Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Finsbury Park Landscape Watercolour, 1905
This picture came with the title Finsbury Park, Landscape Scene With a Red Brick Brick Church (by John Ladds, dated 1905).
Initially I assumed that the view was from the park. But the only church I can match with the one on the picture is Holy Trinity at the junction of Stapleton Hall and Granville Roads.
If it is this church, then the view must have been to its north, perhaps from the Hog's Back (Mountview/Ridge).
Can anyone more familiar with Stroud Green confirm this, or suggest an alternative? It could. of course be a church that has ben demolished. But I can't see any other likely candidates on the 1895 OS map
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Comment by Hugh on November 25, 2019 at 23:11
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Gordon, the signal box is a good idea. But I don't quite buy it. it's the wrong shape and in the wrong place.
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Comment by Dave W on November 25, 2019 at 23:18
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Box is oriented wrong for this viewpoint, I agree, but it stands out as a signal box to me - the windows and shape were the first thing I noticed.
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There was a local John Ladds who lived on Pemberton at around the right time. He was an architect who designed many churches. He also designed one of the memorials for St Paul's Harringay. I have no information to confirm that he was the author of the work above or even that he was an artist.But, it it was him, you'd expect a greater than average focus on building details.
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Yes the signalbox orientation isn't right, I agree now. But a building of the right orientation and height would have been the old station building that was burnt down many years ago. Best image here.
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The station building was erected in 1885 and burned down just over 80 years later. I know of no record of it having been rebuilt or remodelled during its eighty year lifespan. So as far as we know its appearance never changed. Is it a close enough match with the building o the picture? For me the angles on the roofline in the image are closer to those on houses. The station roofline is much more raked. So the jury is out for me on this one.
It's appropriate to consider whether any discrepancies we see are attributable to artistic licence or something else, but doesn't it reach a point when the level of those discrepancies has to throw in to doubt either the picture attribution or our interpretation of the viewpoint from which it was painted?
If it was painted by the John Ladds I've identified, he would have been 70 at the time the picture was painted. It's possible that by this age his eyesight was failing and that he was painting with an architect's imagination partly by invention. But that's another big supposition.
My interest in pursuing this is not to be cantankerous and argumentative. I'm interested in establishing the best possible interpretation of what we have in front of us. I come across this quite frequently when researching local history. It's always tempting to force-fit facts to a certain interpretation. Generally, I manage to resist it.
I bought this painting a few years back. It was attributed as Hornsey 1860. Of course I want it to be right. The church works and I can cobble together enough explanations to argue a case for the attribution's accuracy, but I'm still not certain that it's right (and this is one that I have every reason for wanting to be right!).
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I take your point about not forcing facts to fit an opinion, I hope I came across as offering up ideas to see if they provided a close enough fit. Yes there are discrepancies between the painting and available photographs e.g. the size of the fleche.
'Balance of probabilities' versus 'beyond reasonable doubt' in law comes to mind!
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You came across just like that, G. :o)
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