The Friends of Priory Park N8 are working with a company to design a sundial to be placed in The Philosophers’ Garden in the park. But why does the garden have the name it has? [Read more…] about The Priory Park Philosophers
Articles
The Early History of Muswell Hill Library
Muswell Hill Library was recently threatened with closure. After a huge local campaign, it was eventually kept open. This is the early history of what would have been lost. [Read more…] about The Early History of Muswell Hill Library
Hornsey Historical Society Wins New Award!
At the annual conference of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society (LAMAS) held at the Museum of London on Saturday 18th November, HHS won the award for the best London local history society Newsletter of 2016. [Read more…] about Hornsey Historical Society Wins New Award!
A Brief History of the Crouch End Clock Tower
The clock tower, a much loved if not exactly architecturally distinguished building, was erected in 1895 in ‘appreciation and recognition of the public services’ of Henry Reader Williams (1822-97). [Read more…] about A Brief History of the Crouch End Clock Tower
Dr Barton’s Airship
An article by Eleri Rowlands
It is little known that that London suffered its first air raid not in World War Two, but just over one hundred years ago, in May 1915. Bombs were dropped not from planes but from the German Zeppelin airships. It is even less well known that ten years previous to that, a similar dirigible or directional air ship had taken off from Alexandra Palace. [Read more…] about Dr Barton’s Airship
The Collins Family
An article by David Frith
Wherever you are in Crouch End or Muswell Hill you are never more than a short distance from a house or building built by the Collins family. [Read more…] about The Collins Family
Ever Heard of the Local Architect and Surveyor John Farrer?
An article by Janet Owen
John Farrer (1843-1930), a self-made Victorian entrepreneur who lived in Crouch End for forty years of his life, was responsible for designing over eighteen hundred houses and shops for seventy three roads in our area and he laid out fifteen estates for local landowners and builders. [Read more…] about Ever Heard of the Local Architect and Surveyor John Farrer?
The Urbanisation of Hornsey
An extract from John Farrer The Man who Changed Hornsey by Janet Owen
London was sucking in people from the countryside as its industrial strength grew throughout the nineteenth century and its dramatic increase in population shaped the growth of Hornsey parish. People of all social classes arrived in the capital and the population exploded from 959,310 in 1801, to 2,808,494 in 1861, to become 4,521,685 by 1911. [Read more…] about The Urbanisation of Hornsey
The Parish of Hornsey
An article by John Hinshelwood
The land ownership and holdings of early manors (see The Manor and Sub-Manors of Hornsey) probably defined the borders of Hornsey Parish which contained the bishop of London’s Manor and the Prebendal Manor of Brownswood. To the north of the parish was Friern Barnet and Finchley, both part of the Bishop’s great estate. [Read more…] about The Parish of Hornsey
The Manor and Sub-Manor of Hornsey
An article by John Hinshelwood
The Manor of Hornsey was said in 1294 to have been part of the Bishop of London’s manor of Stepney from time immemorial. The bishop also claimed that his predecessors had held Finchley and Friern Barnet as a part of their manor of Fulham until its transfer to the bishop’s lordship of Hornsey in 1491. [Read more…] about The Manor and Sub-Manor of Hornsey