Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
The plan to make Green lanes the main arterial road to the north (in 1943)
I was in the Museum of London Docklands on Sunday (highly recommended) & I spotted a map of the 1943 "Country of London Plan" that was drawn up to plan a post-war London:
If you look more closely you can see that the main north bound arterial road is in fact....Green Lanes:
- the Stoke Newington reservoirs are very clear, as is Finsbury Park
The County of London plan was drawn up by Sir Leslie Patrick Abercrombie and John Henry Foresaw, but seems to be much less well known than the 1944 Greater London Plan, also produced by Abercrombie.
There's a film about the County of London plan on the Guardian web site & a photo showing its presentation in this article - you can see the Green Lanes arterial route on this photo too.
Tags for Forum Posts: green lanes, harringay traffic study, traffic, wightman road, wightman road alignment
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Chris Barker on
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Abercrombie certainly planned for Green Lanes to be a main road: in fact it was to be the London end of the Great Cambridge Road. This would run around the Roundway west arm, continue down Downhills Way (which is the reason why the houses on that road are set well back) and then along the line of Belmont Road and Glenwood Road to join Green Lanes near the Salisbury.
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Permalink Reply by michaelw on
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Thanks Hugh - that's very interesting.
Worth noting the 'elevated roads' - it was the impact of the elevated West Way that killed off these schemes in London (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westway_(London)).
Also in the 'new roads' category you have the over-large junction at the North end of Wightman road (which was built and is still there), plus Green Lanes going south (what destruction would this have caused?), and also West Green road.
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Apparently there was a plan for Wightman Road to be part of a 'North London Radial' road, which would have started at Kings Cross:
"...Continuing north, the motorway would claim the western edge of Finsbury Park itself and take out the whole of the B138 Wightman Road, reaching another interchange at the A504 Turnpike Lane. Existing roads would be improved from this junction to provide a link to the A10. Staying alongside the railway through Wood Green, the next interchange would be with the Ringway 2 North Circular Road at New Southgate."
From the 'roads.org.uk' site, which also maps the route:
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks for the link. That's a useful addition to the plan for the Wood Green Bypass and feeder road that Stephen highlighted above some years back.
In fact, it wasn't a wholly unimplemented plan. The realignment of Wightman/Hornsey Park Roads was a part of a similar local scheme that was almost certainly influenced by the GLC masterplan. It did get completed and this in effect part-implemented the 'motorway' scheme.
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