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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Singing the Blues and All that Jazz: Music at Manor House 1959 - 2004

I've been coming across bits and pieces about mid-twentieth century music in Haringey for about 20 years or so now. I've added a few small snippets about it here and there on this website. One of the places that comes up time and time again is the Manor House pub. Now I've finally decided that it's time to get beneath the rose-tinted reminiscences I read on the web and on social media and to try to piece together a bare skeleton of what went on upstairs at the Manor House in the second half of the last century.

I wasn't 'there' and can't paint from memory. So, I've tried to add some colour and texture by borrowing and sharing some memories found round and about on the internet. Whilst these may add the rose back into the viewing lens, I hope they also help to put some flesh on what might otherwise be quite bare bones.

Because I'm old enough to remember many of the names who appeared at the Manor House, even if often only as a schoolboy, I couldn't help but be impressed by the cast who turn up in my story. However, there are also many names that I'm either not familiar with or about whose music I know next to nothing. So, in trying to get a feel for the scene, I used YouTube to create for myself a soundtrack to my research. It really helped, for example to better appreciate what the sixties may have sounded like upstairs at Manor House.  There's a very definite feel to that soundtrack. For those readers in the same position as me - interested but under-informed - I've added a link to YouTube every time I mention a new band or performer. I've made the linked films as contemporary to the mention as I can and where possible (if the recording is up to it) to a live performance in a venue as similar to the Manor House one as it can be (i.e. relatively small and somewhat rough and ready). I recommend you to click on at least some of the links as you go and let the music play in the background as you read on, as I have done whilst writing.

In mentioning performers in the text, to save the reader from the relentlessness of reciting an exhaustive list of each and every performer year by year, in the main I've mentioned each only on the first occasion on which they appeared at the Manor House. In reality many, but not all, came back repeatedly in a single year or over two, three or four years.

19th Century

The first pub on the site was built by Stoke Newington builder Thomas Widdows between 1832 and 1834, opportunistically next to the turnpike on Green Lanes. Robert Baily, the first of many Manor House Tavern landlords described his establishment as a 'public house and tea-gardens', giving the clue that from the get-go the Manor House was conceived as a place of entertainment.

In 1851 it was purchased by James Toomer. The new owner added function rooms including a banqueting hall and ballroom for which music and dancing licences were held in the following decades. In the later part of the nineteenth century it started being referred to as the Manor House Hotel and began to serve the social functions of the great late Victorian pub-hotel.

Press reports in the late nineteenth century reveal a wide range of events in the function rooms. These included smoking concerts, a 'Bohemian Concert' organised by the 'New Bohemians' and concerts organised by the Finsbury Park Music Society. There was nothing that would reach the level of national notoriety to be attained in the middle of the following century, but it was a good start.

(Information for the first two paragraphs of this section was taken from the history section I wrote for the Manor House article on Wikipedia, where I gave full references.)

20th Century

In 1932, the Manor House Hotel was completely rebuilt and on the first floor a ballroom and other function rooms were constructed to replace the 19th century rooms that had previously served the landlords and the community so well.

With the arrival of the tube on its doorstep, the new venue was well placed to thrive. Press reports show that the new facilities were in use by organisations from across London for dances and the like almost from the day it re-opened. Events held there included a 'Cinderella Dance' organised in support of a hospital in Camden and another organised by the Highgate Harriers a few months before the outbreak of war. 

There is little information about activity at the venue in the decade following the war, but I have come across a couple of clues as to goings-on there. The first refers to a group of ladies from Chelsea who travelled up to the Manor House, 

“... in order to join in the programme of 19th century dances, which are held there from time to time..”

Chelsea News and General Advertiser, 1 March, 1946.

Another comment I picked up on social media recalled an important family memory in the same year.

“My mum met my dad at a club there in 1946.”

Linda Oliver on Faceboook 2024

Taken together, these snippets confirm that there was music-related activity at the venue and perhaps even suggest the possibility of a seed of the more celebrated activity that would follow in the Fifties and beyond.

Downbeat Club 1955 – c. 1972

The Manor House’s musical identity began to come to wider attention when a new club opened upstairs in the mid-1950s. Taking its name from the well-known New York and Soho clubs, the Downbeat Club hosted many of the of the top trad jazz bands of the day as well as singers like Jeannie Lamb and Clinton Ford.

Flyer for the recently launched Downbeat Club (Original mage: Ron Spillet).

One of England's top jazz musicians of the 1950s and '60s, saxophonist Tubby Hayes began a five year long association with the club in 1956. At first appearing at the club with Ronnie Scott, he formed The Downbeat Big Band in 1959 which went on to enjoy a two-year residency there. Playing every Monday, the band was described in Jazz Professional iin 1963 as “... a dynamic 12–strong aggregation, to which many of Britain’s best musicians and writers contributed”. 

Advertisement for the Ronnie Scott-Tubby Hayes Quintet at Downbeat
in Melody Maker, August 18, 1956.

Downbeat Club in Crescendo International magazine,
February, 1972.  (Image: via National Jazz Archive).

Spurs at the Downbeat, Daily Express, 14 February, 1958.

Memories from the web abut the Downbeat Club

“All of the top trad jazz bands played at The Downbeat as well as singers Jeannie Lamb and Clinton Ford.” (April Haddrell)

“I knew it as The Downbeat, saw many up-and-coming singers and groups there: a regular Saturday night venue for me.” (Jean Brewer)

“What a good night we all had, listening too the best of jazz and being able to Jive on the dance floor. It became like a ritual every Sunday night. A whole load of me and my mates would turn up, like clockwork.” (Edward Constable on Harringay Online, 2016)

The Downbeat's success seemingly inspired another short-lived one-nighter at Manor House. Between December 1956 and January 1957, Dixie at the Manor was run on Thursday nights. Performers included Freddy Randall and his Band.

Advertisement in Hampstead News, 20 December, 1956.

Harringay Jazz Club, c. 1959 - c. 1965

1959 brought the Harringay Jazz Club to Manor House. The club had started its life five years earlier at the Salon Bal on Green Lanes in Harringay, opposite Hewitt Road. Its repertoire there seems to have been more traditional jazz. It hosted bands like Ian Bell's Jazzmen, Eric Silk's Southern Jazz Band and Alex Revell's Jazzmen.

Harringay Jazz Club, Melody Maker, September 15, 1956.

The move out of Harringay was occasioned by the untimely sale of the Green Lanes venue in the same year the club had started. By the spring of the following year, the club had found a new home in what was then called the Walsham-How Mission Hall, home to The Russell Vale Dancing School, in the grounds between Willingdon Road and Westbury Avenue, Wood Green.

Teddy Layton's jazz Band advertised at the th Jazz Club in a
Wood Green venue in Melody Maker April 20, 1957.

Through 1958, the club's adverts contained a number of teasing references to Acker Bilk. On November 1, the advert suggested that he would be performing with the headline, "A fabulous post-Halloween "trad" fancy dress ball and jiving contest: Mr Acker Bilk "stirs the brew".

Advertisement, Melody Maker, 26 July, 1958.

Then, after a short spell based at the National Hall on Hornsey High Street, by June 1959 the club had moved to The Manor House pub.

Advert for Bob Wallis's Storyville Jazz Band at the Harringay
Jazz Club at Manor House, Melody Maker, September 3, 1960.

Judging from the weekly listings in Melody Maker, the music performed in the newly relocated club fairly rapidly metamorphosed from Trad jazz to R&B. Performers included Bob Wallis's Storyville Jazzmen,  Jack Dupree and Ken Colyer and his Jazzmen in 1960, Mike Cotton Jazzmen and Mick Mulligan and his Band With George Melly in 1961 and Gerry Brown Jazzmen in 1962. 

The club quickly became a core part of the story of British Blues. The All About Blues Music website recounts the start of the genre with a telling the tale of musicians Alexis Corner and Cyril Davies and a specific mention of Manor House.

"In 1961 the pair formed Blues Incorporated with like-minded jazz players such as Charlie Watts, Jack Bruce, Dick Heckstall-Smith and Long John Baldry. Barber and his friend Harold Pendleton had just set up the Marquee Club in Oxford Street, and made Blues Incorporated the resident band. In 1962, Corner and Davies set up their own Ealing Blues Club which, became the ‘Cradle of British Blues’ as young players got up to jam with the house band and got a taste for performing. At least a dozen famous bands got started in that smoky cellar. The Ealing Club, the Crawdaddy in Richmond, the Manor House, Klooks Kleek in West Hampstead, Eel Pie Island and a handful of other pubs in London, quickly provided the venues where this new ‘British Blues’ took root, and in a few months there was a Blues Club in every town".

All About Blues Music

The club was run by promoters Ron Lesley and his wife Nanda. (The pair also ran a club at the Fishmonger’s Arms in Wood Green and others further afield, notably in Ipswich and Aylesbury). Whilst I was unable to find much about either of the Lesleys, a Melody Maker listing for Ron Lesley's All Star Jazzmen at the Salon Bal in August 1956 suggests that Ron at least may have originally been a performer. 

Before  long, bands that were to become leading names of the decade started to appear in the club. On February 7, 1963, The Rolling Stones performed for the first time at the Harringay Jazz Club. It was the first of six consecutive weekly performances through to March 14.  

Advertisement for The Rolling Stones at Manor House in February, 1963. (Publication unknown). The blurred parts in the lower corners look to have been the same text as in the ad the following week, of which I also have a copy. From that, I surmise that the word in the bottom left is probably "FREE", The top line in the right-hand corner probably says "Harringay Jazz Club Membership Valid".

Bluesville, c 1964-1968

By 1964 the club was being run as the Harringay R&B Bluesville club, the first of what seems to have been yearly name adjustments by the Lesleys. Whatever the name, the enterprising couple attracted some impressive new talent.

The year started with the first of ten appearances that year by Long John Baldry & The Hoochie Coochie Men (including Rod Stewart on vocals, harp, and guitar). Other bands included:

Advertisement in New Musical Express, 1964.

Advertisement May, 1964. (Publication unknown).

“Used to get packed out. Entrance was through door on Seven Sisters I think, straight up some steepish steps, cloakroom (?) then turning left into double doors entering the smallish room at mid length. Stage to left (Green Lanes end) and bar to right corner.  Took an age to get served (Watneys Red Barrel?). And chucking out time was hazardous when the hoards attempted to negotiate the steep stairs down, the bouncers acting as shepherds to ease the crush. Happy days of top musicians belting out their music at just an arms distance. For a few shillings admittance.”

 John Shulver on Harringay Online, 2020

Poster April - May, 1965.

Poster October - November, 1965.

Their guest list in November even included "the most influential bluesman of all", Jimmy Reed.

Jimmy Reed at Manor House, London, 1964. (Image:
 ©National Jazz Archive/Brian Foskett. Used with permission).

By the summer of 1964, there was an apparently experimental name adjustment to "Harringay Bluesville", dropping of the "R & B" part of the name. 

Membership card, c1965.

“Back in the 60’s my friend Sandra and I would never miss Friday night at the Manor House. Three tube trains across London from the East End and a long queue to get in but well worth it. ... Eric Clapton a regular there, the great John Mayall and the Animals. Even lucky enough to see my hero John Lee Hooker. Many of them would pop downstairs to the pub for a drink and a chat in the break. Just a room above a pub but the atmosphere was electric. So many happy memories. For me this club was a follow-on from the Scene Club in Piccadilly as many of the crowd that frequented the Scene changed to the Manor House."

Linda Foleros (Early Blues)

In August 1965 Nanda and Ron once again booked the Animals and Georgie Fame and Billy Fury's former backing band the Blue Flames. Their August gig at Manor House was just a few months after Fame and the band had released their first number 1 single, Yeh Yeh.

1965 also brought The Who to Manor House to inaugurate the new Wednesday night programme. The play list was Daddy Rollin' Stone, Heat Wave, Jump Back, Motoring, Green Onions, Anyway-Anyhow-Anywhere.

Advertisement for the Who at Manor House, 1965. (Publication unknown).

“London's Manor House club held their first pop inn Wednesday session last week — and an all time record audience turned out to watch The Who.”

Nick Jones, Melody Maker, 17 July 1965.

The following acts also appeared at the club in 1965:

August 1965 flyer. Image Glenn Dunford via earlyblues.org.

As 1965 rolled in to 1966, the club's name changed again, dropping the Harringay part altogether. For this one year, the club was known simply as "Bluesville R & B Club" and later "Bluesville Club" or just "Bluesville".

Club first timers included:

Poster from January, 1966.

Poster from February, 1966.

“… it (the club) was jaw-droppingly good. To be able to see someone like John Lee Hooker, born in America’s deep south and that I only knew from hard-searched-for-records, playing in a club a bus ride away, was unbelievable.”

Jackie Badger, bassist in 70s bands Snips, Shark and Mother Superior (Islington Faces)

Poster from May, 1966.

Eric Clapton playing with The Cream at the Bluesville Club on September 2, 1966 (Photo Chris Hollebone).

Poster from December, 1966.

1967 and 1968

For these two years, the club name underwent its now apparently traditional annual change. In the first year it was Bluesville 67: in the second, Bluesville 68. 1968 was also the last year of any Bluesville club at the Manor House. From October 1968, the club moved down to the Hornsey Wood Tavern, on Seven Sisters Road about half-way to Finsbury Park (town).

Memorably, May 12 1967 brought The Jimi Hendrix Experience to the club for their one and only appearance there. (Although Henris was American,  the Jimi Hendrix Experience was an American-English rock band that formed in Westminster in September 1966).

Memories of the Hendrix Performance

"The first time I saw The Jimi Hendrix Experience play live was above The Manor House pub in north London. We queued on the stairs and rushed for the front row. Breathless, palpitating, we were close enough to touch when the group filed onto the narrow stage. During the climax of the act a roadie had to stand behind the amplifiers to prevent Hendrix from pushing them through the pub window into the streets below." (David Toop, The Tatler, September 1990)

"The final number ended in a crescendo of feedback, the band leaving the stage after turning the amps up full, Hendrix pausing briefly to lob his still plugged-in Strat out of one of the windows at the back of the stage. The band didn't return for an encore but I didn't really care. I was listening to the guitar banging against the outside wall in the wind." (Max Anthony)

Advertisement for Hendrix at Manor House, May, 1967.

"I was 17 and it was my first summer in London as a professional singer. One hot, humid evening I heard that the Jimi Hendrix Experience was playing in a blues club above a pub in Finsbury Park. I was flat broke and couldn't afford a ticket, so I went along just to stand outside and listen. It was a tiny venue that only fitted about 300 people, so tickets were at a premium. Hundreds of us were standing outside; others were leaning out of their windows along the street. Out of a black taxi appeared Hendrix, in kaftan and beads. He gave a quick wave and the crowd fell silent, in a sort of reverential awe. In a few minutes, we heard "Hey Joe" coming out through the windows. It was a bit muffled, but you could hear that they had a very clean sound for a three-piece band. In fact, they had everything — blues, jazz, rock, pop and a special swamp-ridden voodoo magic unique to them. I'd heard a couple of Hendrix records in the charts, but I hadn't expected this. I stood there for a couple of hours, out on the street, transfixed."

Paul Rodgers, later vocalist for the bands Free and Bad Company

One of many regulars in 1967 was 'The Godfather of British Blues' John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers (link to live recording of performance at Manor House featuring the original lineup of Fleetwood Mac - Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood).

Other first-timers that year included:

Advertisement for Jeff Beck at Manor House, June, 1967. (Publication unknown).

Flyer June - July, 1967.

Flyer December, 1967.

Mick Taylor performing with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
Manor House in 1967, probably August.

New performers in 1968 included:

Advertisement, January, 1968. (Publication unknown).

Flyer, March, 1968.

Advertisement in Melody Maker, 17 May, 1968.

Advertisement, July, 1968 (Publication unknown).

Flyer, August, 1968.

Flyer, September, 1968.

The last Bluesville to be held at Manor House was on 27th September 1968 when The Taste were performing. An advertisement for the event in the music press included the statement that "Next Friday, October 4th, we move to TEMPORARY PREMISES at "The Hornsey Wood Tavern", 376 Seven Sisters Road, N.4". At the bottom of the ad was the reassuring coda, "We return to the newly decorated "Manor House" in December". They never did.

Poster advertising performances at the club's new home, December, 1968.

Life after Bluesville

In his useful "Raising the bar: the chaotic story of pub rock", Will Birch  provides a helpful explanation of what happened to pub music in London in the 1970s.

“In the early 70s, in the wake of the British blues boom, the smoky, sweaty, sticky-carpeted back rooms of a select few London pubs were where all the best gigs were happening.

“The British blues boom of the late 1960s – a movement kick-started by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers (which famously featured, at various times, guitarists Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor) – came out of the pubs, or at least the clubs that thrived in smoke-filled rooms in numerous boozers dotted around Britain.

“Immediately prior to this, it was those same venues that played host to bands such as the Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds and The Who, in the middle of a decade that gave us Swinging London, recreational drugs and free love. All of this would lead to the invention of rock music, but it was also the dawn of pub rock.”

“… dues-paying (by the well-known bands) on the spit-and-sawdust circuit had simply lost its appeal, and consequently the UK pub and club scene was in steep decline. Symbolically, Klooks Kleek closed its doors in January 1970 with a show by former Mayall drummer Keef Hartley’s band.

Promoter Dave Robinson (who had worked as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix) realised that there were lots of London pubs with little-used function rooms and lots of bands willing to play. He began to approach pub landlords, initially making a beeline for those serving the London Irish community. Early success snowballed and before long the pub rock of the 1970s was born.

The Rainbow Rooms c1970 - c 1977

In the late 1960s, the Manor House pub had been taken on by London Irish couple Vincent and Bernie Daly. That led to the premises becoming one of the network of centres for London's Irish community. The couple managed the premises from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. It became a focal point of the Offaly County association community activities, including monthly and social meetings. 

In 1969, the couple developed one of the upstairs rooms as 'The Rainbow Room' (I imagine named after Marcel Hennequet’s 1933 Art Deco classic Rainbow Room Restaurant above Biba in Kensington). A 'wanted' advertiisemnt in that year shows that they even needed to hire someone to manage it.

Wanted advertisement, 15 September, 1969, Daily Express.

Under the Dalys, a room, which I believe was downstairs, went under the name of The Laramie Room.  It hosted Irish-themed music events. 

Advertisement from Irish Counties Journal,  June 1972.

I have only been able to track down a limited number of verifiable performances in The Rainbow Rooms. Early in the decade, performers included, 

Towards the end of the Daly's tenure or soon after, the pub was also home to a short-lived gay disco called the Rainbow Disco. Run by Bill Wallis every Tuesday and Thursday, its DJ was Nicky Price. A Gay News advert from 1976 shows that it was held in the "Rainbow Room". (Luke Howard in the recollection below remembers otherwise).

Tragically, in the early hours of 23 July 1977 a 32 year old man was killed after leaving the Rainbow Disco and it closed soon after. Nicky Price went on to run Bolts in Harringay in the exact same venue where the Harringay Jazz Club had first started in 1956!

Advertisement for Rainbow Disco, Gay News, Issue 101, 26 August, 1976.

“The Rainbow Disco, housed underneath the Rainbow Rooms in Manor House, was advertised in Gay News as playing all the best in American soul and funk, but also boasted disco music on the playlist.”

Nightclubbing: Gay Clubbing in ’70s London, May 7, 2013, Luke Howard.

Late 1970s - 2000s

Clubs continued to run at the Manor House from the late 1970s and into the early years of this century; though it's not easy to get a clear sense of the exact dates. Some seem to have overlapped, perhaps running on different nights.

Shades 1978 - mid 80s

In 1979, the Manor House pub seems to have been at the centre of the 'mod revival' and the club hosted a number of mod revival bands alongside some metal rock. Bands included,

Advertisement for two bands with contrasting styles in 1979. (Publication unknown).

After the mods the Rockabilly scene took over at Shades,

Embed from Getty Images

Rockabillies at Shades in a series of photos hosted at Getty.

Rockabillies filmed at Shades for what appears to have been a TV documentary - Shades segment starts at 1:11.

The Other Club / The Catacomb 1983 to 1992

From 1983, the club started running as the Other Club. Before long it had changed its name to The Catacomb. Managed till the late 90's by brothers Chris and Sean Brown and their wives Dorothy & Bridie, it ran every Friday and Saturday. The club was originally very goth oriented, but by the end of the decade had apparently become more mixed. Although most of the music wasn't live, occasionally mainly local bands were invited to play. I've heard from a couple of people that amongst the bands to play at the club was King Kurt.

“I went there on the opening night when it was called 'The Other Club' i got addicted to that place. Dave the manager, Tom and Bill on the door and they had a band that played regular.. 'Dance On A Telephone'” (Woodford, 2015, Urban 75).

"OMG! I have been searching for a reference to the Other Club at Manor House in the 80s for years. I wanted to find photos of the crowd to show my son that I did not drop out of the sky wearing tweed and sensible shoes! I will never forget the talk Mohican hairstyles and still have the scar where Richard Jobson’s brother (supposedly) burned a hole in my skirt with his cigarette. It was a madness!” (Jules 65, 2015, Urban 75).

“We used to go there every Saturday night in the early 90's - the mixture of Goths, Indie-Kids, Crusty's, Grebo's & Punks was incredible - the overwhelming smell of Patchouli Oil - the pints of Snakebite and Black - the classic Gothic Two-Step dance to Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, Fields of the Nephilim and The Mission - the moshing to Pop Will Eat Itself and The Wonderstuff - the baggy dancing to Stone Roses and Happy Mondays - the absolute dancefloor carnage that occurred when Smells Like Teen Spirit was played - good times!! “ (Anthony Casali, 2015, Urban 75)

The Posessions playing at The Catacomb, 1987 (Photo: Benny Blackwell)

The Catacomb flyers 1984 (left) and 1985 (right) (Original flyer images: Tony Ganon)

Clubbers Michael Taylor and Paul Marko at The Catacomb drinking Snakebite. (Facebook)

"Catacomb might've been its chosen name coz it was more solidly goth before my time. By the time I started going (late 80s) it was more mixed: goth, indie, 2Tone, rock ..." (Martin Coleston, Facebook).

"My favourite memory has to be that it got so hot that it rained nicotine from the ceiling. nice!” (Blackvelvet, My Heartalnd 2006)

“went there a few times between c.1989 and c.1992, or thereabouts. clearest memory their policy of taking the laces out of toecap boots.” (Pickman’s model, 2015, Urban 75)

“Gothy, but a poppy playlist and the v occasional punch up”. (Mr Moose, 2015, Urban 75)

“How many of us still listen to stuff they played at Catacombs? I still listen to Bauhaus, The Bolshoi, Siouxsie, Sisters of Mercy, Lords of the New Church, The Cramps …. still all on my daily playlist, plus Drac’s Back by Red Lipstique!”. (Jules James, 2022, Facebook)

The Catacomb flyer, 1986 (left) advertisement in HOD magazine, 1988 (right).

Quite a few people recalling their clubbing days at The Catacomb, link their visits there with one to the Queen's Head up by Duckett's Common. Apparently, the Queen's Head was a regular pre-clubbing meet-up.

The Manor Club c.1993 - 2004

The Manor Club, c.1995 (Original image via: Amir Dotan)

The final form of the club was the Manor Club. This ran for about a decade until the pub closed in January 2004.

Other items on Harringay Online tagged "haringey 20th century music" on Harringay Online

Frustratingly, despite various requests to the site's web hosts over the years, the tags for the various parts of the site don't find each other and I've yet to find an elegant way of linking them. So below are links to various items on HoL tagged "haringey 20th century music":

Tags for Forum Posts: haringey 20th century music

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Cheko on Wednesday

Thanks. Great post.

Permalink Reply by Roy aka Smiffy on Wednesday

Superb post, Hugh. What a fantastic collection of cuttings.

Thank you.

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