Dylan Thomas House and Hollom House early days

The first photo shows Dylan Thomas House nearing completion. Construction had started in 1965.

This sixteen-storeyed tower block, containing 90 flats, was the larger of two blocks planned by Hornsey Council in the mid-Sixties as part of the 182 dwelling Haringey Grove Redevelopment Project.  Along with Hollom House, the low rise building next to it, 42 terraced houses were built. Hollom House is still standing, although completely refurbished. The flats were built by the council and the houses by the London and Quadrant Housing Trust.

The project, part of the wider Haringey Central Area Scheme, involved the demolition of the Victorian housing and streets that stood on the triangle of land between Turnpike Lane, Wightman Road and the New River. The main aim was to allow for the realignment of Wightman-Turnpike junction, to provide vehicular access to the planned 'new' Wood Green. The work at Haringey Grove included the demolition of the shops and houses on the north-western end of Wightman Road and south-western part of Turnpike Lane along with the two small residential roads, Haringey Grove and Denmark Road.

The name of Haringey Grove was commemorated through the name of the single storey community building standing at the corner of Wightman and Denmark Roads. Not that anyone knows it, but the building is called the Haringey Grove Community Centre. Hollom House was named after a series of fields that had bordered the south of Turnpike Lane (Upper Hollom Beech, Lower Hollom Beech and Hollom Beech Grove, all of which were a part of the Harringay House Estate from 1805)

According to the Municipal Journal, the two towers were known as the 50-week flats after the very short building time estimated for their complete construction. This might explain why the whole development was demolished just over thirty years later, in 1998, to make way for the low rise housing currently standing.

The second photo shows the buildings c1980.