Tag: Waterlow Park

Churches, Flats, Houses & a Pineapple – Highgate 1989

Churches, Flats, Houses & a Pineapple: More from my walk in Highgate on Sunday 19th November. You can read the previous part at Almshouses, Museum, Hospital & Shops – Highgate 1989

St Augustine of Canterbury, Church, Archway Rd, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-46
St Augustine of Canterbury, Church, Archway Rd, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-46

This large Anglican church on Archway Road is immediately to the south of the fine parade of shops which ended the previous post. It always looks to me more like a Catholic Church than an Anglican one, probably because of the sculptural decoration on and above its doorway, and my impression seems to be correct.

The church is a product of three leading members of the Art Workers Guild, a body founded in 1994 promoting the ideas of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. It was begun in 1888 by John Dando Sedding (1838 – 1891), one of the Guild’s founders in 1886-7 its second master and the west front shown here was completed in 1916 by his chief assistant Henry Wilson (1864–1934) with the Calvary added then by J Harold Gibbons (1878 – 1957.)

The church describes itself as a “friendly Anglo Catholic parish church” and has recently “due to theological convictions regarding the catholicity and sacramental integrity” of its mission asked to be removed from the care of Dame Sarah Mullally the Bishop of London and has been transferred to the See of Fulham which has a male Bishop.

Houses, Cholmeley Park area, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-21
Houses, Cholmeley Park area, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-21

I walked up Archway, and photographed the Winchester Tavern (not on line) at 206 before turning west down Cholmeley Park where I think I took this picture of a 1930s suburban house with a circular window beside the door and a rounded bay with Crittal windows. I think I felt it was a rather typical building rather than anything exceptional, something I tried to include in my project.

Flats, 55, Cholmeley Park, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-23
Flats, 55, Cholmeley Park, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11g-23

But these flats are clearly unusual, and the facade here was the entrance to the building set up here by the Santa Claus Society in 1890 or 1900 (sources differ) to provide 20 long-term convalescent beds for children with hip and spinal diseases.

The hospital became part of the NHS and was closed in 1954. It was converted by the London County Council in 1954 to provide hostel accommodation for 31 men suffering from tuberculosis who had “reached their maximum degree of improvement under hospital treatment but who cannot be discharged because they are homeless.”

Pineapple, Waterlow Park, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-11h-65
Pineapple, Waterlow Park, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-11h-65

Waterlow Park on a hillside below Highgate Village is one of London’s finest parks and when in the area I’ve often had a short rest in it, finding a suitable spot to eat my sandwiches.

This fine example of a pineapple is beside some steps in the park and I think is one of those produced by Eleanor Coade, who ran Coade’s Artificial Stone Manufactory, Coade and Sealy, and Coade in Lambeth, London, from 1769 until her death in 1821.This hard-wearing architectural material is virtually weatherproof. Coade Stone was produced by a secret process involving double firing of stoneware which died with her final business partner in 1833. It has been revived in recent years by Coade, a company “born due a lack of skilled craftsman capable of restoring the original Coade stone sculpture.”

Pineapples were a common architectural decoration in Georgian and Victorian times, symbolising wealth and fine taste.

Cloisters Court, Cromwell Avenue, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11h-51
Cloisters Court, Cromwell Avenue, Highgate, Haringey, 1989 89-11h-51

I came out of Waterlow Park and crossed Highgate Hill to Highgate Presbyterian Church on the corner between Cromwell Avenue and Hornsey Lane. Designed by Potts, Sulman & Hennings, a fairly short-lived partnership from 1885 to 1891 between Arthur William Hennings, Edward Potts and Sir John Sulman (who left for Australia in 1885) in a Gothic Revival style was completed in 1887. In 1967 it became Highgate United Reformed Church and was converted into flats as Cloisters Court in 1982.

Flats, Hornsey Lane, Haringey, 1989 89-11h-42
Flats, Hornsey Lane, Haringey, 1989 89-11h-42

This fine terrace is at 57-71 Hornsey lane and I think dates from around 1900, probably the late 1890s, and is joined at its west end to a slightly grander central block at 39 at extreme left of the picture, (where are 41-55?) with Linden Mansions continuing to the west to the former church on the corner of Hornsey Lane.

My walk continued down Hornsey Lane – more in a later post.

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Highgate, Swains Lane And Dartmouth Park, April 1989

This is the second and final part of my walk on Friday 7th April 1989 which had started at Gospel Oak station and I had walked up to Highgate. You can read the first part at Highgate April 1989.

Highgate Literary, Scientific Institution, South Grove, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-11
Highgate Literary, Scientific Institution, South Grove, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-11

I took another picture of the Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution, but didn’t explore much more at the top of the hill.

Pond Square, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-22
Pond Square, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4a-22

Though I did take a few more pictures, but have only digitised this one. I was eager to go down the hill again, this time taking Swain’s Lane, by the side of the Literary & Scientific Institution.

Swain’s Lane is rather steeper than West Hill and apparently had got its name from being used by pig herders and was first recorded in writing as Swayneslane in 1492. It provided access to farms on either side and only the top few yards were developed for housing before 1887. Fortunately I was walking down hill and hadn’t brought my bike as riding up this lane would have been something of a challenge.

House, Swains Lane, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-63
Lodge, Swain’s Lane, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-63

Even now much of Swain’s Lane is undeveloped as it runs between one of London’s great cemeteries, Highgate Cemetery and one of its fine parks, Waterlow Park, both behind brick walls with just a narrow pavement. Below Waterlow Park on the east side is the newer part of Highgate Cemetery, which includes Karl Marx’s Tomb.

The Grade II listed building is the picture is the Lodge at the Swain’s Lane entrance to Waterlow Park, built in the mid-19th century in a fine example of Victorian Gothic, though the chimneys are more Tudor. The post at right is for the park gate and I took just a brief stroll inside before continuing my walk. On warmer days I’ve explored the park rather more and sometimes found a bench to eat my sandwiches as well as taking a few pictures.

In 1992 I visited and took some pictures in both the West and East parts of Highgate cemetery, some of which are on-line in Flickr, but on this walk I didn’t have time to stop and just went on down the hill.

House, Swains Lane, Oakeshot Ave, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-52
Mansion, Swains Lane, Oakeshot Ave, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-52

Immediately south of the West cemetery is the Holly Lodge Estate, with mansion blocks on Makepeace Avenue and Oakeshott Avenue. The website tells that in 1809 Harriot Mellon, a young actress acquired a large villa later known as The Holly Lodge here, and after she married banker Thomas Coutts in 1815 both house and grounds were enlarged and landscaped. She died in 1837, leaving the property and her fortune to one of the most remarkable women of the Victorian age, her husband’s ganddaughter, Angela Burdett-Coutts.

When she died in 1906 her husband tried to sell the entire property with no success, but then managed to sell off some of the outlying parts – including Holly Terrace on West Hill and South Grove House, both mentioned in the previous post on this walk but it was not until 1923 that the main part was sold off and development of the Holly Lodge Estate began.

This area was acquired by the “Lady Workers’ Homes Limited to build blocks of rooms and flats for single women moving to London in order to work as secretaries and clerks in the city on the Eastern side of the estate.“

These blocks built in the 1920s had fallen into a poor state of repair by the 1960s and were acquired on a 150-year lease in 1964 by the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras – and so are now owned by the London Borough of Camden. The council for some years continued with the policy of only housing women on the estate but this has now lapsed.

The flats were designed without separate kitchens and with shared bathrooms and toilets as bed-sits for single women – and the estate was built with a long-demolished community block with restaurant, reading and meeting rooms and a small theatre, and behind it three tennis courts. Some of the bed-sits have been converted into self-contained flats but others still share facilities.

Raydon St, Dartmouth Park Hill, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-42
Raydon St, Dartmouth Park Hill, Highgate, Camden, 1989 89-4b-42

I returned to Waterlow Park, making my way through it to Dartmouth Park Hill and on to take thsi picture of some very different housing on the Camden’s Whittington Estate. But by now I was in a hurry and the light was fading a little and I took very few photographs (none online) as I made my way through the streets of Dartmouth Park to Highgate Road and Grove Terrace and on to Gospel Oak station for my journey home.