Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Old Railway Building?.
This hut lies at the rear of a scaffolding yard at the end of Mannock Road N22. It would have overlooked the (now defunct) railway line from Palace Gates Station. Does anyone recognise the architecture of it as a railway building? It even had a flagpole until recently.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Google Maps 2011, shows a pre-conversion image of the building complete with flagpole.
The 1944 OS map suggests that the property is beyond the boundary of railway land.
Kelly's Directory shows the yard as belonging to Charles Holt oil importer.
Taking both these observations into account, I suspect that the building was not owned by the railway.
The building was developed in 2015. But, the planning application gives no insights of the building history.
The person I know with the most knowledge of the Palace Gates Line is Richard Matz. He might know.
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Permalink Reply by Martin (Woodside) on
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Thanks for this Hugh, I gather it may have been a small workshop/store or even a sales office, hence the flagpole. I wonder what name they traded under and the type of oil they sold, a Google search for Charles Holt & Sons oil importers brings up a different venture in the USA. I will discuss this with Richard, probably over glasses of beer.
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I couldn't find anything either, other than in 1905 he was living in a half-house at 18 Duncombe Road, Holloway (also described as an oil importer at that time).
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Permalink Reply by Don on
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I've always been puzzled about the buildings in Langham Parade (Langham Rd) and whether they were part of a goods yard or engine shed on the Palace Gates line. I've looked at Richard Matz's (linked) history of the line but there's no mention of these or the (alleged) former signal box by the allotments behind Langham Place, and an old OS map - I'm not sure which - didn't show it. But the architecture seems redolent of railway buildings and the alignment of the houses on Graham Road/Langham Place seems to suggest a spur from the line might have run across. Can anyone shed any light or is this just a fanciful idea? 2008 pix from Google, as lots of foliage has grown since then.
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I used to live around the corner at 191 Langham Road, to my knowledge the railway never extended to here. I guess that it's just a nicely presented parade of shops for the area. As for the individual house, possibly a cottage that was simply built around and extended front and back. This enclave is such interesting little area, and although having moved out 34 years ago, it still gives me pangs of nostalgia.
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These maps might help, Don.
You can see that in this first, 1914, map that Langham Parade was yet to be built.
It is showing on the 1938 map. But below is the 1944 one. I use this because it's the only one that included so much annotated detail, including house numbers. (Click on any map to enlarge it a bit, the use your browser's zoom function).
The roads in this patch were included in the Tottenham edition of Kelly's. Sadly the most recent one I have access to is 1923, by which time Langham Parade had not been built. I think it is unlikley that the parade ever had any connection to the railway.
The only mention I can find of it in the papers is an advert on Christmas Eve, 1943, strangely in the Chelsea News and General Advertiser.
The 1944 map also clearly shows the original house footprints for Langham Place. You can see that number 2 was originally half the width. It looks like the plot between it and the railway line was vacant at this stage.
It's interesting to compare with a present-day birds-eye view from Google maps.
The Kelly's Tottenham edition for 1923 raises the possibility that number 2 was originally a shop.
With regard to the house in the second picture. It's not numbered in the 1944 map. So I suspectthat it was a store or shed of some sort. There was no number 1. I suspect that the number was reserved for the empty plot next to number 2.
This next map from 1893 is just for interest. Look at what the western end of Langham Road used to be called.
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Permalink Reply by dubmill on
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When I was a child, my mother would take me and my sister to visit my aunt, who lived at 157 Langham Road, which was a prefab. This was in the late 1960s to early 1970s. It’s inconclusive, but I have a hazy memory of there being a shop in Langham Place. I can remember turning down the alleyway, off Langham Road, and there being a shop down there. I recall it being a newsagent/tobacconist type shop. But, as I say, my memory of it is hazy.
We also used to visit my grandparents, who lived at 146 Mount Pleasant Road. It’s possible that my memory of being taken a short distance to a shop relates to a shop near there.
However, I certainly remember turning down the alleyway off Langham Road, and if there was no shop in Langham Place, I cannot think of any other reason for going down there.
Regarding the prefabs (there were two, as you can see on the map), I’d like to see a photo of them, but haven’t yet found one. The pre-war map shows a continuous terrace of houses. Presumably, some of them were bombed, and the prefabs were built in the space created.
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Sounds like the clue I mentioned in the 1923 Kelly’s was good. Given that along with your memories, it sounds like 2 Langham Place was a shop, probably a corner-shop type.
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I’ve just remembered. My mother told me a story not long ago. She said that my grandparents, or maybe it was just my grandmother, thought my aunt was too familiar with the shopkeeper. This would be the shop in Langham Place. Apparently, my aunt and the man in the shop would exchange a bit of saucy repartee. I’m not sure if this was in my time or when she first moved into the prefab, which was presumably as soon as it was built, c.1944.
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Thanks for that bit of vivid colour. I wonder if that was our Henry getting fresh with your aunt.
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Just had a quick look. The Ernest Knoll listed in 1923 was Ernest G Knoll, son of German immigrant Charles Knoll. Both father and son were tailors. The next generation Knoll also became a tailor.
Ernest moved from 2 Langham place to number 5 in the late 1920s or early thirties. Born in 1865, he would have been 60 years old in 1925. So, we can assume that he sold the business and had enough to retire to number 5 (c1930).
By 1934, one Henry Whisson had moved in to number 2 with his wife. In the 1939 Register, he's just described as 'Shop Proprietor".
Whisson had moved on by 1948. The shop then seemed to be empty for a while, but by the early Sixties, a David Shelbourn had moved in.
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It would have to be either Whisson or Shelbourn, I think, unless there’s someone else in between not showing up in the records. I’ll see if I can get a sense from my mother as to when this took place. Unfortunately, her memory has deteriorated a lot in the last year or so, so it may not be possible.
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