Wightman Road 1885 or 1886

Comment by Richard Woods on January 22, 2021 at 11:41

So well before the ladder was built. Fascinating parkland. 

Comment by Hugh on January 22, 2021 at 12:24

Construction would have been well under way at either end of the Ladder by this date; one of the houses of Wightman can be seen far right. Rather than Parkland, what's shown in view is the railway embankment for the GNR. 

Comment by Dick Harris on January 23, 2021 at 3:46

I have often gazed at this photo and now see that, in the foreground, is a bridge that carried the recently built Wightman Road over the old bend in the New River.  As can be seen in the attached overlay map, this spot is precisely where Beresford Road meets Wightman.  The building in the distant background is Alexandra Palace.  In the middle ground, it seems to me that the bank running from side to side is the newly built cut for the New River when it was moved from its original course into its present position.  This means that the little square tower in the middle of the picture is the much remarked ventilation tower that still stands behind the car repair shop opposite the end of Effingham Road and which can be seen from the New River Path.  This was built over the Stonebridge Brook which had just been put into a culvert under the new bed of the river.  I would guess that the dark line across the midddle is a fence along the East side of the railway and the space between this and the river is the land that was purchased by the railway and which is now covered by sidings and the buildings associated with Hornsey Rail Depot.  Before any of that could have been built, the level of the land would have had to be raised considerably above its original height to match that of the pre-existing railway.  That is why there is today a ten foot high retaining wall along the New River path just south of Hampden Road.  The photo doesn't seem to show that this work had then begun.  I suppose that the fencing to the right of the ventilation tower have to do with the continued eastward course of the brook which was probably still on the surface.

That's my reading of this fascinating picture.  Thanks Hugh for putting it up.

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