A View of Hornsey circa 1860

Comment by Richard Woods on Monday

You clever old thing you!

Comment by Les G on Tuesday

I had just about given up on this until I read Richard’s earlier comment again about distance and central London. Got me thinking about this painting being done from somewhere further north and viewed southwards towards Hornsey and central London...roughly!
Bit of a long shot but with a little searching and luck, I came across All Saints Church, Edmonton. The tower and turret of the church look similar to the one in the painting. I imagine that a distance of four or five miles to Hornsey would have been quite easily viewed on a clear day in 1860.
The problems with this though include the farthest away wall of the tower with the sloping buttress - which is just about visible in the painting. It faces directly westwards towards Arnos Grove, therefore the distant steeple in the painting appears to be further north of Wood Green. The main part of All Saints Church would also need to be totally obscured by the trees in the painting -generally though, everything looks plausible to me.
I’ll attach a poor Google 3D comparison image for reference, along with images of the church tower and west facing wall.

Comment by Hugh on Wednesday

I like your lateral thinking, Les.

I see from your photo that the church on Church Street has a tower that is strikingly similar to Hornsey's. I've walked past that church and even visited it, but hadn't noticed the similarity of the tower to Hornsey's. That's a nice stretch of Edmonton with a bit of surviving historic architecture including Lamb's Cottage.

For all that, I don't share your view that the site is a contender for being the subject of my painting. To begin with, the land there is completely flat, unlike the scene depicted in the painting. Also, for the church tower to match the paintrer's rendering, again using the position of the little turret as a marker, the artist would have been to the east of the church. This would have put him in the centre of Lower Edmonton. Both it and Church Lane were relatively built up by the start of the nineteenth century and certainly very much so by 1860 with buildings on both sides of Church Street and both sides of the church.

Also, unlike Hornsey's famously ivy mantled tower, to the best of my knowledge All Saints has never been covered in Ivy. 

The best match I can make for the image, assuming that it's Hornsey, is that the mains and cows are in the field to the north of Priory Road and that the  mid-ground industrial buildings are the waterworks with the more distant ones being in the right place to match the Clarendon works. That would make the distant church spire St Michael's. I suppose if I allow for artistic licence the match is close enough, but certainly not perfect. 

Comment by Les G on Wednesday

That’s great Hugh. I’m a bit obsessed with ‘then & now’ comparison images and I couldn’t get a grip of this one. It’s all a bit clearer now. Apart from it being a nice painting, it’s enjoyable learning more about the history of the area. Thanks.

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