Where modern Harringay started - the birth of Endymion Road and the lost roads and houses of Harringay

1. Endymion Road from the former cricket pitch, late summer 2011. (Image Hugh Flouch)

This article owes its existence to a photo taken in about 1910 of three ladies standing outside the front door of number 15 Endymion Road. After coming across the image a few weeks ago and spending a little time working out the probable identities of the ladies, in addition to making some interesting findings about the residents of the house over its first century, I was rewarded with some discoveries about the development of Endymion Road and the small estate of which it was a part and about the immediately surrounding area. Much of it was completely new to me.

I'm sharing what I discovered in two parts over two weeks. This first part covers my revelations about the slightly complicated story of how Endymion Road came about, why we don't have a Harringay Gate to Finsbury Park and how commercial appetites led to the demolition of newly built houses in Lothair Road and literally paved the way for the 'Harringay Highway'.

(As usual all notes in the following text are hyperlinked making it easy to flick between note and the place in the text where it originates)

Introduction

Endymion Road was built up as the prime road in a small estate of seven roads, all named after novels by Victorian political giant 'Dizzy' Disraeli. We might refer to them collectively as the Disraeli roads.¹ Constrained on three sides by railways and a road, the Disraeli roads plot nonetheless faced the newly laid-out Finsbury Park and so was a very desirable prospect. Just over a decade after the park opened, the Disraeli roads estate became the first significant development in Harringay and proved to be the harbinger of the new neighbourhood's rapid and full-scale development as a new suburb of London.

How Endymion Road was traded for the Harringay Gate to Finsbury Park

The Disraeli roads plot was part of Brownswood Manor, which since 1789 was in the hands of the Willan family as leaseholders of the Bishop of London. This holding played a crucial part in the emergence of Endymion Road and its off-shoots. In 1855 the freehold of the 156 acres of the manor to the north of Seven Sisters Road (Fig. 2) was transferred to the Willans in exchange for their reverting the lease on the manor to the south of that road.² Two years later Hornsey Wood and the land immediately surrounding it was compulsorily purchased from the Willans under the Finsbury Park Act, 1857. The land taken represented about three-quarters of the Willans' remaining Hornsey estate. After the acquisition they were left with about 40 acres to the north and north-west of the Park, including the site of the Disraeli Roads.³ (Fig, 2)

2. Annotated Map Extract from 1873 Ordnance Survey map, surveyed just as Finsbury Park was being created. The large area bordered in red outlined what became the park. Picked out in white below that is Seven Sisters Road. The surviving remnant of Hornsey Wood is marked in the middle of the area. The white area within the park, also a part of it, became the cricket field. The mauve area shows the Disraeli roads plot.

Before Finsbury Park was laid out, a possibly ancient public right of way ran across Hornsey Wood linking what became Harringay to Hornsey, via the notorious to Cutthroat Lane.⁴ John Rocque's splendid mid-eighteenth century maps show that at least part of the path was established as far back as the middle of the eighteenth century (and almost certainly before that). The maps show the bridge serving the footpath across the New River by Hornsey Wood at what looks to have been the exact same location as it does today. By the time of the 1873 Ordnance Survey map (Fig, 3a), the path was clearly shown running diagonally across the 'cricket field plot' to Green Lanes. This same path was also shown on an early plan of Finsbury Park (Fig. 3b) as the only direct connection between Green Lanes and the west of the park. The long-standing existence of this path across Hornsey Wood from 'Harringay' to Hornsey created a right of way that is critical to the story of Endymion Road.

3. 3a, left: 1873 Ordnance Survey map surveyed between 1863 and 1869. 3b, right: Drainage plan of the 'Proposed Finsbury Park', Metropolitan Board of Works 1867. The footpath is marked on both. On the Ordnance Survey map, it ends abruptly at the Hornsey-Tottenham border (though on other maps it is shown extending to Green Lanes). On the Finsbury Park plan, it seems to end at the intended park boundary

To protect the rights established by this ancient way, a roadway was stipulated in a specific provision of the Finsbury Park Act, 1857. Section 20 explained that the aim of the provision was for, "Preserving the communication between the lands belonging or reputed to belong to George Moore and Thomas Twining Wing Esquires (executors for William Willan), lying upon the West and North Sides respectively of the said Park, so as to provide a thoroughfare from the said lands into and out of the road now called the Green Lanes". As a result of this provision, as the Park was developed, a road was laid out that ran from a the 'Harringay' gate on Green Lanes along the northern side of the cricket pitch up to the New River where it angled south along the river before heading west across the bridge over the old river crossing point and joining the main carriage drive around the park (Fig. 4).

4. The original carriageway from the 'Harringay' Gate inside the north end of Finsbury Park shown on the 1875 Metropolitan Board of Works Plan of Finsbury Park Plan (Extract). There also appears to have been some sort of connection opposite the entrance to Northumberland House on Green Lanes (now the Rowley Road estate). It survives today as a footpath. Another is shown just west of and parallel to the New River. No evidence of that roadway remains visible today. (Original image: London Metropolitan Archives, LMA MBW/2495).

Once the park had been opened, much to their consternation the Metropolitan Board of Works, (a precursor to the London County Council and the body initially responsible for running the Park), found themselves unable to control the access to the park created by the roadway. They found that it was being used:

"... a great deal for purposes of driving cattle and sheep through to the market, thereby defeating the original purposes of the Finsbury Park Act. In addition to this, night soil, and other manure, and other sorts of traffic, passed through the roads of the park, to its great detriment as a place of enjoyment, and to the utter consternation and alarm of the visitors ... Further, there were no gates to the park, or proper supervision or control exercised over the ground at night; and the consequence was a large amount of immorality was carried on."⁵

To manage these abuses, the Board sponsored two acts of parliament in 1874 and 1875. The provisions of the legislation authorised the Board to make a new road skirting the northern and western sides of the park and to close it at night whilst preserving the rights of way enshrined in the 1857 act.⁶ The Act stipulated that:

"The road which is intended to provide a thoroughfare from the Seven Sisters Road to the Green Lanes and thereby secure the communications intended to be preserved by Section 20 of the Finsbury Park Act 1857 shall when complete be deemed to be in substitution for the roads required to be made by that Section".

The original plan foresaw the planned road shadowing what has become Endymion Road and then extending past the Hornsey Gate along the edge of the park as far as Seven Sisters Road (Fig. 5).

5. Plan showing a new road designed to resolve the many issues caused by unconstrained public access to the park, November 1873. The plan was significantly altered and alternative routes chosen outside the park. (Image: From an item held in the London Metropolitan Archives).

However, the planned road was never laid out. As a result of petitions to the Board demanding that none of the park be sacrificed, including any of the cricket pitch, a deal with struck with the Willans and other land owners, which entailed using their land to create the new road/s outside of the boundary of the park. To the west of the park Upper Tollington Road served the purpose; to the north, the road that became Endymion Road did the job.

6. Truncated rump of the ancient footpath and the original carriageway connecting Green Lanes to the park's main carriageway. Photo taken from the bridge over the New River looking north east. The entrance to the footpath to Endymion Road is seen on the far left (Photo: Hugh Flouch, April 2025)

The part of the original carriageway between the 'Harringay' gate and the riverbank was subsumed into the cricket pitch and the gate stopped up, (explaining why today there's no entrance to Finsbury Park from Harringay's Green Lanes). The section that had run along the bank of the river to the bridge was converted to a public footpath, connecting to the new road. That section along with the stub across the bridge and the connection to the main carriageway remain today as ghosts of the original route to Green Lanes. Endymion road was completed in 1877 after the successful conclusion of protracted negotiations to share its cost between the Hornsey Board and the landowners.⁷

7. Excerpt from a photo showing a view from Finsbury Park c 1875, looking north across the site of the soon-to-be built-up Endymion Road. The Tottenham and Hampstead Railway line embankment is in the mid-distance. Connecting to that is probably the path shown in the plan in Fig. 4 to the west of and parallel to the New River. In the far distance, the white building on the hill is probably a part of Harringay House. This is currently the only accessible photo of the house. (Image: Bruce Castle. Cropped and colourised by the author)

Development of the Disraeli Roads

A section of the The Metropolitan Board of Works Act, 1874 made it quite clear what the Willans' priority was in making arrangements for the road that became Endymion Road. Section 3 of the Act stipulated that:

"No wall fence or other obstruction shall be placed by the Metropolitan Board of Works between the road and the lands of Frank Willan where such lands abut on the road - the said lands shall have an uninterrupted building frontage to the road"

The Willans wasted no time in leasing out the land, probably on a building lease, to architect Charles Hambridge and his building partners. The builders had soon laid out a small grid of roads adjoining the new road along the northern border of the park.⁸

Endymion Terrace (the original name for Endymion Road) and the other Disraeli roads were built up between 1880 and 1884. Records suggest that the section of the plot to the west of the New River was built up first, including, Alroy Road, Coningsby Road, and the western ends of Endymion Terrace and Lothair Road.

The properties on Endymion Terrace were built only on the north side of the road giving them a wonderful view of the park. Many of those to the west of the river were inhabited by 1882. Those to the east were finished in the ensuing two years.

8. One of two surviving blue enamel road name plates with the original "Endymion Terrace" name. A blacked-out, or rather blued-out, 'N' is just visible, indicating that the road was in the northern postal district. This reveals that the plate was a road name sign rather than simply a building name plate. (Photo: Hugh Flouch, April 2025)

For those who are curious about the Disraeli novels beyond their titles, I've provided a quick outline of them in a final section.

Endymion Road Houses

9. Endymion Terrace Houses today. The house on the left is number 21, mentioned below. (Photos: Hugh Flouch 2025)

In the census of 1881, Endymion Terrace had only three residents, one of whom was one of the builders working with Hambridge, William Piercy at number 21.⁹

The commodious terraced houses offered comfortable accommodation. Number 46 was described in sale particulars by Grand Parade estate agent Frith and Garland in 1907 as follows:

ON THE TOP FLOOR. - Three Bedrooms, 2 having stores and hanging cupboards ; good cupboards on landing.

ON THE FIRST FLOOR. - Large Front Bedroom fitted with register stove,¹⁰ marble mantel, tiled hearth, and hanging cupboard; Back Bedroom with register stove and hanging cupboard; Bath Room fitted with bath, having hot and cold supply, and linen closet.

ON THE GROUND FLOOR. - Entrance Hall with tiled floor and lincrusta dado; Drawing and Dining Rooms with marble mantels, tiled stoves and hearths (the dining room has parquet flooring), Lavatory, fitted with lavatory basin, having hot and cold supply; w.c.; side door to garden.

ON THE LOWER FLOOR. Breakfast Room, Larder, Kitchen, Scullery, w.c., Tradesmen's Entrance.

10. A front door on Endymion Road with much of the original glass still in place, 2025. (Photo: Hugh Flouch)

11. Looking along the river from Endymion Road to Lothair Road, 2025. (Photo: Hugh Flouch)

The Endymion Terrace Environment

12. A view from Finsbury Park, 1905, by architect John Ladds (ARIBA) who lived at 93 Pemberton Road for the last 20 years of his life. There was some debate about this picture when I first posted it on Harringay Online, but I think we've established that it was probably painted from where the running track is now located at the top of the hill. The church is the old St Paul's on Wightman Road. Endymion Terrace can just be spied through the trees. (Image: Private collection).

The newly completed houses of Endymion Terrace must have very pleasant places to have lived. In addition to the comfortable accommodation they offered, the surrounding environment would have been most pleasing. The 250-year-old New River ran through the centre of the road giving a sense of a timeless almost pastoral setting  (Fig. 11).  Residents also had uninterrupted views over the pleasant green spaces of Finsbury Park. Facing the eastern part of the road was the cricket field. To the west were the American Gardens:

The north-west side of the park, just above the cricket ground, called the "American part," has been devoted exclusively to American plants, which like all the rest of the trees and shrubs, among them some very fine specimens of Araucaria imbricata, are looking as healthy and luxuriant as if they had been growing there for years instead of only a few weeks.

The Building News and Engineering Journal, June 25 1869

13. Looking south east across the Harringay cricket field towards the houses on Green Lanes and Northumberland House. c. 1905. The Cricket pavilion shown is still standing today, though cricket is now only a distant memory. (Image: Private collection. Original colourisation re-toned by author).

14. American Gardens, Finsbury Park (see description above Fig. 12) (Image: Private collection. Colourised by the author).

15. A view in Finsbury Park. K. Cherrington 1890 (Image: Private collection)

16. Scene in Finsbury Park, c. 1905. (Image: Private  collection, original colourisation).

Reshaping of Lothair Road and the creation of the Harringay Highway

During my research about the creation of Endymion Road, I was fascinated to discover a completely forgotten 1880s change to two Disraeli roads: a change that involved the demolition of newly built houses and essentially led to the creation of the 'Harringay Highway'.

At the time the Disraeli Roads were laid out and the houses started, Harringay House and its parkland were still intact. Working with a plot of land hemmed in by the park, railway lines and a road, Hambridge created a completely enclosed set of roads designed to be accessible only from Endymion Road and by a level crossing across the Great Northern Railway (Fig. 18). Unlike today, the north end of Alroy Road was blocked by Lothair Road which originally extended all the way up to the railway line. This connected to the level crossing and on the  north side contained four houses. It's not unreasonable to suppose that Hambridge and William Hodson, who was building on the other side of the rail line in Dagmar Road, envisaged it becoming a permanent crossing at some point. (Fig.s 17 & 18)

17. Left The view from the eastern end of Dagmar Road, now walled off. looking towards Lothair Road. Right: The same view, from alongside the railway line showing the remains of the access road to the former crossing. (Photos: Hugh Flouch, 2025)

Neither the connection across the rail line nor the otherwise enclosed nature of the Disraeli estate was in the stars however. In 1882 when the Great Northern Railway Company needed to widen their line, they used powers conferred on them by Parliament to purchase a strip of land to the east of the existing line. Their intention was to acquire the last house on Endymion Road along with a thin strip of land up to Harringay Station. The strip included four of the only recently completed properties on the western end of Lothair Road. (Fig. 18) 

18. Extract of the 1882 plan for the widening of the Great Northern Line at Finsbury Park. The broken line shows the extent of the widening. Further to the north the map records no development yet started on the Ladder and shows Harringay House still standing.

The fact there were four houses, rather than three is a bit of a mystery. With the last remaining house on Lothair Road today being number 7, we might have expected only three further houses. I wonder if the fourth had been named rather than numbered. The shape shown on the map for the 'extra' house suggests that it might have been similar to the end house next to the river in the other half of Lothair Road.

19. The end house on Lothair Road North, next to the New River. Its shape is exactly smillar to the shape shown of the former house on Lothair Road next to the railway line. (Photo: Hugh Flouch, 2025).¹¹

The railway company's purchase went ahead as planned at Lothair Road, but for an as-yet-to-be-discovered reason the end house on Endymion Road won a reprieve but lost most of its large garden.

The book of reference for the 1882 plans shows the two houses on Lotahir Road closest to the railway as being unoccupied and the next two in the occupation of lessees. I was able to locate some records for those two houses. Number 5 Lothair Road was listed in the Post Office Directory of 1882, and a birth notice was published in 1884 by the resident of number 3. Those records suggest that at least two of the houses were inhabited as late as 1884 or 1885.

An 1886 plan shows the four Lothair Road houses demolished and the house at the end of Endymion Road still intact along with all of its garden, suggesting a delay to that part of the plan, perhaps brought about by an appeal lodged by the lessee or owner.

20. 1886 plan for further land acquisition and the 'stopping up' of the rump of the west end of Lothair Road.

The more enduring effect of the Great Northern Railway Company's compulsory purchase was the opening up of Alroy Road and its linking with the new road that we now know as Wightman Road (making its first known cartographic appearance in the 1886 plan). 

21. Numbers 7 and 9 Lothair Road today. Number 7 shows the scars where its sisters were wrenched from it. Using the land where Numbers 3 and 5 had stood for just four or five years, Alroy Road was extended to join the new Wightman Road. (Photo: Hugh Flouch, 2025)

We might wonder whether the timing of this change in road layout was a coincidence. One year before the railway's plan was published, the British Land Company (the land company behind the development of the Harringay Ladder) advertised its first land sales on the Harringay Park Estate.¹² Within three years the railway company formalised an agreement with British Land to build a station at Harringay. The railway company received £3,500 from its partner as part of the deal (a sum well in excess of £½M today). It is difficult not to assume that part of the conversations between the two companies included consideration of creating an access route critical to them both by linking Alroy and Wightman Roads and building a bridge over the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway.

Exploited by Haringey Council 90 years later to facilitate the flow of traffic into its new Wood Green showpiece..., the Alroy / Wightman Road route has been bequeathed to the present-day residents of the Harringay Ladder as a city highway carrying mainly through-traffic, a bequest that has come to plague them, and created a problem the Council has has tossed on the too-difficult-to-deal-with pile for the past two or three decades. 

Final Thoughts

It's strange isn't it what forces have shaped our neighbourhood. In this case, a possibly ancient right of way through Hornsey Wood led by various machinations to the creation of Endymion Road. Envisaged from its conception as a route to sweat a land asset hemmed in by rail and road, the road became the centre of a small estate that included the apparently insignificant Alroy Road. This small road apparently provided an irresistible opportunity to two late Victorian companies to maximise the value of their assets. It was then later exploited by a gung-ho mid-twentieth century local council as part of a badly botched attempt to make Wood Green a late twentieth century Westfield. ¹³ History is rarely left behind us.

The Disraeli Novels

22. Novels and Tales by the Earl of Beaconsfield, Longmans, Green and Co, 1881 (Image: Rooke Books)

Benjamin Disraeli's novels were written throughout his career from when he was 23 in 1826 until 1880 a year before his death at 77. The works explored themes of politics, society, and identity, but writing in 2006, critic William Kuhn suggested that Disraeli's fiction can also be read as "the memoirs he never wrote", revealing the inner life of a politician for whom the norms of Victorian public life appeared to represent a social straitjacket—particularly with regard to what Kuhn sees as the author's "ambiguous sexuality". In essence, Disraeli's novels offer a rich tapestry of Victorian society and politics, revealing his personal journey and his evolving political philosophy.

Disraeli usually adopted the Victorian standard form of simultaneous publication in three volumes. He was not a bestseller. For example, Coningsby and Sybil sold about 3,000 copies each.

What I offer below is not my own work: it is a quick cobbling-together of readily accessible information much of which is from a series of informed Wikipedia articles. I thank the authors and beg their forgiveness for the lack of detailed attribution where it would have been possible (i.e not Wikipedia)

The relevant novels for Harringay, which make up almost three-quarters of Disraeli's output, are:

Alroy (1833, three volumes) Alroy portrayed the problems of a medieval Jew in deciding between a small, exclusively Jewish state and a large empire embracing all. A fictionalised account of the life of a supposed person of historical importance David Alroy. The novel's significance lies in its portrayal of Disraeli's "ideal ambition" and for its being his only novel with a distinctive Jewish subject. Adam Kirsch described it as "a significant proto-Zionist text". Reviews of the novel are mainly damning. Disraeli himself said that the first chapter made as much sense if read backwards. Charles C. Nickerson, in describing Alroy as an interesting failure as a novel, says it is "full of the most appalling rant" and "some engaging implausibilities", and has "a strain of resolute and humourless extravagance".

Venetia (1837, single volume) Venetia was published in the year Disraeli was first elected to the House of Commons. Considered to be a relatively minor Disraeli novel, the work is a romantic fantasy and has been described as one of Disraeli's weaker works. The novel explores themes of love, beauty, and societal expectations through the characters of Lady Annabel Herbert and her daughter, Venetia, against the backdrop of a secluded estate.

Young England Trilogy: A trilogy examining the social and political divisions in Victorian England, particularly the disparity between the wealthy aristocracy and the impoverished working class.

Coningsby (1844, two volumes). The first novel in the trilogy, Coningsby follows the fortunes of Harry Coningsby, the orphaned grandson of the marquis of Monmouth.

Sybil (1845, three volumes) Sybil traces the plight of the working classes of England. Disraeli was interested in dealing with the horrific conditions in which the majority of England's working classes lived — or, what is generally called the Condition of England question.

Tancred (1847. three volumes) Tancred shares a number of characters with the earlier novels, but unlike them is concerned less with the political and social condition of England than with a religious and even mystical themes, the question of how Judaism and Christianity are to be reconciled, and the Church reborn as a progressive force.

Lothair (1870, three volumes) Lothair was published after Disraeli's first term as Prime Minister. It explores the relationship between the Catholic and Anglican churches and the issue of Italian unification, reflecting the author's own anti-Catholic views.

Endymion (1880, three volumes) Endymion was the last novel Disraeli published before his death. It is considered to have been autobiographical, with characters and situations based on real people and events in Disraeli's life and political career. The hero of the novel is Endymion Ferrars. The novel is full of political lessons and conceits, and its pictures of aristocratic circles, with the semi-ministerial management of English affairs by the queens of fashionable society on behalf of their Endymions, not only expose the romance of Disraeli's own life, but also reveal the things behind the scenes which, perhaps, none so well could have done as this Jewish ex-premier of England in the literary winding up of his strange eventful life. It is this inner view of Disraeli's novel which gives its real significance.

24. Title page of Endymion, Longmans, Green and Co, 1881 (Image: Rooke Books)

Part 2 to be published soon

Part 2 is back to the beginning fr me: it's where I came in on this. Starting with the one c1910 postcard, I investigated who lived in just one house on Endymion Terrace and found a very interesting cast of players.

Notes

1. In a booklet for the Harringay Traders group which outlined the development of the shops and houses in a selected portion of Harringay, former Harringay resident John Hinshelwood referred to the Endymion Road development as the 'Finsbury Park Estate'. When I asked him recently where he'd found the name, he admitted that it wasn't a term that had ever previously been used for the seven roads. He told me,  "I coined the phrase The Finsbury Park Estate". In light of that information and given that there are records showing that the epithet was actually in use between 1864 and 1877, but referring to properties around other parts of the park, I have chosen not to apply it to an area for which it was never used. Instead, I am using the less ambiguous "Disraeli Roads".

2. A P Baggs, Diane K Bolton, M A Hicks, R B Pugh, 'Hornsey, including Highgate: Manors', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 6, Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey With Highgate, ed. T F T Baker, C R Elrington, 1980. Given the timing of this deal and the very public discussions there had been about creating Finsbury Park to include the south of Brownswood Manor, it is hard to escape the idea that at least one of the parties involved was seeking either to protect their assets or to profit from the impending park creation.

3. In addition to the rump of land between the park and the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway, the Willans retained a large rectangle of land to the west of the Great Northern Railway. This included the site of Stroud Green and Harringay Library for which Willan donated land in 1898. (Municipal Journal, Volume 7 1898).

4. Cutthroat Lane led from Hornsey Wood House, in the centre of what became the park, through where Hornsey Gate was laid out, up the hill to the Hog's Back to the site of Mount View Road and down again to Tottenham Lane along the route of today's Denton Road and Rathcoole Gardens. See Abyssinia: Hornsey's Lost Village for a fuller account of the road and how it got its grisly reputation.

5. North Middlesex Chronicle, 25 April 1874.

6. The Metropolitan Board of Works Act, 1874 and The Metropolitan Board of Works (Various Powers) Act, 1875 amended the Finsbury Park Act, 1857. The quote given is from Section 9.1, Metropolitan Board of Works Act, 1874, HMSO.

7. The Metropolitan Board of Works (Various Powers) Act, 1875, Holloway Press, 29 July 1876 and Metropolitan Board of Works Report for the Year 1876.

8. Following the execution of the will of William Willan, Frank Willan is recorded as the owner of the land and Charles Hambridge as one of the lessees along with William Hardy and William Piercy for Endymion Terrace and Alroy Road and William Garside for Lothair Road. (Plan and Book of Reference, for the 1882 widening of the Great Northern Line, London Metropolitan Archives. Conveyance for 9 Endymion Road 1885, London Metropolitan Archives).

9. Any of you who've read my book Abyssinia: Hornsey's Lost Village might recall Piercy as the man who got into a fierce, protracted and very public cat-fight in the letter columns of the local press with retired bank employee Benjamin Duncan Mackenzie of Mount View Road about the presence of a high number of builders on the local board (the local council).

10. A 'register stove' was. "... made so as to occupy the entire space within the chimney jambs ... having the back, sides, roof and front composed of metal plates. ... when there is no fire in the grate ... closes the stove completely against the falling of soot or the circulation of air." (John Holland, Treatise on the Progressive Improvement and Present State of the Manufactures in Metal,Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green1833). Two examples (from The Antique Fireplace Restoration Company) are pictured below.

11. Viewed on Google Maps, the surviving house looks markedly different to and much larger its neighbours.

12. Seven Sisters & Finsbury Park Journal, 7th October 1880. From the wording of the advertisement it is clear that the sale was not the first; it may well have been the second. So we might assume that the first was at some point in the summer of the same year.

13.The Haringey Area Central Scheme was a key part of Haringey Council's plan from 1965 to the 1980s. It envisaged a bypass to the east of Wood Green High Street and the adaptation of Wightman Road and Hornsey Park Roads as a feeder road for the planned 'Shopping City'. In the event the eastern bypass was never built, but the cheaper works to align Wightman and Horney Park Roads at Turnpike Lane were executed. The adapted route ended up serving both functions - both access road and bypass.)

Sources

Many reports in the contemporary press via British Newspaper Archive in particular the North Middlesex Chronicle, the Islington Gazette, the Holloway Press and The Builder.

London Metropolitan Archives physical archive items for plans relating to Finsbury Park and the Great Northern Line.

Plan of Finsbury Park 1875, London Metropolitan Archives, LMA MBW/2495.

Finsbury Park Act, 1857 via legislation.gov.uk.

Metropolitan Board of Works Act 1874, (Quotes from in various publications).

The Metropolitan Board of Works (Various Powers) Act, 1875.

Minutes of Proceedings of Metropolitan Board of Works various years 1870 - 1882.

Report of the Metropolitan Board of Works for the Year 1876 (Presented pursuant to Act 18 § 19 Vict. c. 120, s. 200).

British History Online.

Wikipedia and other web sources for information on the Disraeli novels.