Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
How history shaped the wide eastern end of Turnpike Lane
Looking east towards at the mid nineteenth century housing terrace on the site of Turnpike Lane tube station. From left to right, they were Pleasant Cottage, Kent Lodge and Just peeking in on the right) Newent Villa. Behind the was Pleasant Grove, what later became Langham Road.
Looking earlier at the photo above, I wondered if Turnpike Lane had always been wide, or whether it had been widened to accommodate the tram/bus islands in the early 1930s.
I looked over 150 years of maps that take us back to more than 200 years ago. They show that the wide mouth dates from at least the start of the nineteenth century. Back then it was still referred to as part of Tottenham Lane. When the turnpike keeper's cottage was demolished in 1872, the site was subsumed completely into the roadway and the southern part of Turnpike Lane was angled further to the south, giving us today's shape.
The "bar" shown on the 1815 map was the turnpike bar that didn't get lifted until you'd paid your toll.
The maps produced in the first half of the century show the Turnpike keeper's cottage which stood until 1872, when it was demolished. The photo below was taken just before demolition.
Turnpike keeper's house, Turnpike Lane, c 1872. I assume that this was taken from Green Lanes, looking west-north-west, with the door facing Green Lanes.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lydia Walter on
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Great photo, drawings and maps Hugh but they’ve given me more questions.
I can’t quite correlate the drawings and the ordinance survey maps. If they are all presented in the same orientation, it looks like the turnpike was originally located in the middle of the Green Lanes/Wood Green junction - have I got this right? It also looks as though Turnpike Lane turned out wider than the original drawing plans. And I’m guessing Turnpike Lane was so named because it was the ‘lane’ to the left of the turnpike? But WHY is it wider, is it simply the result of the demolition of the cottage? Why leave it like that why not use the demolition for a building opportunity? Was it because Ducketts Common was protected land?
Can’t make out the pub name: was it always The Duke of Wellington
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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An act of 1710 authorised the introduction of a turnpike at Hornsey although tolls were not levied until 1739. The Stamford Hill and Green Lanes Turnpike Trust finally erected a gate in 1765.
The turnpike (or toll) road was Green Lanes. So, the turnpike bar was on Green Lanes. Originally Turnpike Lane was part of Tottenham Lane, the road that led to Tottenham. In the century after the turnpike was established, the name of the section of Tottenham Lane between Hornsey High Street and Green Lanes gradually became Turnpike Lane, the road that led to the turnpike. Legal documents evidence the road being referred to as "the road leading from Wood Green Turnpike to Hornsey" or "the road leading to the turnpike on Green Lanes" etc. The Turnpike also became a regularly referenced wayfinder in common parlance and so almost inevitably ended up as the name of part of the road.
It looks to me like a corner of Little Cocks Field was purchased by the trust so they could build the infrastructure to operate the gate. I assume that after the turnpike ceased to operate, the land was acquired by the local board and since it had by that time been in use as a roadway, it continued in the same use.
The fact that the land to the south was 'waste' or common land may have meant that there was no constriction in that direction, but the expansion seems to have been to the north, into Little Cocks Field which had always been in recorded ownership. By the by, in the first decade of the 19th century, all the land to either side of Tottenham (Turnpike) Lane, up to where it turned south towards Crouch End, except the waste land and the turnpike cottage had been acquired by Edward Gray and incorporated into the Harringay House estate.
As far as I'm aware the pub was always 'The Wellington'. Below is the Kelly's from 1892.
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Thank you Hugh, fascinating!
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