Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Northumberland House circa 1910
This is a higher resolution image of one first added some years back at a low resolution. With this new version, click to view the large size and you can even make out someone standing at the front door.
Northumberland House was originally a grand house on the banks of the New River, Northumberland House subsequently became a mental hospital. In 2008, I discovered that T.S. Eliot's wife had been a patient in the hospital and had died there. I added this link about T.S. Elliot's to the Wikipedia article on Manor House.
Some of the comments added to the earlier photo are copied in below.
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Comment by Hugh on December 5, 2014 at 12:46
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Comment on the first photo by Roy aka Smiffy on April 4, 2009 at 16:30
From the internet:-
"A private lunatic asylum opened in Northumberland House, at the northern end of Green Lanes, in 1830. It had 63 male and female inmates in 1851, 80 in 1911, and 59 in 1951, a few years before the house was demolished to make way for Rowley Gardens. In 1980 the institution reopened in Finchley as Northumberland nursing home".
The house that I grew up in (Woodberry Grove) backed onto Northumberland House and us kids now and then I would look over the fence and watch the poor unfortunates being walked around the beautiful gardens.
When the place closed as a hospital we had the run of the building and beautiful gardens for several years.
It became our playground. It had everything, deep cellars, padded cells, air-raid shelters, a summer house that revolved to face the sun, vast grounds that backed onto the New River.
Best of all, there were no grown-up to tell you what to do - happy days!
Comment on the second photo by Roy aka Smiffy on August 31, 2010 at 12:45
Yes, it was a beautiful house and these days we’d fight for its protection.
Curiously it was never used as a dwelling but as a private mental hospital and the house on the south side of the river was the home of the medical superintendent Robert M Riggall.
NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE
GREEN LANES, FINSBURY PARK, N.4
A PRIVATE HOSPITAL for the treatment of mental and nervous illnesses.
Conveniently situated and easy of access from all parts. Six acres of ground,
facing Finsbury Park. Voluntary. and Temporary Patients received without
certification. E.C.T. Shock Therapy, Psychotherapy, and other modern forms of
treatment. Telephone: Stamford Hill 2688. Telegrams: "Subsidiary, London.'"
For further particulars apply to the Medical Superintendent: ROBERT M RIGGALL,
Member British Psycho-Analytical Society.
If I remember correctly all the patients were transferred to other locations about 1951 and the building stood empty until demolition in 1955. Our house in Woodberry Grove backed onto the extensive gardens which contained beautiful heated Victorian greenhouses, a rotating summer house and two underground WW2 air raid shelters – which became our playground!
The gate was very grand and was topped by the Percy Lion with a straight tail which has heraldic significance. The house had several padded ‘cells’.
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