Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Lost Pubs and The Bricklayers Arms, Edith Road (behind the Springfield Tavern)
Local historian, Albert Pinching (**doffs cap **), briefly mentions this pub on the estate behind The Springfield Tavern so your 'umble obsessive 'ere was delighted to have found this photograph in the Bruce Castle Archive. Scant records reveal it was open from 1896 to 1965 and demolished for housing redevelopment in 1968.
Dated 1964, the sign in the window reads "ALL BEERS served from the WOOD" - i.e. from pwopa wooden barrels made by a traditional Cooper, not them there new fangled metal casks, like. The adjacent premises belonged to Corwin & Son Ltd, Engineers and Pattern Makers who were probably no strangers to the bar next door.
Finsbury Arms, Joseph Wainwright, 65 Truro Road, Wood Green (Beer Retailer section of the UK North London Post Office Directory in 1896.). Joseph Wainwright (aged 58) and his 51 year old wife, Matilda, are listed as living at 'The Finsbury Arms' in the 1891 Census, along with their 15 year old niece, Kate Green. Instead of their occupation being listed as 'Licenced Victualler' the couple are described as 'Ale, wine & sprit dealers'.
No pub or publicans are listed in Truro Road in the 1881 Census. However, 44 year old Licenced Victualler William Morgan and his 28 year old spouse, Annie, are listed as living in Truro Road (no mention of the pub) in the 1871 Census. In the early part of this century, this was being operated as a grocery shop but is now entirely residential. This suggests the sight may have spent much of its history running as an off-licence rather than a pub. Its design is the mirror image of The Prince on nearby Finsbury Road built in 1868, both with single storey side bars with natural lighting for billiards tables:
Alexandra Tavern, also known locally as 'Motts'. The Licenceeship was passed down through generations of the Burry family from 1878 to 1937. In its heyday, it would have been right at the commercial & retail heart of Wood Green (then centered on the Finsbury & Commerce Roads) It closed in 2003 and was later demolished and built over. I member visiting it once in the late 90's and it was in a terrible dilapidated state of decay. I only wish I had the foresight to photograph it as I can’t remember anything about the architecture. APPEAL FOR PHOTOGRAPHS – please post if you have any!
Tags for Forum Posts: bricklayer's arms wood green, wood green history
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mavic Starfish on
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Nice one Richard, great to see the pictures, amazing to see how pub culture is disappearing in front of our eyes. The times they are a changing.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Have you looked in our Wood Green historical images albums? This photo should do it for you.
We have two albums of WG photos. The second is https://www.harringayonline.com/photo/albums/historical-images-of-w... There’s a link to the 1st in the left hand column of that album.
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Permalink Reply by Richard Matz on
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Thanks for the great links, Hugh, but your first link is to The Alexandra Park Tavern - previously on the High Road approximately where Specsavers is now, whereas the one I'm after is The Alexandra Tavern previously at 33 Commerce Road (now occupied by flats since 2003).
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Aha, that’ll teach me to scan read! I’ll check later if I’ve got anything I haven’t put up here, but I don’t think so.
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I've checked and I have no photos of the Alexandra or of that part of Commerce Road. I have one of the road, but it looks like it was probably taken almost outside the pub, facing east towards the high road.
As to the Finsbury Arms, it looks like you're right.
There's nothing showing on the site on the 1869 OS map (surveyed 1863 to 1869), but ten years later in 1879 Thomas Brooks "of the Finsbury Arms, Truro Road" filed for bankruptcy. He is described as "Builder and Licensed Beer, Wine, Spirit and Tobacco Retailer, Grocer, and General Dealer".
Perhaps, it's fair to assume that the premises opened in the five years or so following 1870. It sounds like Brooks sold whatever he could, perhaps because he couldn't get a pub licence.
In 1896 the premises was on the market. The details fall short of referring to it as a public house, but it does sound like it was set up to do trade as one.
In February of the following year, an A Stirling advertised the premises as, what in effect sounds like, an off-licence. One month later, Margaret Sterling had applied for a victualler's licence and been refused. The application was objected to by the owner of the Nightingale tavern, the local church and "others".
In 1914 it is not included in the listing of Middlesex pubs.
Despite this the OS maps showed the building as a pub from 1895 to 1933. By 1952, it is simply shown as number 65 Truro Road.
So the story seems to be that it was built as a pub but, as far as I can tell, no one ever managed to get a licence to run it as one.
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Thanks Hugh
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