The Christeys: from the 18th Century Fruit Stalls of Covent Garden, up to Crouch End and St James's Clubland

While looking at an early twentieth century photo of a local pub recently, I noticed a sign above the pub’s door showing a member of the Christey family as licensee. I’d come across the name before, whilst researching the Alexandra Park Racecourse, but I hadn’t found out more than the most basic of information. 

Digging around a bit to see what I could find about the man, it wasn’t long before I’d become ensnared in the family’s story and, after doing some research, I’d traced a family’s journey from the eighteenth-century fruit stalls of Covent Garden up to Crouch End and the surrounding area and then back south again to the heart of establishment clubland. 

I’d come across an intriguing family that was a major force in Hornsey’s pub and club trade during the last decades of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century.  As a bonus, in doing so, I also uncovered some of the untold story of Crouch End’s short-lived Opera House; I’d ferreted out Crouch End’s connection with Murray Mints (the-too-good-to-hurry-mints) and revealed Crouch End’s place in billiards history. 

The furthest back I was able to trace the family was to Thomas Chickley Tiltman, a direct forebear in the paternal line, but, as, you may have spotted, with a surname that didn’t match that of his descendants.

As seems to have become my habit, I got rather carried away, so the intended article became too long to read directly on the web. As a result, it's attached below in what I hope is a much easier to access pdf format. 

This article has produced in pdf booklet format only that can be read on-screen or downloaded  for printing. It has hyperlinks between main text and endnotes, but they don't work unless you download it to your machine. Please contact me to request a download a copy.