Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey Council to Rebrand Haringey Shopping Districts
News is filtering out to us that Haringey Council is contemplating a neighbourhood rebrand across all shopping districts in the borough.
For the past decade or so Haringey Council has been trialling a rebrand of Harringay neighbourhood by encouraging the use of a range of names including Green Lanes and Harringay Green Lanes in addition to Harringay. What lies behind this move has been till now a mystery. It seems that at long last, however, some light is to be cast on the murky depths of this strange policy.
We've heard rumours that this approach is to be extended across the borough to give each shopping district three names. Here's what we know so far of the Council's so called 'Metropolitan Shopping District Tri-Naming' policy:
Muswell Hill - henceforth to be known as either Broadway; Muswell Hill Broadway or sometimes Muswell Hill
Crouch End - henceforth to be known as either Broadway; Crouch End Broadway or sometimes Crouch End
Wood Green - henceforth to be known as either High Road; Wood Green High Road or sometimes Wood Green
Harringay - the Council will stick to their policy of using either Green Lanes; Harringay Green Lanes or sometimes Harringay
West Green - henceforth to be known as either West Green Road; West Green Road West Green or sometimes West Green
Tottenham - henceforth to be known as either High Road; Tottenham High Road or sometimes Tottenham
A council spokesperson commented, "We're aware of the issue of confusion, but we think we're managing that in Green Lanes....that is Harringay Green Lanes....I mean Harringay. So we think the time is ripe to roll out this approach and benefit from it in all parts of the borough."
"We think that if people aren't sure where they're shopping, then trade will be spread more evenly across the borough's shopping centres. There's real potential here for mutual branding between Broadway and Broadway, for example and High Road and High Road. That is....I mean between Crouch End Broadway...that is Crouch End and Muswell Hill Broadway, that's Muswell Hill."
"Within ten years we hope to have the same flexibility of neighbourhood names that we've given to Green Lanes.....that is Harringay Green Lanes....I mean Harringay.
The spokesperson refused to be drawn on whether they felt there were any political motivations behind this move, but they did tell us, "We're in discussions with neighbouring boroughs too. We've trialled our 'Multi-Borough Metropolitan Shopping District Tri-Naming' approach for Green Lanes.....that is Harringay Green Lanes....I mean Harringay, with Hackney and Enfield boroughs."
"Hackney has agreed to rename Newington Green as Green Lanes, Newington Green Green Lanes and Newington Green. Whilst Enfield are changing Palmers Green to Green Lanes, Palmer's Green Green Lanes and Palmer's Green. The three Green Lanes districts should really boost the economies of all three districts, we feel.
"A branding agency is working up a campaign for us with the strapline 'The Greenical Mystery Tour'. It's a winner. We're also talking about developing new summer foods to support the campaign. My favourite is a pistacho floured desert called 'Ice Green'.
Apparently a cross borough committee will report on findings towards the end of 2013.
Goodness - who'd have believed it!
Tags for Forum Posts: harringay name
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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Thank you, Haringey. Just the sort of blue sky thinking to celebrate our Winter Solstice. Why wait till April? I look forward to the panharingey extension of this branding brainwave. Muswell Kober - Kober Sisters - New River Kober: all popularly known as Kober. I look forward to paying my Council Tax to LBKober, a brand to banish all our confusion.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Harvey on
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Was this the joke from inside your Harringay Xmas cracker??
Very funny....... I love the thought of all those people being confused about where they're actually shopping...I'm sure this will clear things up for everyone though...
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Whoever leaked this is a total spoilsport!
A long lead-in time was needed to get all this ready for the 1April launch. Now they'll have to redo all the publicity photos. Anyway, it's partly wrong. According to the latest plans, our part of High Road Tottenham was due to be rebranded as Far East Highgate Village.
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P.S. This strapline and rebranding nonsense isn't really funny. Not long before its abolition was announced, the organisation called The Standards Board for England "refreshed" and "revised" its branding. At a total cost of £45,247.60 (dontcha love that 60p?) it changed its name to Standards for England. It also stopped using the strapline: ‘Confidence in local democracy’. Probably because it didn't succeed in adding any. And possibly the opposite.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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P.P.S. Re-branding is a suspect activity that is either promoted or facilitated by PR companies. If a public institution starts doing this, be on guard! It's in the same category as the installation of fountains in new corporate headquarters. When a company starts doing this, they've lost their way and focus.
Labour became "New Labour". The council unnecessarily changed its logo at great expense about six years ago.
Alan is too modest to put in a link to his larger piece on the fallen standards for England. It seems one of the features of our time that regulators are becoming near toothless. I've seen it with the District Auditor, the Charity Commission and the Local Government Ombudsman. They are reluctant to use the powers they do have and they don't want to make waves.
Nowadays, these comfortable bodies are interested in self-preservation (sometimes v. well paid) and they act more as lightning conductors for public discontent. One of the effects of this fudging is to reduce public trust and confidence in the authorities and another is voter apathy.
Standards for England's sanitised and summarised account of one of Cllr. Adje's Breaches of the Code of Conduct, is here. After his four month suspension in another standards case, the councillor was welcomed back into the majority group. The questions posed four years ago, are unanswered - and still relevant.
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What a shame someone has scotched an April 1 prank. Although some of our numbskull councillors or officers could easily have come up with this twaddle.
What BUGS me, is the incorrect pronunciation of Haringey as Haringay. The first should rhyme with Finchley or Hackney, the book The Origins of the name Hornsey, is in Bruce Castle Museum Library, and I summarised it for the Hornsey Historical Society a few years ago.
Haringey, short R and -ey ending is a BOROUGH, Harringay, a rolling R and ending -ay is a DISTRICT in the London Borough of Haringey. Geddit! Simples!
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Permalink Reply by Abi on
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Interesting! Some local people I've met pronounce it 'haring-gee' - I had no idea there was a historical reason to do this but it makes total sense in the context of those neighbouring areas
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Do you mean Madge's 1936 book? He traces Hornsey, Harringay and Haringey back to the old English Heringes-hege (Hering's enclosure). I've flicked through Madge again but can't find the reference to the pronunciation of the ending (I may well have missed it).
As I understand it, in Old English hege, (with the g pronounced as 'y'), would render as "hay-ee". Madge recorded 162 variants of Haringey/Harringay/Hornsey including the original OE. Within that number there were a number of variations in the contraction of the ending. So, given the shift in pronunciation over time I think we can allow both the "eee" ending (as in Finchley), and the "ay" ending as in (Bungay) as correct. Each takes part of the sound of hege for its ending.
Or, does anyone know different?
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Spot on Hugh. I spent a lot of time reading Madge's book in Bruce Castle. As I remember my two Aunts, one here in Crouch End, the other in Fortis Green, explaining to me as a kid that they 'the powers that be' had reorganised and the new combined borough was called Ha-rin-ghee. My Crouch End Aunt always pronounced the street name where the Library is as Ha-rin-ghee Park, never Haringay.
I can only be guided by my two elderly relatives, both of whom had lived here since the 20s, one in Crouch Hill, or my other aunt was in Mount View Road, before she downsized to Lauradale Road in Fortis Green.
I carefully read, as Hugh has, Madge's book and concluded my two aunts were right. In these parts only Leyton defies the rule, but a friend in Walthamstow, who is vey much into her local history alludes to an earlier spelling being LAyton, hence the corruption in pronunciation. I was bought up in Birmingham, where Hockley and Shirley, the latter name also crops up near Croydon, end in 'lee' pronunciations. On a clear day you can see Ally Pally from the Shirley Hills, and of course vice-versa, but there isn't such a significant landmark, look just east of Chrystal Palace TV mast, but I digress .....
By the way, Bungay is spelt '..ay', hence it does not follow Ha-rin-gey. The double '..rr..' in Harringay does slightly alter the articulation and pronunciation. By the way, the BEEB can't get it right either. 'Nuff said! Nighty-night and a Happy Xmas to all!
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I'm pretty sure you're right about the diktat that went out in 1965. If you look at one of my Wikipedia articles on Harringay, you'll see that Val Crosby corroborates that from her school memories. Haringey Council certainly seem to have decided that the eee ending was correct.
I'm not sure if you had cause to ring Veolia during the first year of their contract. Until recently their call centre greeting message used the eee form. Recently it was changed.
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The confusion here seems to stem from some very rarely seen episodes of Star Trek.
The Harrˈangi (accent on the second syllable) are a fictional and highly disputatious people from the planet Harrangue who engage in endless wrangles about the spelling of names, the precise definition of boundary lines, and from which end boiled eggs should be eaten.
These episodes were dropped from UK screenings of the series after invited test audiences in the Norfolk Hills began fighting amongst themselves.
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Permalink Reply by Renato B on
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I grew up in Wood Green before moving away to Norwich so | know a bit about the London Borough of Haringey and East Anglia. The debate you are having about Haringey, Harringay, Green Lanes is fascinating me so much so I thought I would say a few words since I lived in the area between 1952 and 1975 and regularly visit the area, to this day, to visit my family. So I still think of myself as a local boy/man. First of all the "gay" in the Suffolk town of Bungay is pronouced "Bun-ghee" - a hard "g" (correct pronunciation can be found at http://www.forvo.com/word/bungay) and please don't get me started on the correct prononciations of the Norfolk city of Norwich, the town of Wymondham and the villages of Happisburgh and Costessey. The Americans would get nought out of four. Anyway.....
After the reorganisation of the London Boroughs I was taught at school to pronounce "Haringey" the same way as that of the district of "Harringay". Everyone who lived at the time (in the 60's) in the old district boroughs of Wood Green, Tottenham and Hornsey would have been taught or had learnt to pronounce it that way too. The BBC prounounces it that way as well.
Also most of the people in the newly created borough, at the time, would have known there was a distinct district in the middle of the borough called Harringay which straddled Green Lanes which had post codes of N4, N8 and N15. There was no confusion and no misunderstanding.
Most people also knew at the time that Green Lanes was a very long road which stretched from Newington Green up to as far as Winchmore Hill, and the Harringay district only occupied less than a mile of it. Residents of Hornsey, Wood Green and Tottenham at the time would have made sure that they were not misunderstood when referring to the road of Green Lanes by qualifying it. For instance - me, as someone from Wood Green, I would say .. "I am visiting the Tax Office in Green Lanes in Winchmore Hill" ... "I am visiting my Aunt in Green Lanes in Newington Green" ... " I am off to the shops in Green Lanes in Harringay".
I am sure the local residents in Harringay would have called their local shopping district " Green Lanes" that is because they lived in Harringay, like I would have called my local shopping district " the High Road" because I lived in Wood Green. I went to school in Tottenham. It was a nice shopping centre then, it had a Department Store, a Marks and Spencer and a Woolworths and when I told my mum why I was late home from school I gave her the reason that I went to the shops in the "Tottenham High Road" not the "High Road".
I think the confusion of pronounciation and the identity of Haringey, Harringay and Green Lanes lies in one factor alone and that is the rapid mass migration of people into and out of the area. Many newcomers have not a clue and have had to find out the hard way about the differences. It is always the newcomers who are confused and sadly those newcomers have misinformed other newcomers. The present problems of correct pronounciation, spelling and the identity is the result of a lack of education on the subject. That is why sometimes you see the words "Haringay" and "Harringey" when in Harringay.... it makes my blood boil.
What I like to see is new borough signage and only in ENGLISH. For Instance "London Borough of Haringey. Welcome to the Wood Green Shopping Centre", "London Borough of Haringey. Welcome to the Muswell Hill Shopping Centre" and "London Borough of Haringey. Welcome to the Harringay Shopping Centre". My parents came from Italy and I only want to see English on official literature, notices, signs etc..
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