Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Local connection at Museum of The Order of St John
I've been meaning to go here for ages, ever since since it was revamped a couple of years back. Finally made it two weeks ago when my parents were visiting Londres and it's a fascinating little place, free entry - oh and is convenient for a drink at the very lovely Jerusalem Tavern.
I chanced upon a Harringay connection and thought I'd share it here. They have a special exhibition on at the moment, celebrating the 125th anniversary of the St John Ambulance Brigade - it includes lots of photos/ ephemera/ diaries from volunteers across the decades. I found a diary from one Francis John Ellis of Harringay - who worked at a volunteer during the Second Boer War in the Portland Hospital, Bloemfontein in South Africa. Pic attached - extract starts; "Monday June 4 1900. Usual duties today. Convoy of sick came in this morning - some of the poor fellows are very, very bad." I did some additional research here and found that he was one of 1,800 volunteers to go when it was realised the Royal Army Medical Corps would not be able to cope with all the casualties.
Anyway, you may not make a special visit for this diary alone but if you like your museums small and quirky (by the way lots of other recommendations here), then it's worth a visit to Farringdon.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks Ant. If anyone's going. also keep an eye out for a rather other Sy John connection. Here's a para I wrote for one of my Harringay Wikipedia articles five years ago. (A full list of the Harringay articles appears below):
"As with western Harringay, the Church was a holder of large areas of land in the east. This included a very large plot of land which ran from St Ann's Road in the north to Hermitage Road in the south and was roughly bounded by Green Lanes and Hermitage Road from east to west. This land was granted to the Hospitaliers of St John’s of Jerusalem shortly after the Norman Conquest. The income from the land would have initially supported their hospital in the Holy Land, tending for the casualties of the crusades and pilgrims to the Holy Land. With Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in the mid-sixteenth century, the land passed to the Crown. In the Dorset map of 1619, the land consisted of eleven fields. These fields are probably the area referred to in contemporary documents as the 'Great Hanger'[17] Sold by the Crown as farm land, it is known that at least some of this land became part of St John's Farm. Of the southern part of this land, it is known that some was retained in public ownership until it was developed in relatively recent times - rating records show some of the southern area as common land owned by the Parish and Manor of Tottenham up to the late nineteenth century."
Wikipedia Series on Harringay History Overview
Prehistory–1750
1750–1880
1880–present
Harringay Arena
Harringay Stadium
Lost cinemasLocations Finsbury Park
Railway Fields
The Salisbury
St Paul's Church
Harringay Station
Harringay Green Lanes StationMost of the St Paul's Church article is not by me and only the historical sections of the station articles were contributed by me (including the surprisingly painstaking task of tacking down the history of the name changes at Harringay Green Lanes!).
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