grade II listed buildings of Vanburgh Terrace date from around 1840. I think this view is from somewhere near Charlton Way or Maze Hill. The terrace faces west across the parkland.

My walk will continue in a later post.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

Houses, Trees & Walks – Highgate 1989

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*

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*

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*

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*

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.