Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Latest Evening Standard one-pager on life in Harringay

Many of you wil have seen the Standard's latest one page on Harringay as a prospect for folk looking for a peg to hang their hat. Nonetheless, I'm posting the article by Harringay local James Read for those who haven't and for the record.

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Permalink Reply by Sixfaces on March 4, 2023 at 11:04

Hello, that's me! Thanks for posting Hugh.

Aware that the photo at the top is Lo Sfizio, not Yasar Halim, but that's the perils of a phone interview!

If anyone wants to know anything about fermentation, my book is available now at All Good Bookshop (and all other good bookshops).

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Permalink Reply by Sixfaces on March 4, 2023 at 13:50

Ahhh nice, kimchi jjigae is the best! There's a recipe for it in the book - it my wife's favourite use of kimchi.

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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on March 4, 2023 at 11:45

James Read (?Sixfaces) or his interviewer mentions 'Athens Grill on Whiteman Road'. Is he sure it isn't on Blackboy Lane? As a resident wightman, I demand a change.

And of course, the Ladder is not the ladders. Been saying that for years.

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Permalink Reply by John Leeming on March 10, 2023 at 10:38

They didn't get it right the second time, either ("Wighman" Road at the bottom of the page).

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on March 4, 2023 at 12:28

A couple of notes of interest, James. With regard to Google maps, they used to allow editing of area names by map users. That has since been revoked. Back when I started doing all this, the Harringay name was in danger of being forgotten and the council was trying to rechristen our neighbourhood as Green Lanes. So, I wrote a series of overly long articles on Harringay and its history on Wikipedia and set to getting Harringay on Google Maps (those sorts of things seemed to matter more back then). That took four years, which I documented here. I've had some success with saving the name, but I think it remains on the endangered list.

I then put Harringay Warehouse district on the map. Whilst the term doesn't have a long historical pedigree, it was the name being used by the 'warehouse’ residents and it does genuinely reflect the history of that area. So I had no issues with it. (See here).

For some inexplicable reason, both Harringay and Crouch End areas have since been removed by Google and a few times I’ve tried to get them to put it back. I’ve been unsuccessful. So I’ve given up. (Amazingly Wood Green stayed stubbornly off the map until I drew it up and added about four or five years ago - apparently. it was the last London district to have been added to Google Maps.)

With regards to Finsbury Park, we didn't 'alf-inch it. It was historically part of Hornsey Parish and then the borough going back many centuries. The area to the south of it, was also part of Hornsey. For a while it was administratively governed as South Hornsey. The area now covered by the park used to be Hornsey Wood. For most of the eighteenth and up the the mid-nineteenth century, the former manor house of Brownswood Manor, Hornsey Wood House / Tavern, was a popular weekend spot for Londoners, who'd walk out for a day's roustabout entertainment. (I added a marker to Google maps some years back, showing pretty much exactly where it was - goo.gl/maps/ZTVN283vGEBdu47J6). In the nineteenth century, it was a popular spot for pigeon-shooting and the now terribly respectable Hurlingham club was formed there. (More about the tavern in one of my Wikipedia articles.)

The way 19th century development happened, particularly the railways, physically and psychologically cut the park off from Harringay and the rest of Hornsey borough. Also it was managed by an out of borough body. But it has always remained within Haringey and administratively in Harringay. Even those shops and the pub on Seven Sisters Road, between the park and Stroud Green Road are part of Harringay (and so of Haringey).

The railways also cut Harringay off from Hornsey. The Harringay Park estate used to include all of the land running up to Tottenham Lane, including where the station was built and right along to about where Inderwick Road is. That used to all feel part of a unified entity. The railway line changed that, especially as it grew from two tracks to the many that form today's impenetrable barrier.

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Permalink Reply by Sixfaces on March 4, 2023 at 13:54

Thanks Hugh, both for explaining that and for your work in preserving Harringay. Really, really interesting. Now I know!

I do vaguely remember when Google Maps used to be more editable, in part because of my immense frustration that our old postcode (on Harringay Gardens) used to endlessly get directed to adjacent roads, which was a right pain in the arse for cabs. I tried a few times to change it - I can't remember if I was successful, but now I've moved it doesn't bother me so much anymore anyway!

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Permalink Reply by Straw Cat on March 7, 2023 at 0:49

Checked and indeed, the names Crouch End and Harringay have been cancelled and erased from the map! Strange. Perhaps invasion by the Russians is feared. Anyway you could turn your energies to editing OpenStreetMap which still has the names, is fully editable and IMHO, is much better than google maps.

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on March 7, 2023 at 1:38

I've been on that for a while. Have also done things like adding sites of Harringay House, Hornsey Wood House, Eel Pie House etc. Even had a mad period of doing Ladder vegetation and then buildings / house boundaries in a small part of the Ladder. The reason I focussed on Google for the area names was due to its influence. Sadly OSM doesn't have that.