Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Anyone know what used to occupy this plot behind Conway Road?
I walked down Conway Road yesterday evening and saw an entrance to a site which I imagine must have been a workshop/light factory. It's now housing, called Priscilla Place. I read that it used to be a fire station, which would fit in since the fire station building is the one fronting on to Conway Raod, by the bend in the road at the western end of the plot. A practice yard, stabling for the horses before mechanisation? Anyone know the story?
Below are a couple of photos from ground level:
By the by, I also noticed this nice old survivor shop front just opposite, on Conway Road:
And it's companion a few doors down:
Seems like there was a thriving little area of shops - here's an old picture of one just round the corner in Etherley.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Geoff Amabilino on
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Hugh,
Don't know the details but it was a Council yard of some sort before it was sold for housing and became a bit of a blight. I'll try to remember to ask some of the longer-term residents on Cranleigh/Conway Road when I run into them.
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Permalink Reply by rosyrose on
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I think that ex-shop in the last photo is the one on the corner of Rowley Road. If so, I used to live a couple of doors up and my neighbour across the road told me it used to be a bakers. Apparently it did fantastic buns. Her daughter's eyes lit up when she was talking about them, so they must have been good buns.
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Permalink Reply by Tina Eager on
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It was Caves the bakers. their bake house was in the back. They had a shop in West Green Road not the corner of Etherley but about 2 doors down. I had a Saturday job in their shop in Lordhsip Lane. Best doughnuts ever. Mrs Cave used to work in the shops and Mr Cave was the baker. They were still going strong in the late 1970s.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Yes, corner of Rowley. What a shame the baker's gone. Imagine waking up to the smell of baking bread in your house each morning.
It looks like the whole row between Ritches and Rowley were once shops.
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Permalink Reply by JulieB on
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There is one surviving shop, a barbers, which is in the same row as the Quality Store.
Our house backs onto the old fire station yard, so I'd be interested to know what it used to be.
We've never really had any trouble from there, some boys used to kick their ball over into our garden which was a bit annoying when my children were babies. But those boys have grown up enough to go to the park now.
I'd love the smell of baking bread every morning, but I don't think I'd be keen on being woken up at 4am every morning when they start baking.
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Hello,
The shop @ 30 Conway Road (The Quality Stores) was `Maizies' sweetshop, she probably sold fags and papers as well; no interest in those at that time. I can remember her being a stocky woman with curly grey hair and a bright smile for us `young uns'. The dilemma was, I only had a `tanner' a day pocket money so, do I have sweeties or a teacake, warm from the oven, from the bakers further along. I thought the bakers was in the row of shops, not on the other corner but, it's nearly 50 years ago. (That's a lot of IPA). I don't see teacakes about anymore, anyone no different? The fire station had painted high on the front wall in large letters PUBLIC BATHS.
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The cottage in your first photo Hugh was for a number of years (80's- 90's at least) the office of Victim Support Haringey - I was a volunteer there in 92-3. Everyone who volunteered really liked the place and thought it would be a nice place to live - and now somebody does. At that time the bulidings in your 2nd photo were I think derelict, but some other workshops on the site were used by apprentices on some sort of govt training scheme. Even then I think thier were more shops than there are now - I dont know if the carpet shop is still there for example.
I remember the conway road depot as a lively, friendly and happy place to work. It was also the place that my wife and I met!
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Permalink Reply by Geoff Dent on
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I used to play in Conway Road as a little kid (you could play in the streets then!!) and was shown the yard entrance by some older lad who clearly enjoyed winding up the littl'uns like me. There were two brick piers supporting the gates and one had an old fashioned bell push and I can recall being told that if you pressed it the steam roller would drive out - Come on we were only little kids!! Needless to say it was not unusual to see small children reaching up to press the button and then running off at high speed, Strangely they were never pursued by any steamrollers...... Just as a side issue, did I read somewhere that the fire station after being turned into the "slipper baths" had been converted to a residence and bought by the singer Sade?
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Thanks Eddy & Geoff - seems like this is a spot with lots of good memories attached. Do keep them coming.
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Permalink Reply by John Hinshelwood on
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In 1998 I wrote the follwing for an Industrial Archaeology survey.
Conway Road between Avondale Road and Etherly Road was developed around 1902, before then Conway Road was a short interconnecting road between Glenwood Road and Beaufort Road, Avondale Road as it is now called. The 1894 Ordnance Survey Map shows the area as open fields with Hangar Lane Farm at the corner of what is now Black Boy Lane and St Ann’s Road, where Woodlands Park School is; opposite, where the hospital now stands, was Hangar Green House. The Woodlands Park Estate was built in 1892, as evidenced by the plaques on the flanking wall of number 63 Cranleigh Road and the front wall of 49 - 51 Cranleigh Road. Houses in Etherly Road, from West Green Road to Cranleigh Road, are date marked variously 1880 and 1881. The 1905 street directory lists Conway Road properties along its entire length from Glenwwood Road to Etherly Road.
The 25 inch 1914 Ordnance Survey Map shows the completed Conway Road crossing Woodlands Park Road and proceeding by way of a sharp double bend to Etherly Road. This double bend created a space between the backgardens of the houses on the north side of Conway Road and the gardens of houses on the south side of Cranleigh Road, running between Woodlands Park Road and Etherly Road; into this space was fitted a Fire Station and a Council Yard.
As it is today, facing onto Conway Road between numbers 29 and 31, on the bend as the road turns right, the three storey Fire Station is built of red brick with a slate roof. The ground floor has five arched doorways opening directly onto the roadside, there being no footpath in front of the building. Four of the doorways are in broad arched bays two allow for folding doors to open the full width of the archway, two have front doors and an adjacent window over a brick frontage. The fifth and smallest doorway, to the far left, has a simple front door. The second storey has a single arched window above each doorway of equal dimensions. The top story has square windows directly above the second storey windows. The front of the building presents a continuos wall along Conway Road and the garden of number 31, which faces onto the road after the second bend. From the maps this is much as it would have been when built in the early 1900s. Today the space between number 29 and the north wall is in-filled with a wooden fronted garage and the doorways indicate usage by a variety of small enterprises. The doors are identified by two nameplates Coombes Croft 1-2 and Coombes Croft 3-4.
The Tottenham Urban District Council Fire Brigade Station (Harringay District) maintained the Conway Road premises as a Fire Engine and Escape Stations, one of six in the Tottenham and Stamford Hill area, the others being at High Cross, Minster Road, Umfreville Road, Hillside Road and The Hale. The London County Council also had fire stations at38 Seven Sisters Road and Tottenham Green. The headquarters of the Tottenham Fire Brigade was at Coombes Croft House, 711 High Road, Tottenham, its superintendent being Smollett Montgomerie Eddington and having of 24 men. The fire station appears to have remained in use until 1922 after which it became Firemen’s Flats numbers 1 - 4. The 1935 OS map shows that a building had been added at the rear of the old fire station and that a carriageway access to the rear existed adjacent to the garden of number 31 Conway Road, through what is now the double doors to number 4. By 1955 the OS map shows that a Public Baths had been established in the building to the rear of the old Fire Station with a narrow frontage beside number 29 Conway Road, where the wooden garage now fills the space.
Behind the Fire Station, on a separate site was the Harringay district depot of Tottenham Urban District Council, entrance to which was between number 49 and 51 Conway Road. Today the entrance is a gateway made up of brick pillars, some eight feet high with granite carriage stops at the bottom, and two wooden gates on the building line of the front walls of the houses. A cottage existed within the area of the Council depot, on the north side, behind the garden of number 34 Cranleigh Road. The cottage was occupied by Charles Horn from 1905 until at least 1923. On the south side of the depot two long buildings stood behind the gardens of 35 to 44 Conway Road. The 1979 OS map shows that the buildings on the south side were extended almost to the entrance, and the whole are is called a Training Centre and the distinction between the fire station site and the council depot disappeared from the map.
In 1980 the garage/workshop opposite the entrance behind the gardens of 44 and 46 Cranleigh Road was converted to a pottery workshop for use by R.G. Duford of Community Industry; the architect was Richard Thompson, 19 Trinity Road, East Finchley.
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