Brent Cross - the historical link with Harringay

Stretching things a bit, but there is a link of sorts between Harringay and Brent Cross.

My curiosity was piqued when in commenting on their memories of the 1976 drought on another post MS mentioned the opening of Brent Cross Shopping Centre in 1976. I'd never given the shopping centre's past a single thought. So I decided it was worth 5 minutes Googling. 

Here's a brief summary of what I found and an explanation about the link with Harringay.

Where Brent Cross Shopping Centre is today was a farm called Renters. Renters was owned by Geoffrey de Renter in 1309.

Until the 17th Century much of Renters was woodland and was used for making charcoal in the Tudor period. The farmhouse and much of the 52-acre site that became the shopping centre was used for Hendon Sewage works in the Nineteeth Century. However this was closed down in 1936 and the site was given over to allotments.

The south-western corner of the site (now the Stadium Car-Park) was formerly the Hendon Greyhound Stadium. (And there's the Harringay link - interesting how these two areas of London land, where the need for their Victorian purpose had declined by the first third of the 20th Century, both became greyhound stadia. Then when the call for that had declined by the late 20th Century, they both became shopping malls - and so back to Brent Cross.

An underground station, Brent, opened in 1923, and the area became commonly known as Brent. The flyover built in 1965 on the North Circular Road, took the name of the  crossroad that preceded it, "Brent Cross".

Brent Cross shopping centre opened in on March 2 1976 with 75 shops and was revolutionary for its time. The American-style centre introduced air conditioning and late-night opening every weekday to strike-hit, recessionary Britain. At the time most shops across the UK still closed on half-days during the week. The centre now has 120 stores after it was extended in 1995.