Horse drawn London Road Car Co omnibus on Holloway Road at Seven Sisters Road, c1900

Like a number of other local pubs including Harringay's 'Queen's Head' and 'The Favourite' at Hornsey Rise, the 'Nag's Head' on Holloway Road was a bus terminus. This image shows a horse drawn bus from the outside the 'Nag's Head' and Mrs Beazley's Fishmonger at the corner of Seven Sisters Road.

The photo shows a bus from the London Road Car Company. Nicknamed the "Union Jack"* (see the flag flying from the top deck at the front of the bus), the company was started in 1880 and quickly became the second largest horse bus company in London. It had a depot nearby at the Hornsey Road end of Marlborough Road. The company was taken over by the London General Omnibus Company in 1908. You can read about London's Horse bus era on the London Transport Museum website here.

The colourisation is that provided at publication, not a later edit.

*This flag was apparently intended to intimate to the public that unlike the London General Omnibus Company, the company was floated with British capital, but, as very few Londoners were aware of the French origin of its prime competitor the hint was not generally understood.