Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Wightman Road 190&something and not a thing has changed...

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Comment by John D on February 14, 2011 at 22:23: Ah, but it's 5 am. What was it like in the middle of the rush hour ?

Comment by Hugh on February 15, 2011 at 2:10: Horse carts all over the shop, John.

Comment by StephenBln on February 15, 2011 at 10:15: looks like the daily dose of manure had already been cleared at five on what was no doubt, a warm summer morning..

Comment by Dick Harris on February 15, 2011 at 11:52: I wonder when the gas lamps were removed.

Comment by h4k on February 15, 2011 at 12:43: What sort of social strata was this housing in 190x ? Wealthy family and live in domestic ? I see 127 is written in, I used to live in a flat at 125. There were remnants of an old range in the basement.

Comment by StephenBln on February 15, 2011 at 13:27: Regarding Gas Lighting:

In the TBC area.. Electric lighting had been fitted by the 1930s along tram and bus routes and selected main roads (West Green Road) .. There was another round of electrification in the 1950s (St Ann's Road, Lansdowne Rd & Willoughby Road, White Hart Lane and similar).

Residential streets still had gas lighting with green/yellow lamp posts in Tottenham until 1964/65, when the last were removed.

I can remember plenty of original ranges being in houses in the area in the 1960s..

Comment by Arthur Astrop on February 15, 2011 at 13:55: I lived at No 257 Wightman Rd from 1924 to 1933, and the gas lamps were certainly there at that time. The road surface was gravel, thrown by broad shovel onto very hot tar, and then rolled down by a steam roller. If anyone was seriously ill in one of the houses, straw was laid thickly on a stretch of the road outside that house to deaden the sound of steel-rimmed cart wheels crunching on the gravel. This photo also shows the privet hedges which I recall virtually every house along Wightman then had in its front garden. In hot summer, after a shower of rain, these hedges had a unique smell that remains a strong memory of my childhood.

Comment by Arthur Astrop on February 15, 2011 at 14:24: h$k

Have just seen your query about 'social class'. I cannot vouch for 1905, but in the 1920s my recollection is it was 'working class'. My father worked in the Accounts Dept of the Southern Railway, his brother (in Fairfax Rd) was a commercial artist, and both therefore travelled to London each day. Another uncle was manager of a shoe shop. My best friend's father (108 Wightman Rd) had left the Army as a PT Instructor and had re-trained as an electrician. The man who lived in the flat below us drove a London bus. And the father of another of my school friends had his own small tailoring business, somewhere in Green Lanes I believe. Very few, if any, of the mothers of my school friends 'went out to work' (i.e. had paid jobs), and all were diligent housewives and mothers. Their shrewdness as shoppers was legendary! Hope these small items are of interest.

Comment by StephenBln on February 15, 2011 at 14:31: Yes, I think I've mentioned this before somewhere.. Working Class, but a couple of notches higher than say... Bethnal Green Working Class..

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