Wilberforce Rd | >Re-PHOTO

Around Finsbury Park: On Sunday February 25th 1990 I began a walk from Finsbury Park Station

Bookmarks, 265, Seven Sisters Rd, South Tottenham, Haringey, 1990, 90-2f-42 — *Bookmarks, 265, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, Haringey, 1990, 90-2f-42*

The Bookmarks shop was at 265, Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park and was home to the Bookmarks Publishing Co-operative which had been established in 1979 to publish books and pamphlets by members of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). In 1998 it moved to 1 Bloomsbury Street and is now Britain’s largest socialist bookshop and now sells a wide range of “non-fictional and fictional books that concern politics, economics, anti-fascism, anarchism, labour history, trade unionism, arts and culture, anti-racism, the environment, biographies, and feminism.”

Two doors beyond this at 269 was the former entrance to a cinema, built in 1909 as Pyke’s Cinematograph. Later it was combined with the larger Rink Cinema behind it at 10 Stroud Green Road and when I took this picture it had closed as a club and became as a large sign indicates ‘LONDON’S LATEST LUXURY TENPIN BOWLING ALLEY!’ with its entrance in Stroud Green Road around the corner. There is now a Lidl here.

House, 169, Queen's Drive, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-2f-43 — *House, 169, Queen’s Drive, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-2f-43*

After the railway station – at first Seven Sisters Road station – opened in 1869 the area around it was opened up to speculative building, with trains taking workers into the City at Moorgate station in around 15 minutes. This very substantial Victorian detached house was one of those on Queen’s Drive, just a few yards from Finsbury Park and a short walk to the station which would have provided a home for a well-paid city worker and his family and a servant or two.

Houses, Queen's Drive, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-2f-45 — *Houses, Queen’s Drive, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-2f-45*

Further down Queen’s Drive were more very substantial semi-detached residences and although much of the area had deteriorated particularly since the war these houses still seemed in good condition. This was clearly built as one of the posher streets in Finsbury Park and had remained so, although many of these large houses were now dividied into flats and some had been replaced by later and larger blocks of flats.

*House, Brownswood Rd, Wilberforce Rd, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1990, 90-2f-31*

A strikingly vertical house on the corner of Brownswood Road and Wilberforce Rd, though in fact is I think actually only the same height as the house opposite, also with a full height attic window. There are similar houses on all four corners of the junction. The large block of flats looks very near but is on Citizen Road around a kilometre away to the south-west.

Squat, 63, St Thomas's Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-36 — *Squat, 63, St Thomas’s Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-36*

Two adjoining doors of 63 and 65 St Thomas’s Road both have notices on them from the squatters, on the left door warning that the premises are occupied and that any attempt to enter without permission is a criminal act, while on the right visitors are told they need to knock and shout up up to people on the upper floors. Squatting in a residential building in England only became illegal in September 2012.

Stop the Roads, poster, St Thomas's Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-21 — *Stop the Roads, poster, St Thomas’s Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1990, 90-2f-21*

YOUR LAST CHANCE TO STOP THE ROADS states a poster for a march from Kings Cross to Archway on 24 February 1990, the day before I took this picture. In 1989 Margaret Thatcher had outlined plans for a £23 billion trunk road enlargement programme in the Roads for Prosperity white paper, designed to assist economic growth, improve the environment, and improve road safety. It led to years of protest with many schemes being cancelled though others, including the M3 extension at Twyford Down, the Newbury bypass and the M11 link road went ahead.

To be continued

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Blackstock and Brownswood: Continuing my walk from Sunday 1st October 1989 which began at Finsbury Park and continued to the Nags Head before returning to Finsbury Park. The previous post to this ended on Blackstock Road.

*Gillespie Neighbourhood Office, Blackstock Mews, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-63*

The buildings at the right of this picture are those on the left of the final picture in my previous post. Here I wanted to contrast the deco style of the Gillespie Neighbourhood Office at 102 with that of the solid Victorian house next door and its more utilitarian infill at 98.

The border between Hackney and Islington runs here along the centre of Blackstock Road and this is on the Islington side, though I was standing in Hackney to take the picture. I was in Hackney’s Brownswood Conservation Area, but the more interesting side of the road here is not in a conservation area and this Art Deco office does not even appear on the local list.

*House, Brownswood Rd, Wilberforce Rd, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-52*

The development of this area was delayed by the setting up of the park in the area as in the early years of its planning the actual boundaries were not fixed. So much of the area was built up in the 1870s, giving it a unusually homogeneous architecture.

Brownswood Road runs though the area with two peculiar staggered junctions and this picture was made at one of these.

*Frinton Metal Ltd, 145a, Brownswood Rd, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-53*

I think the house number is from Blackstock Road – the scrap metal and Gold and Silver buyer was in the back yard of the house at the left, 145 Blackstock Road. Although there were no ‘TO-DAYS PRICES’ listed for Gold & Silver and the shop was closed on a Sunday, there is a light on inside and I think it was still in business.

Google Maps labels this section of Brownswood Road as Lydon Row and there is no sign that there ever was a business here.

*Mountgrove Garage, 115, Finsbury Park Rd, Finsbury Park, Hackney, 1989 89-10b-56*

I walked a little further on down Blackstock Road and then turned down Mountgrove Road. The house at right is on Mountgove Road and that on the left – along with the garage – in on Finsbury Park Road. Rather to my surprise Mountgrove Garage is still there, now offering ‘MOT Tyres Servicing Bodywork’ and claiming ‘ALL VEHICLES REPAIRED HERE’, though all of the notices in my picture have been replaced. I think it looks rather less impressive now.

*Shops, 162-176, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-41*

Back on Blackstock Road I photographed this nicely detailed row with ground floor shops and facing more of the same on the opposite side of the street. I chose this one for the sign which I think at the top read OFFICIAL BOOKING OFFICE with MOTOR COACHES between the first and second floors and lower down ALL ROAD ROUTES and RAIL SEA AIR.

That sign has I think been restored since 1989 and is clearer now, but the uppermost word, already difficult to read in my picture has disappeared. Rather than a booking office the shop is now a book shop.

*Head, 198-200, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-42*

A little further down Blackstock road was this head above BESTOCK FURNISHING, a secondhand furnishing shop, the kind of place we bought chairs and tables when we were poor, and on the shop front of RITEMARKS LTD FOOTWEAR MANUFACTURERS a variety of symbols – a sunflower and two leaping fish. I think the window between these is a reflection of the building in my next picture.

*217, Blackstock Rd, Finsbury Park, Islington, 1989 89-10b-43*

Built as Highbury Fire Station by the LCC in 1906 it was one of many closed in 1920 after the replacement of horse-drawn engines by motorised fire engines meant that stations could serve a wider area.

As a young man around 1920 my father worked for a short time at Dennis Brothers Limited in Guildford. He was (among other trades) a carpenter, having grown up working with his father making horse-drawn carts, and they were then still making wooden fire engines, as well as ‘charabancs’ – open motor buses. Cutting the curved doors for these was a tricky three-dimensional job and he did it freehand.

Since I photographed it this Edwardian Arts & Crafts locally listed building has been converted into the Little Angel Day Nursery with flats above.

Tag: Wilberforce Rd

Around Finsbury Park – 1990

Blackstock and Brownswood