Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Building between Beresford and Effingham
Just looking on Google Maps I can see what seems to be a big warehouse between the houses on Beresford Rd and Effingham Rd and was wondering what this is. Is it part of Medlock?
Tags for Forum Posts: denchfield, former shops of harringay, harringay mysteries, medlock
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by AndrewAW1 on
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Yes, that one. I didn't realise it was so big until looking at the map.
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Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on
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Medlocks have the retail lighting showroom on Green Lanes and at the back of the shop is their trade counter for all manner of electrical supplies. Both departments are accessible either through the showroom or from the small customers' carpark at the back. According to the old maps, the land where the warehouse stands was never part of the gardens behind houses in either Beresford or Effingham. The 1914 map shows it as an irregular patchwork of plots with no labelling as to their use. By 1935 the area is occupied by one large building marked "hall" but it doesn't say what sort of hall. By 1955, the hall has gone and has been replaced by a warehouse.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks Dick. The 1894 OS shows that there was a hall there. It wasn't there in 1869, so it was a late Victorian build. You can see that there were entrances from both Beresford and Effingham, suggestive of community use. If you compare the map below with Pete's screenshot from Google Maps above, you can also see that at some point, the Effingham entrance has been significantly widened since the houses were built. Medlock have clearly managed to acquire and then get planning permission to demolish a house on Effingham to create a vehicular entrance.
As a footnote, a little further to the south, you can see a little building in what is now the gardens between Beresford, Allison and Green Lanes. It is in exactly the right location to be the surviving one of the pair of gatehouses to Harringay House.
Click the map to view it full size.
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I was looking at https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/ having put in Medlock's postcode. The 1:2500 maps for 1914 and 1935 show a small building behind two houses in Effingham Road but I think the 1935 map shows also a much larger building marked "hall". The letters are indistinct so perhaps it is some other word. The odd thing is that this larger building is not clearly visible in your 1937 aerial photo. The 1955 maps show that this larger building has been either replaced or modified and relabelled warehouse.
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Strange. I'm not subscribed to Old Maps so can't see the maps you mention in sufficient detail to comment.
I guess the relabelling from hall to warehouse would fit with the 1947 incorporation of Medlock and their move from 580 Green Lanes to 605-609 at around that time.
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I have the answer to most of this now, Dick and will add a separate post soon.
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This 1937 aerial image shows the hall surviving at that date. Just to the south you can see the bigger Allison Hall between Allison and Beresford. God alone knows what possessed the Council to give the current building planning permission (I'm guessing in the 1970s).
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These planning applications from the Seventies (notably the second entry from 1971 and the last, from 1977) probably hold most of the story (again, click the image to enlarge it). I'm sure you can get copies if you contact the Council. My guess is that was originally built as a community hall (given Dick's map reference showing it labelled a "Hall") had by the seventies been taken over by Medlock. It looks like they then applied to further develop the site for light industrial use. On a classic masterstroke of seventies planning, the application was approved.
Worth checking, if it's not too late, you could suggest that the site is zoned for housing development on the current Haringey site allocation plan. Jewson's on Wightman is already zoned in this way.
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One last thing, then I'll leave this thread alone. Picking away just now, I've discovered a little more about Medlock's which opens up all sorts of possibilities for their relationship with land in Harringay.
First I came across a reference to a 1959 catalogue for Medlocks in Harringay. This takes back their time in Harringay for longer than I'd realised.
This record also tells us that the company was styled at that time as James G. Medlock and Sons Limited, Harringay.
Via Google search, this mention led me to a second find. On the website of Medlock's lighting subsidiary, Lightplan, they say that their business was founded in Harringay in 1910. This not only makes them probably Harringay's oldest business, but it opens up all sorts of possibilities about their relationship with the land between Beresford and Effingham.
From the Electrical Review and Electrical Times, in 1947, I find that James G. Medlock was registered as a new company in that year and used to be further south on Green Lanes at number 580 - now Sama Foods. Since they were taking over a business run by James G Medlock, it looks like this was simply the incorporation of what had been a smaller family business.
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It just came to me that there was a related discussion about a mystery door on Beresford a few years back.
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Permalink Reply by Flower on
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I can clear up the mystery of the widened passageway into Medlocks from Effingham Road. My oldest friend of 70 years was brought up in the house to the left of the entry, No. 126 I think. You can imagine her shock on being driven down Effingham Road to discover that the house had been razed to the ground and was part of the widened entry to Medlocks. Probably in the 1970s. Looking at the Google map above you can see a feint mark on the concrete which would have been where the house stood.
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