Harringay Warehouse District, 1934

Comment by Roy aka Smiffy on December 6, 2024 at 9:03

In the late 40’s we used to dig into that sloping bank and find ‘old’ bottles, jars and broken crockery. At the bottom of the slope was what we called a stream but it was probably just a drainage ditch.

My dad (born 1901, Priory Rd Hornsey) told me that the arena was built on a rubbish dump.

Happy days digging, we thought ourselves archeologists!

Comment by Hugh on December 6, 2024 at 9:17

There was a very public spat in the local press at the start of the 20th century between Tottenham and Stoke Newington Councils. Stoke Newington used the Harringay site to dump domestic waste. Tottenham were affronted because they were doing it without permission and dumped tight up to the St Ann’s Hospital boundary. It became such a mound that they built the Stadium on top of it. So what you were digging up was very probably the rubbish of Edwardian Stokies.

Comment by John Shulver on December 24, 2024 at 14:22

Hermitage Road area from my memories was largely an industrial area.  I worked at 'The United Flexible Metallic Tubing Co' (later became TI, Tube Investments) in Vale Road from '68 - '72.

As in Patrick Byrne's entry above I also did 'Penny for the Guy' mainly outside our house in Harringay Road but sometimes outside The Coliseum cinema.  Paid for all our fireworks.  Mum didn't really like me doing it and I was under instruction not to ask passers by for money.  Happy days......

Comment by tim p on December 26, 2024 at 17:59

Comment by Barrie Maskell on Tuesday

I remember those slopes well. They were steep and dangerous due to the loose debris deposited there. My parents were not keen on us playing there. We used to call it 'Death Valley' !

Comment by Cathy on Friday

I live by the Stadium Slopes, and I was not aware that it had lost its SINC (Sites of
Importance for Nature Conservation) status; it does not figure in the current list (https://haringey.gov.uk//sites/default/files/haringey_open_space_an...).  This is probably due to there being too few staff to undertake surveys to update the old list.

That being said, I very much appreciate that my garden backs onto a wild area; the area is mainly occupied by brambles and sycamore, but that provides habitat for wildlife; we have wrens, jays, black caps visiting our garden, as well as the more common birds.  It is a band of quiet and green that adds a lot to the landscape.

Comment by Hugh on Friday

To add to my comment of December, I came across an old agreement I'd found at the London Metropolitan Archives back in 2017 which has since languished unused in my files. 

From 1868, it is between Harry Brown and  the East London Water Works Company (ELWWC) and concerns land which is identified as "lands and Brickfields with kilns and other works therein situate near or adjoining to a road called Green lanes in the parish of Hornsey". The only site I'm aware of that fits this description is the tile kilns/pottery works that subsequently became Harringay Stadium and Arena.

The agreement explains that "... the company are about to make and construct a Reservoir at Hornsey in the neighbourhood of the said lands and for the purpose of such construction will require to excavate and remove a large quantity of earth and soil parts whereof are composed of rough spoil and other parts whereof are composed of clay and brick earth or loam ..."

Essentially the agreement allowed the ELWWC to dump on the land over the course of a year as and when they wished all the earth it dug out to create the Hornsey Wood Reservoir in Finsbury Park.

Hornsey Wood Reservoir, underneath Finsbury Park alongside Seven Sisters Road. One of a series of photos taken by Matt Emmett in 2014)

So, it seems like the benighted stadium site had a long history as an abused dumping ground. It probably means that part of the Stadium Slopes, beneath Stoke Newington's rubbish (see above), are likely to have been transported spoils from Finsbury Park.

Comment by John Shulver yesterday

That makes perfect sense Hugh.  Must've been hundreds of tons of excavated spoil dumped !

Comment by Hugh yesterday

One more little nugget on this soil is offered by an account published in the Islington Gazette on 13 August 1869. Entitled "Underground About Finsbury Park", it relates the tale of a trip of group of 'naturalists' to Finsbury Park shortly after it opened. Below is an excerpt.

"Fossil-seeking naturally the prevailing desire in our party. ... There are no open sections the soil, but such as are overgrown with grass. But hard by is a brick-field. Let all brick-fields be prized by the geological excursionist. To this spot has been brought a vast mass of clay, which has been excavated from the adjacent park, where a large reservoir, about twenty-five feet deep, has recently been dug. It will lie here throughout the winter months, for it has to be exposed to the disintegrating effects of the atmosphere before it wil be fit for brick-making. The frosts will break up and crumble the refractory lumps. The mass will then be wholly turned over, examined, and tempered for the mill. In these last processes the embedded fossil remains may be found, for with thumb and finger the clay is carefully examined, and the “race” taken out, lest it should crack and flaw the brick in the baking. "Have many fossils been found here ?" we inquire. "Well, yes, at one time and another; Mr. _____ of Stoke Newington, has had a good many." "Have any been found lately?"  "Yes ; a good many sharks' teeth, about twenty feet down, in digging for the reservoir in the park last year." Eventually we obtain from our informant a good and perfect shark's tooth. We select it from handful fossil teeth of various species of fish, which he has taken out of the clay. The point of this shark's tooth is, even now, dangerously sharp to handle. The hands of incautious labourers who manipulate clay are often badly cut by these teeth. The whole surface is smooth and brilliant, and in perfect condition for voracious exercise. It is about inch and a quarter in length from the base to the point. To make quite sure of its authenticity, the sceptical member of our party consults a private geological manual, and finds therein that the specimen obtained really figured as otodus obliquus."

Comment by John Shulver 15 hours ago

Sharks eh !  Well that would seem to settle that argument on spoil dumping Hugh.  Interesting.

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