Green Lanes c1968 Can you Identify where it was Taken?

Comment by Priya on June 15, 2019 at 20:03

Is it not the junction of Salisbury Road and Warham?

Comment by Hugh on June 15, 2019 at 20:24

I’d say there’s too much of Grand Parade beyond for it to be the Post Office Crossroads. 

Comment by John D on June 16, 2019 at 7:29

That looks like the Salisbury " crown " against the sky, one-third left.

Comment by andy h on June 16, 2019 at 12:55

I'd say john's spot on and the photo's taken from the Mattison and GL junction

Comment by Hugh on June 16, 2019 at 13:37

I was torn between the Mattison/Chesterfield junction and the Duckett/Roseberry one. My initial instinct was to go for Mattison, because the distance to the Salisbury didn't look that far. 

In making my final decision, I used three key architectural features. The first was the mansard roof shape of the roof on the corner of the Gardens road right behind and above the foreground traffic light. That narrowed the choice down.

I then looked at the top floor windows of the Grand Parade building. With regards to the division of the individual windows in each premises, they appear to have been built in two styles. In one style the windows are divided by brick or stone pillars; in the other style, there's a single opening and the windows are only divided only by a strip of wood. Looking at the building on the south corner of Roseberry and Grand Parade, the top floor windows appears to have the style that divides the three windows by stone pillars.

This matches those on the soiuth corner of Roseberry and Grand Parade.

However, it's not the same as the building on the corner of Chesterfield and Grand Parade. Those three windows are divided by strips of wood.

Also if you look at the first floor, in the sixties photo, the windows of the first floor bay in the building on the southern corner of Grand Parade, are not decorated with a small tympanum (triangle shape) above. The windows in the next bay along are and they are arranged in a shallow bay.  This matches the Roseberry building but not the Chesterfield one.

In case any of the above comparisons might have been affected by changes to the structures since, I've checked old photos to compare today's images with Edwardian ones. And you'll see for example in this picture of Disneys (corner of Chesterfield), that the first floor windows are the same then as they are today. 

Taking into account all the above, the only match I could find was with the Duckett/Roseberry location - but I'm willing to accept that I may have got something wrong.

I'm assuming that the perspective in the 60s image that shortens the apparent distance between the photographer and the northern end of Grand Parade is due to him having used a long lens.

Comment by JoeW on June 16, 2019 at 21:15

I'll vote for Rosebery too. I thought Rutland might be a possibility - plus there is currently a signal controlled pedestrian crossing which seems to match the 60s photo - however the three triangular tympanum details on the first floor, and the semi-circular tympanum on the top floor next door, don't appear in the 60s photo.

Comment by Don on June 21, 2019 at 12:44

Hugh: Have you any idea what the occasion might have been? Looks like a procession of some sort, as there seem to be people on a lorry ot float in the near right (facing the bus) and what might be banners further along, though it's a bit indistinct in the mid-distance. Was there ever a Harringay carnival, for instance?

Comment by Hugh on June 21, 2019 at 13:03

It was almost certainly a carnival. Back in 2014, a member by the name of Louise Pankurst posted an old video of the what could well be the same carnival as that in the photo above. She's sure that her film is from 1964. 

Back in Edwardian times, there used to be competing carnivals in the area.  Here we had the 'Harringay Hornsey & Wood Green Carnival'; just to the west was the 'Hornsey, Crouch End, Stroud Green, Highgate and Muswell Hill Carnival'. The Harringay one used to be run out of the Fairfax Hall. 

Only a carnival now called the 'Hornsey Carnival' survives, rather clinging on by its finger tips. I'm not sure which of the Edwardian ones that developed from: I'd guess the latter of the above. (Here's a short video clip I shot back in 2011)

I'd guess that the one in our photo above might well have been the Harringay & Wood Green one which may still have been running then. Or, possibly the Hornsey one may have been route along Green Lanes at tat time. 

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