Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
The hidden industry on the Warner Estate
I was recently contacted by a local resident who was trying to find out more about a building which used to stand on her road. She wrote,
On older maps and aerial photos from just after the war there is a large building or range of buildings where the 1980s development Wavel Mews now sits. On the 1951 Ordnance Survey map, it is labelled No.71 Priory Road. Any insight as to what this building was?
I’m not an expert, but just my sort of challenge.
I’ll start by pinpointing exactly where this site is: it’s on the south side of Priory Road, adjoining Priory Park to its east and south. To its north are five houses on Priory Road (now numbered 73 to 81). To its west are six houses on Park Avenue South (numbered 96 to 104).
Fig. 1: Ordnance Survey map surveyed 1910-11 (western section) 1893-94 (Eastern section) (National Library of Scotland)
Directly to the north east, St George’s Church was built at the corner of Priory Road and Park Avenue South. Destroyed by bombing during the Second World War, it was replaced by Hornsey Fire Station some years later.
The first building on my interlocutor's site were erected in the first part of the early 1900s as the Warner estate was built up.
Fig. 2: St George’s Church, c1905
The house in front of “number 71” was 73 Priory Road. Built as one of an unmatched pair of semi-detached houses, it was originally called Avenue House.
Fig. 3: 73 and 75 Priory Road (Google Maps). Note the slight castellation of the top of the window bay.
In 1904, builder Jessie Dunmore bought the plot of land between the corner of Park Avenue South and Priory Park, part of the estate being sold off by the Warner family of The Priory. He built, or had built for himself number 73, and adjacent to it, four other houses. The corner plot was resold to the Church. As you can see from the contemporary photo above, number 73 was significantly larger than its neighbour. Since studying the development of our local area, time and time again, I've come across builders who have built one house larger and fancier than the others for themselves. It also seems to have been common that one feature builders would add to their own property was an adjacent yard for their own business use. For Jessie, this lay behind his house with a convenient driveway running alongside his house for access. He left the space behind his house, "number 71" for use as his contractor's yard.
Jessie was born in Crouch End in 1858. His father, Thomas, a labourer, lived with his family on Park Road. The property was on the edge of the small working class area developed in the 1860s on the triangle between Middle Lane and Park Road.
A decade after Jessie was born, the family moved round the corner to New Road and Thomas described his occupation as 'Contractor'. By the time of the 1881 census, Thomas was a 'Contractor and Corn Dealer', employing 22 men and living at 1 Park Road, on the corner of Middle Lane. 22-year-old Jessie was still living with his parents and his occupation was given as ‘shopman’. I assume he was helping out in the corn dealer's shop.
Fig. 4:Middle Lane from Park Road, c1900, probably after Thomas Dunmore’s time, but the building he occupied was still running as a corn dealer (Photo from the collection of Ken Stevens)
Another ten years on and the 1891 census shows that Jessie's parents had moved to 32A Broadway, above what is now the hardware shop almost opposite Waitrose. Thomas was described as 'contractor and bricklayer'. Jessie and his young family had taken up residence at 9 Topsfield Road. By this point Jessie’s occupation was given, like his father’s as contractor.
Fig, 5: 9-17 Topsfield Road (Google Maps). Jessie and his family lived first and number 9 (far left) then moved to number 13.
Behind 32 Broadway , Dunmore kept a large yard for his contractor's business. Below, 32A Broadway, the shop was leased by Hornsey architect, John Farrer, who was the architect responsible for the Warner Estate, built over the grounds of the Priory, to the west of Hornsey Village. Whether the colocation of Thomas Dunmore's premises and Farrer's was the result of a pre-existing relationship, or the making of one, we do not know, but it seems very unlikely that Jessie Dunmore's activity in and subsequent residence on Priory Road was did not come from that connection.
Fig. 6: 1893 Ordnance Survey map showing 32 Broadway and the large yard behind. (The entrance to the yard ran alongside number 32, by the letter 'D' of Broadway). (Image: National Library of Scotland)
By 1901, things appear to have gone well for Thomas. The census of that year showed him at 70 Crouch Hall Road, working as a Road and Sewer contractor and ranked as an employer rather than a worker. A general servant was given as part of their household.
Fig. 7: Jessie's step-up in the world, his home in 1901, 70 Crouch Hall Road (Google Maps)
Before the decade was out Jessie had moved to Avenue House, 73 Priory Road.
Fig. 8: Priory Road, c1905, looking west across the entrance to the park and towards Jessie Dunmore’s house. His boundary wall is just visible.
Some years later, as the First World War ended, Jessie turned 60 and retired. With more time on his hands, like so many builders before him, Jessie made the transition to local politics. Between 1919 and 1921, he served two terms as the Mayor of Hornsey.
With his yard no longer needed for business, Jessie lost no time in finding a tenant. By 1920, Argyll Motor Company had moved in. The company had two claims to fame. The first related to its heritage, the second to its association with another well-known Hornsey car company.
Argyll is said to have been born out of the collapse of Argyll Motors, Scotland’s largest early twentieth century car manufacturer, (I have to admit to having had no idea that Scotland ever had any car manufacturers, let alone a ‘largest’ one). The company had started in 1899 and within a decade had set up in a grand looking factory in Alexandria, West Dumbartonshire and was making fine motor cars like the Argyll Flying Fifteen.
Fig. 9: Argyll’s Dumbartonshire Motor Works (Photo: Lesley Mitchell, Wikipedia, used under Creative Commons licence)
Fig. 10: Argyll Flying Fifteen made from 1910, designed by John Meredith Rubury who was later to be associated with the Priory Road premises. (Photo: Wikipedia, used under Creative Commons licence)
Sadly for Argyll, business didn’t progress well and by 1914 the company had been all but been wound up. I haven’t been able to find any evidence of a direct line between Argyll in Scotland and Argyll in Hornsey, but there’s that there was certainly more than a coincidence of names.
Automobiles of the World An Encyclopaedia of the Car listed Argyll (London) Motor and Engineering Company Ltd (Rubery Lindsay at Priory Road. John Meredith Rubury was the designer of Argyll’s Flying Fifteen).
In November, 1920, a journalist writing in The Motor-Owner magazine confirmed the link between Rubery Lindsay and Argyll when he wrote, “Here what’s this Rubery-Lindsay at £300? – It’s new to me. It is a new car not entirely unconnected, with the Great house of Argyll, late of golden dome fame. It has to be looked into.” So, there was some sort of link, but I suspect not one of direct commercial descent (but I’m happy to be proved wrong).
Argyll Hornsey wasn’t just concerned with cars, however. According to former Argyll Hornsey employee Robert Rust, writing in a Hornsey Historical Society Bulletin, “The main part of the enterprise was a large machine shop which occupied about three quarters of the building. This was involved in the manufacture of railway maintenance equipment.... It also made those trolleys that you see in old films where two men pumped handles up and down to propel them”.
Fig, 11: St George’s Church after the war. To the right of and behind the church, the 71 Priory Road premises are just visible.
Fig: 12: the premises in the immediate post-war period form the 1947 Ordnance Survey map. (National Library of Scotland).
Argyll’s second claim to fame was its association with Lotus Cars. The nascent enterprise was set up by Colin Chapman and Colin Dare in a ramshackle premises behind the Railway Hotel pub on Tottenham Lane, run by Chapman’s father. In the early days of the business, Argyll bored out Austin 7 engines for the two young entrepreneurs to put into their Lotus vehicles.
Fig, 13: Advertisement from Kelly's Hornsey Directory, 1936.
Argyll stayed in Hornsey until 1964. The following year an was made for the premises to be demolished and replaced with lock-up garages. However it appears from a map and a plan which are part of the records of the 1987 planning application in the archives of Haringey Planning that nothing much as changed on the site as far as structures are concerned since Argyll days. The records suggest that the main part of the site may have been in use as a car body repair shop by a company called Questcross Motors.
Fig. 14: Map from the 1987 planning application records.
Fig. 15: Site plan from 1987 planning records, showing what was probably Argyll's building still in place on the eastern section of the site.
In 1987, as housing prices rocketed, sixteen houses were built as Waverley Mews.
You can read Robert Rust's memories of working at Argyll in the 1950s in the Hornsey Historical Society's Bulletin, No. 42, available as a back-copy for just £1.50 from the Old Schoolhouse on Tottenham Lane, or online at hornseyhistorical.org.uk/hhs-bulletin-42.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ken Stevens on
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My postWW2 childhood memories were of Argyll Motors behind the houses at 71 Priory Road. Over the access lane, I seem to recall a signboard between the house and the tennis court side. That there was a workshop there was also evident by it abutting the playground in the park, with occasional industrial noises emanating.
I'm not aware that the first house had anything to do with the works by my time. On a Hornsey FB group, a gent recalled living at 73, confirming that it was Argyll behind it but he made no mention of a personal connection. Perhaps the fact that the house is larger than the others simply reflects the builder/owner treating himself to more space.(That is the case with my friend in our village, who lives in what had been the builder's house!)
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" by 1914 the company had been all but been wound up. I haven’t been able to find any evidence of a direct line between Argyll in Scotland and Argyll in Hornsey, but there’s that there was certainly more than a coincidence of names."
From a study of adverts (ebay has a few ), Argyll Scotland was still around in 1920. Various adverts refer to the London company as agents. I'll make a wild guess that the London company was permitted to use the Argyll name to promote their agency but that at some point the business arrangement ceased and the London company continued in business as general engineers/agents under their same name.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Some of the detail I intentionally omitted included the following:
"The final blow for Argyll came in 1914 following a lawsuit brought by Daimler, which Argyll won, but the costs led to bankruptcy and production ceased and the factory sold.
Car production was resumed on a small scale after the war under new ownership. The first product from the new company was a revival of the pre-war 15·9 hp model, but few were sold.The company made a final appearance at the London Motor Show in 1927 and the last cars were probably made in 1928 though still advertised until Argyll closed in 1932."
There could have been commercial link between a very much weakened Scots company and a London one: I don't know, but I'm pretty sure its not as direct as as been suggested. There was also an Argylls (London) which I think did have a link with the Scots company. I stopped digging at that point! The info was hard to get at and the gains of finding it too small.
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Permalink Reply by eric orros on
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Great read, I lived at 73 Priory road from the age of 3, my father purchased it in 1957 for £3,500 and it was family home for about 40 years. For many years 2 signs almost on Priory Road advertised the garage and the 2 or 3 pumps which served the public. Spent a few years playing in the bombed out church grounds until the fire station was built. 75 was occupied many many years by 3 sisters by the name of Case think they were all ex teachers, lovely people. Next door to Priory park, the yearly fair, seeing the night racing at Alley Pally from by bedroom window, Queens and Highgate Woods up the road, Newt collecting at old derelict open air pool in Alley Pally grounds near the metal gates across Campsbourne. The closest I ever got to watching the tele was walking past the BBC on my way to the boating lake or fair and looking back to the only skyscrapper on the horizon the GPO tower and not forgetting Alley Pally airport well that's what we called it when got on our bikes, no fancy makes than, it was either a knackered Raleigh or a knackered old Raleigh. We would start at the road by the 233 bus and then cycle as fast as you could down the grassing slope toards the horse race track, rarely got past the 2nd paveway without being thrown off. Great memories. Wasn't the Argyl garage part of the war effort in its own way ?
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Your house really had pole position, Eric, for its location and views. Didn't even have to go far for a bombed site to play in ;-)
A neighbour's daughter, Pamela, occupied one of the other houses. Don't know her married name but I would have been about 8 years old when they had the wedding party in back garden, (I won't guarantee the accuracy of a memory dredged up from 60 years ago!)
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Hi Eric, How wonderful to have your contribution. That must have been a great old house to grow up in and so many exciting things nearby for children.
I imagine that Argyll would have been in a position to contribute its engineering expertise to the the war, but I didn't come across anything specific in my quite quick research.
£3,500 wasn't cheap. Did you father's purchase include the garage plot, or had it been separated by that point?
Do you know if any photos survive, particularly of the garage plot?
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Hi Hugh , we had a garage at the bottom of our garden , ours was the only one of those 5 houses to have a rear garage. The garage faced the 1st “workshop ” set of doors remember Argyl had a small outside loo to the left then a couple of petrol pumps then a 2nd large “workshop”then further on towards park Ave south were the line of garages I assume to rent. Dad gave a few photos on the park garden , I’ll see if I can find some
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Hugh, many thanks for another fascinating piece of research. My uncle Ronald Bond (1913-2011) worked at Argyll Motors for the whole of the WW2 period. He wrote an account of his experiences there which was published in the Hornsey Historical Society’s Bulletin, No. 23 (1982). This is probably unobtainable as a back number but to help answer your question I have transcribed the following extract:
'What were we making? Aircraft parts at first, then a long-running job machining the rear end-cap of the Mk 1 Sten Gun – the gun that armed the Resistance all over Europe. The regular peace-time products had also to continue. These included drilling machines for the bolt holes in the ends of railway lines, gauges for measuring how far railway track sunk when a train passed over it, plate-layers’ trolleys, three-wheeled low-loading trucks for factories, and a flight simulator for the Air Training Corps at Alexandra Palace. An enjoyable job of my very own was the turning of a set of spindles for centrifugal pumps used in a paper mill in the Chilterns. Several different diameters, some with right-hand or left-hand threads, and fashioned out of round steel bar five feet long and five inches diameter.'
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Thank you, John. How excellent to have another contributor with a personal connection to this.
Thank you also for bringing my attention to your uncle’s article in the HHS Bulletin and anwering the question about how Argyll contributed tge the war effort.
As you suspect, Bulletin number 23 is now out of print. However, I’m sure I can get a copy of the article from the Old School House. (I was invited to sit on the publications committee late last year. So I tend to visit the building more often than I used to.)
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John, I did get or already had a copy of HHS Bulletin 23. Unlike Bulletin 42 which also has memories of working at Argyll in the Fifties, Number 23 is out of Print. So, I'm reproducing the text below. If you want to see 42, you'll need t buy a copy at the HHS!
A Wartime engineering works: Argyll Motors, Priory Road
Ronald Francis Bond
Although I never lived in the Borough of Hornsey I have had many contacts in the area and, particularly with Priory Road. I first remember the road from childhood journeys, usually in the company of my father, from my home in Tottenham to Alexandra Palace and back. The return journey was by tram to the 'Wellington' so we had to traverse Priory Road. My lasting impression is of a broad, tree-lined, pleasant road that always looked sunny and tidy. The shops gave me an impression that I was in the hinterland of a seaside town. Do I remember correctly that there was a sweet shop with a glazed canopy over the forecourt and, inside, a circular cast-iron table and two bentwood chairs on which customers could sit to drink a glass of lemonade or ginger beer? In the early thirties, when a lanky youth and unemployed, I would walk to Muswell Hill via Priory Road just to pass away the time during that melancholy period.
It was the Second World War that brought me into daily contact with Priory Road. I had been working in a West End advertising agency as a typographer when the war started. My hobby had been model-making and I had equipped a workshop and installed a small lathe at my parents' home. Working on the old soldier's maxim, 'never volunteer,' I was awaiting the call to the armed forces and I thought that I would fill in my time by doing something more useful than advertising. So I got a job as a centre-lathe turner at Argyll Motors. Argyll Motors was tucked in behind the houses in Priory Road and Park Avenue South and formed part of the western boundary of Priory Park. It had been the London depot of a Glasgow motor manufacturer of the Edwardian era. The Glasgow works had been notable for having a machine shop with a parquet floor. The London depot did not have a parquet floor. Far from it. When I went there the building still showed evidence of its earlier use which was, possibly, that of a cartage contractor. Brick-built in garden wall bond and with the slate and glass roof supported on steel-framed trusses, it covered a wide area and had had a smaller version of itself added to the west side. The eastern side of the building had still the evidence of stalls for stabling horses. The owner of Argyll Motors was a Mr. Lindsay and he had run the business as a motor repair works and filling station. Before the War they had been associated with speedway racing, presumably at Harringay Stadium. The main area of the building was open space where cars for repair were stored. On the right of the front entrance, behind the high sliding doors, was a general office with a time-clock outside. Then an office for the owner and his manager. On top of these, up a flight of steep steps, was a coach trimmer's workshop. All these enclosed spaces were painted a sad green and were covered with the dust and grime mechanics, Years. Beyond were the car partition two thirds of the way down. On the left side, where the stalls had been, was a store for motor parts, a paint shop. a panel-beating bay and a forge with anvil, water tank, a tank of whale oil, and a furnace. The water and the whale oil were for hardening and tempering steel and the furnace was used for soaking mild steel parts in charcoal so that they absorbed carbon and could then be hardened on the outer skin by quenching the red hot pieces in water or oil. Beyond the partition was the machine shop equipped with lathes, milling machines, drillers, a precision grinder, a shaper and a surface plate. Most of the lathes had been acquired secondhand and five of them must have been already well-used when purchased in 1914. All this lot were driven by a large D.C. electric motor through overhead shafting, pulleys and belts. electricity supply was D.C. because it came from the power station in Tottenham Lane which had not converted to A.C. by 1939. I seem to remember the changeover came in 1944.
I was interviewed by the foreman, a plump, brisk Devonian in his fifties, with grizzled curly hair and a khaki warehouse coat. The mention that I had my own workshop sealed the deal for it transpired that he too was a model maker and constructed 3½ in. gauge steam locomotives in his precious spare time. I started on the next Monday at 8 a.m. and was put to work on a 4 in. Myford bench lathe, one of two tucked into the stable area and adjacent to the back door into the yard. My first task was to turn from 1 in. diameter brass rod the moving part of a safety valve for the steam heating system fitted to the Hereford bomber.
My wage was one shilling (5p) an hour - sixpence (2½p) less than the minimum rate in an establishment that recognised a trades union. The unemployment of the thirties had encouraged this sort of thing and the work force was composed of men who had sold their labour cheap in order that they could continue in work. They were too cowed to ask for a rise and dared not join a union for fear of dismissal. Illogically, too, some of them were anti-trades unions. But the war was changing things. The first development came around the time of Dunkirk. Beaverbrook was in charge of the Ministry of Aircraft Production and was stirring his civil servants to ensure that evefry ounce of manufacturing capacity was brought into use. We went on to a twelve-hour day and, for two months, a seven-day week. There was unused machinery at Argyll Motors and this was pointed out by the men in the workshop. The response was so lethargic that we all decided to send a telegram to Beaverbrook to move matters on. On my way home to dinner that day I called in at Decker's bakery shop in Westbury Avenue - they also ran a sub-post office - and despatched the message. The response was prompt. Two men from the Ministry were with us in four days and arrangements were made to find work for the idle machines.
This encouraged my workmates and I told them that they ought to be in the Amalgamated Engineering Union - now the AUEW. A meeting was held one dinner hour in a shelter in Priory Park.
There were only two doubters among the two dozen or so of the machine shop staff and the rest of us joined Wood Green No.2 Branch of the AEU. Subsequent meetings were held in a small room in the Moravian Church the other side of Priory Road. We then set about raising our wages and working conditions. Consultation with the North London District Secretary, Jack Reed, led to a visit to the works of the Organiser, the well-known Claude Berridge. His negotiations with Bernard Middleton, the manager, led to rises all round to bring us up to the minimum rate for the job.The next step was the institution of a Joint Production Committee. Again we met a reluctance. What was there to talk about?', 'It would undermine managerial functions', were the arguments we had to counter, but finally a grudging agreement was obtained with the proviso that the committee did not meet in working hours. Considerable improvements followed. We were taken into the confidence of the firm when new products were to be introduced. Better use was to be made of machines and equipment. Personal tools could be purchased with the benefit of the firm's trade discount. A small canteen was set up - and saved us the time spent in making our own tea - and washing facilities improved slightly.
What were we making? Aircraft parts at first, then a long-running job machining the rear-end cap of the Mk 1 Sten Gun - the gun that armed the Resistance all over Europe. The regular peace-time products had also to continue. These included drilling machines for the bolt holes in the ends of railway lines, gauges for measuring how far railway track sunk when a train passed over it, plate-layers trolleys, three-wheeled low-loading trucks for fac-tories, and a flight simulator for the Air Training Corps at Alexandra Palace. An enjoyable job of my very own was the turning of a set of spindles for centrifugal pumps used in a paper mill in the Cilterns. Several different diameters, some with right-hand or left-hand threads, and fashioned out of round steel bar five feet long and five inches diameter.
Of the men I worked with I remember the Bertram brothers, Ted and Fred; Len Lush, who was the envy of us all as he never grew hair on his face and never had to shave; Harry Parr, an engine fitter from Hull, who made beautifully finished gauges for keeping railway lines the correct distance apart; and Lily, the girl of Italian ancestry who would not wear a cap and lost a lot of hair and scalp in a drilling machine. Charlie the painter, a Suffolk man, would tell of the night his wife left the linen line up in the yard; in his usual state of intoxication he let his horse find the way home drawing the trap in which he sat, only to be yanked out and dumped on the stones as the clothes line caught him under the chin. A later addition to the staff was Tom Parry who had been with Charlie Chaplin in Fred Karno's Army. Tom came from the Parry tribe whose home land is Caernavon and he had earned a living as a dancer and was later a judge for one of the dancing control bodies.
Then there was the man who swept the floor. His nickname was 'Nausea Bagwash' and he lived in one of the cottages in Tottenham Lane between the Church school and the shops, and kept chickens in the front garden. He introduced his 'Crown and Anchor board' into the meal breaks, and was always accosting people with " 'Ere, I've got something you might be interested in. Nar, don't go away." Later, his place was taken by a little man who seemed to be accident-prone. He rejoiced in the name of Henry Octavius Bond - and I mean rejoiced. Eighth in a large family, he had been crippled by many accidents and, in his previous job as a milkman for United Dairies, the horse that pulled his cart had twice kicked him badly.
Bill Smith, the foreman, worked himself into an early grave halfway through the war and he was succeeded by Jack Eteen, the operator of the grinding machine.
Enemy action did very little damage to the Argyll establishment. Only once was production stopped. We arrived one morning to find that a 'doodlebug' had landed in Priory Park and the blast had removed glass and slates from the roof. A day's work clearing up and we were back in production. A lot of interest was shown in the remains of the bomb and much speculation took place as to how it had been put together.
On another occasion the night shift had become seriously concerned when, during an air raid, a window on the top floor of a house on the corner of Park Avenue South was seen to exhibit a regular flashing light. The police were called and an Inspector hammered on the door until it was opened and then charged up the stairs to the top floor. An old couple were found to have been passing through a doorway hung with a curtain. But we had to be careful. The Home Guard had had experience of chasing members of the British Union of Fascists out of the Mills Equipment factory at Tottenham because they had been found flashing lights into the sky during air raids.
With victory in 1945 the volume of work coming to Argyll Motors slackened off and I saw the last of Priory Road.
Beryl and Ron Bond on their wedding day, 15 April 1944. This photograph is taken on the steps of Tottenham Register Office, housed then in the Jewish Hospital building in High Road, N15. (The patients had removed to the country.)
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