who garden at pavement level put up little plaques along the lines of 'Dedicated to A.N Other' - sprayers and council workers spot them and often leave the patches alone -doesn't have to be a real person you know, could be a local historical figure (The Charlotte Riddell memorial sunflowers?) or someone you admire whose name isn't too well known (The Elizabeth Heyrick garden)…
e of novelist Charlotte Riddell:
http://www.lordshiprec.org.uk/about-the-park/history/a-general-history/
But yr Wikipedia article, Hugh, says Charlotte lived at St. John's Lodge, the old farmhouse on the Hospitaller lands. The two bits of info aren't incompatable, as the 1619 map shows an unnamed building to the south of Hangers Green on the Hospitaller lands.
There's a great description of Riddell in the lodge in the reminiscences of Wemyss Reid:
http://www.charlotteriddell.co.uk/Reminiscences%20of%20Sir%20Wemyss%20Reid.htm
"She and her husband lived in a rambling old house in the Green Lanes, Tottenham. Here she entertained many of the notable men of letters of her time, and here I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of not a few of them. The establishment was a somewhat primitive one. The workshop in which Mr. Riddell carried on the manufacture of his patent stoves was at the back of the house, and a rather large central hall, dividing the dining-room and the drawing-room, was used as a kind of show-room in which choice specimens of Mr. Riddell’s wares were displayed. The special feature of these patent stoves was that they were ornamental as well as useful. They were made to look like anything but what they were. One stove appeared in the guise of a table, richly ornamented in cast-iron; another was a vase; a third a structure like an altar, and so forth. But whatever their appearance might be, they all were stoves. One winter’s night, when there was an inch of snow on the ground, I went out to the Green Lanes to attend one of Mrs. Riddell’s literary parties. It was bitterly cold, and one of the stoves in the hall had been lighted for the comfort of the guests. We were a merry company, including, if I remember aright, George Augustus Sala, and some other well-known journalists. In the course of the evening Mrs. Riddell asked a well-known barrister, who at that time dabbled a little in literature, and who has since risen to fame and to a knighthood, to favour us with a song. He was an innocent young man in those days, and tried to excuse himself. “Now, Mr. C----,” said Mrs. Riddell, “I know you have brought some music with you, so you must get it and do as I wish.” The young man admitted that he had brought music, and blushingly retired to the hall in quest of it. Suddenly, those of us who were standing near the door heard a groan of anguish, and, looking out, we saw Mr. C---- holding in one hand the charred remains of a roll of music, and in the other the remnants of what had once been an excellent overcoat. He had laid his coat, when he arrived, on what was apparently a hall table. Unluckily for him, it happened to be the patent stove that had been lighted that evening to cheer and warm us when we escaped from the storm outside. I draw a veil over the subsequent proceedings."
Back to Hangers Greene, the history of Chestnuts as outlined in the Council Park management plan 2008-2012 says the following:
"The owner of The Chestnuts, Mrs Haynes applied to the vestry in 1880 for permission to enclose the ‘waste land’ at the corner of Black Boy Lane and St Ann’s Road, including realigning the intersection to 90 degrees. It was probably carried out some years later, after 1896."
So that's the end of the mysterious Hangers Greene, I guess.…
ludes (in the top right corner - it is oriented with south at the top) the old shape of St. Ann's Road ('Chisley Lane'), the rough location of Chestnuts Park ('Hangers Greene') and the area of the Gardens Streets is marked as 'Lands belonging to St Iohns of Ierusalem'. It also seems to show the course of Stonebridge Brook to the north of St Ann's Road and, worryingly, a pond bang in the middle of the Gardens (where has it gone?)
…
e spot - fascinating extra evidence, this, thanks so much for posting it. I'd been trying to peer at it before on Google maps because of its suspicious position, but it's hidden by trees on that. It looks like a nineteenth century facade, but possibly it was placed on an older footprint/orientation. It certainly matches the description, plan-wise, of Mrs. Riddell's St. John's Lodge, of having a rather broad central hall with rooms branching off on either side. 'Rambling old house' might suggest that it was older than mid-late nineteenth century, but perhaps Mrs. Riddell and her engineer husband redeveloped it (complete hypothesis).
There is an odd confusion about its current name. On the St. Ann's Hospital plan it appears as 'Highgate House'. In the revised appraisal for the St. Ann's conservation area it is described as follows:
"On the south side of the hospital road, near the entrance, is Mayfield House, a large two storey locally listed Victorian building constructed of yellow London stock brick with red brick dressings.It has a slate roof with projecting hipped gables, a decorative multi-paned glazed porch surmounted by a white-painted timber balcony and timber sash windows. It has a modern two-storey extension in matching style and materials that successfully remains subordinate to the original building. The buildings are connected by a glazed corridor."
There is no suggestion there that it is older than 19th century. If there's a half-basement or basement, the size of the bricks there might tell more about whether there was a complete rebuild or whether there are parts of an older building there.
Finally, have you got a picture of the stained glass from the exterior? looking at the scroll under the bird, it looks like there is a word starting 'St.....' but the rest is obscured by the design. It might say 'Ann's' but then it might say 'John's'....
I think it's possible that we've got Mrs. Riddell's house here (which means that the plaque might be in the wrong place). Whether it's older, in part ... hmmm!…
far - the questions raised are, was 'St John's Lodge' as a building name actually a bit of a 19th century conceit? and what were the different lifespans of all buildings on the Lodge/farm site?
First, St John's Lodge a novelist's/builder's whim? We know the Riddells lived in a fairly large house identified as old and called 'St John's Lodge' in 1861 and 71. In 1881 it isn't recorded as a separate building (there's a dairy farm there run by a lady from Dorset), and in 1891, despite having been sold as a newly built 'St John's Lodge' it is recorded as Mayfield House.
Tellingly, I cannot for the life of me find any distinguishing name used for the St John's buildings on Hanger Lane before 1861. They may have been a St John's Farm, but they're not identified as such. Might the identity 'St. John's Lodge' have been a bit of a high Victorian fashion asserted by Charlotte Riddell and picked up by the owner/developer? Further evidence may contradict this, though.
Second, the lifespans of the different buildings:
To the West of the St John's buildings, on the next plot of land (possibly quite a few yards away) was a fairly genteel residence inhabited in 1851 by a stock broker (8 Hangers Lane) and in 1861 and 71 by John and Emily Robins (35 Hanger Lane, becoming 104 St. Ann's Road); interestingly, John is a graduate of St. John's college Oxford. The well-off Robinses are there again in 1881 (41 St. Ann's Road, still the same building!) after the Riddells had moved on. Emily Robins was the daughter of Fowler Newsham, who seems to have been the key developer of the 'St Ann's' suburb concept (through founding the church).
Anyway, the Carden/ Robins residence was perhaps a little way off, and built on the plot that in 1619 housed a 'Hangers Barne' and in 1891, after the estate sell-off, was the location of 'Hangers Green House' (the battery plot?)
But intermittently there are other households recorded in or around the St. John's Lodge/Farm site, suggested it sometimes had multiple lodgings that could be let out separately or together. This is where it gets confusing for us (ie. which building was rebuilt to become 'Mayfield' and which was demolished for the hospital buildings).
In 1891, after the sell-off and after the rebuilding of St. John's Lodge, the census records a large but probably quite poor family living at '(Cottage) St. John's Farm' (no. 65 St. Ann's Road, by this point, Mayfield is no. 66). This suggests a rambling farmyard has been broken up, with Mayfield on one part (the lodge site?) and a cottage next door.
In 1871 it's not recorded as a separate residence. This is when Mr Riddell was making his stoves out back and they employed two servants. In 1861, quite a few of the Riddells' relatives are living with them in the 'Lodge' making it a large residence. Meanwhile in the 'cottage on farm' (no. 33 next to no. 34, the Lodge) a separate couple in their 60s are living.
So the evidence of the middle of the century suggests that there were farm buildings, including a cottage, and a grander building that could be called a 'lodge'. This might tally with the 1798 map that shows two blocks next to one another, one looking a bit barn-like. The farm buildings would have been purchased and demolished for the hospital - might this be from where we have the idea that St John's Lodge was under later hospital buildings?
Whereas the name St John's Lodge may have been something that was instead subsumed by the earlier rebuilding process, and the breaking up of the site in the 1880s (whence 'Mayfield').
All hypothesis, but it's interesting…
mable morass and West Green had been transformed: 'the old village is still there, but it is huddled up against Streets, and Villas, and Places, and all other devices of modern investors'. In consequence the population of the parish more than doubled during the 1870s
Charlotte Riddell hated the development
The hospital itself was built in 1892 by the Metropolitan Asylums Board as the North Eastern Fever Hospital. It became a general hospital in 1948 after the N.H.S.took over.
"The hospital, which had been established against strong local opposition, originated in temporary buildings erected during a scarlet fever epidemic and occupying 19 a. on the south side of St. Ann's Road. Permanent blocks were completed in 1900 and 548 beds were planned in 1901, by which time the site had been enlarged to 33 a. The L.C.C. took over responsibility in 1930 and replaced the remaining huts before the Second World War. In 1948 St. Ann's assumed its modern name, on becoming a general hospital. In 1973, when it was under the Tottenham management committee, it occupied 28 a. and had 586 beds."
So the tree planting would, maybe, have been by the London County Council in 1930 but who was the inspired gardener who made such interesting choices?…
rafford). After some delay, I obtained a paper-back edition of “George Geith of Fen Court” reissued in the Classic Reprint Series of Forgotten Books. The original from which the reprint was taken was printed in Boston, Massachusetts 1865 under her Trafford pseudonym, when the author would have been 33 and about the time that she and her husband moved to what is now St Ann’s Road.
The 555 page book does contain a few references to Crouch End and Hornsey as being pleasant country areas surrounded by fields and woods beyond the built up areas of North London ie before the late 19th century building boom that covered Harringay with housing. There are many more references however to the actual streets and parishes of the City of London – Fen Court, for instance, still actually exists just off Fenchurch Street.
This novel is a melodramatic tragedy that derives its tension mainly from a terrible secret that is not disclosed until near the end of the book. The social backdrop is the contempt of the landed/leisured classes for those who had to work for a living and the increasing stresses caused as successful members of the commercial class displaced those living on inherited wealth especially those incapable of managing their own affairs properly or given to wasteful spending. Some assumptions are here, familiar to readers of Trollope, about the church being a natural partner of landed families in supplying security to second sons of the gentry and much more about the plight of daughters who must marry for money or face penury. The then laws of inheritance and of marriage are often important to the story (if opaque to me - for example the law of entail) and the author displays her own knowledge of city business matters, especially accountancy, banking, investment and bankruptcy and the scope that these growing means of making money provide for unscrupulous as well as honest people.
Although the story is ultimately a tragedy, the eponymous figure is an intelligent man of good family and education and of high moral standing who just about survives his transition from a life of relative privilege to a life of work. There is, of course, an equally attractive heroine too but the authoress creates a lot of unpleasant female characters in all layers of society and is especially critical of those aspiring to distinguish themselves socially among their betters.
Although there is much here to make a good and often amusing story, the writing can only be described as dreadful. She rarely uses a simple sentence when five over-blown repetitions can be provided. This could be partly the result of writing to deadlines. The fact that there are fifty chapters of precisely similar length suggest that the work was first prepared for publication in a periodical. I am glad to have finished the book but it has not told me much about 19th century society that hasn’t been told better by Dickens, Austen and Trollope.
We don’t have much around here in the way of local ancient landed families to sympathise with (or to condemn). I suppose the relevance of the book to Harringay is that the builder of Harringay House was one of the City nouveau riche and Charlotte herself moved here as the independently successful wife of a successful professional engineer. This may be sufficient to justify her blue plaque but, as literature, I would say that this book fully justifies its status as “forgotten”.…
is visible. But the diagonal path and bay outlines on the map of 1895 identify it clearly as the same building:
The diagonal path is still there, lined with box trees:
I have more shots of the lawn behind which still looks rather Victorian in layout, but perhaps I'll post more of those if I find out more about the house.
Charlotte Riddell & husband lived at the 'old rambling' St John's Lodge until 1873. Perhaps the house was rebuilt after this, but before the major phase of hospital reconstruction.
However, the fact that the builders knew they were rebuilding on the site of St John's Lodge is made fairly clear, I think, by the fact that the leadlight above the door shows the eagle of St. John, with the name 'St John' spelled out between its feet. I've manipulated my image a bit to highlight the letters.
(many parallels here:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=st+john+eagle&hl=en&client... )
Here's the colour detail from Hugh's photo:
St J-O-h-n
Next call: Bruce Castle for some sleuthing!…
t the connection with Stamford Hill. Before Harringay was built up, author Charlotte Riddell lived in a house along Hanger Lane, almost opposite Blackboy Lane. Not only has the name of her road changed - it is now St Ann's Road - so have conceptions of the area where she lived. She always described herself as living in Stamford Hill. No one would do that now.
This Riddell episode serves to illustrate both how area names change over time and how to some extent they are a personal construct that differs from person to person.
There never seems to have been unanimous agreement on what to call the manufacturing area I've described above. Verifiable twentieth century references to it use four versions - Harringay, Finsbury Park, Seven Sisters and Tottenham.
In your comment on the 1934 aerial photo of the area, you suggest that the Harringay epithet is of recent coinage and claim that it is a "pretentious name" that "has been conjured up", "for the purposes of gentrification". You cite Ashfield Road as an example that you believe was definitely Tottenham. I accept that for you it was. But, you need to accept that for others it wasn't. By way of example, below are a few snippets from old publications.
The first is an excerpt of an advert placed by Eavestaff Pianos in the popular Picture Post magazine in 1938. Their factory was located on Ashfield Road. You'll notice that the return address they give is 'Ashfield Road, Harringay'.
This second example is a 1950s exhibition catalogue entry for H&P furniture. They traded from a factory just to the east of Omega Works on Hermitage Road, near the junction with Ashfield Road. One assumes they would have written the entry.
Next is a Hammer furniture advert from 1954.
If we want to go back further, in the year when F. Bender & Co (and two years before Maynards) arrived on Vale Road, here's a snippet from the Islington Gazette on 18th August 1904.
Come forward a few years and in 1913, we have the labour movement organisation, the Herald League, advertising a local meeting in the Daily Herald (23rd July 1913).
Now, all this could be a complex mid-twentieth century conspiracy of industrialists and the labour movement to maximise the future value of their property assets by getting ahead of the gentrification curve. Or, it could be that we all have to accept that neighbourhood naming is something of a personal construct. So, to an extent is history. I'd rather revel in that richness than get embroiled in a battle about it. In the meantime, for the sake of convenience, I need to choose a label. I choose Harringay because it has a verifiable historical basis and it suits my personal construct. If you want to go with Tottenham, that's fine by me. But, please, don't tell those of us who disagree with you that we're wrong. …