We are hoping to add to our Lockdown Gallery of images with a collection of people’s written accounts of their experiences during the Lockdown period. In this way we hope to have a written as well as a visual record of these months.
Sunday, 17th May, was the centenary of Frank Matcham’s death, probably the most creative theatre architect the UK has produced. He was responsible for designing 150 spectacular buildings all over the country, of which 26 survive. For nine years, between 1895 and 1904, he lived at 10 Hazelmere Road, Crouch End. In November 2007, actors Timothy West and Prunella Scales unveiled an English Heritage Blue Plaque to Matcham on the house.
This 6 month project brought together members of the Crouch End & District University of The Third Age (U3A) and the Hornsey Historical Society (HHS) who have an interest in the history of Crouch End but little or no experience of local history research.
This talk, focusing on Archway Road, Muswell Hill and Crouch End, will look at some of the best examples of shopping parades, an often under-appreciated building type, and also the surprising number of surviving Victorian and Edwardian shop fronts.
Hornsey Historical Society Bulletin 61 has just been published. It is a long issue this time, full of interesting and varied articles, three of them by new contributors: Katy Ferguson on that wonderful local resource, the Park Road Lido, and David Pashley and Steven Wright, who have in very different ways explored the history of the roads in which they live, Mount View and Ferrestone. There is in fact a fourth contributor, but one no longer alive: Mr G. J. Richards, whose story of his long life and work at the now-defunct Barratt’s sweet factory in Wood Green was presented to the HHS in a hand-written manuscript by his son. This very personal (and very long) account has been edited down to manageable proportions.
The iconic Art Deco Hornsey Town Hall in Crouch End opened at the end of 1935. Yet the Hornsey Journal, 19 September 1919, refers to town hall plans on this site then. Why did it take so long to realise these ambitions? Where was the original town hall and why did that building and its location have to change?
An extract from a Hornsey Journal editorial 19 September 1919
Ten years ago or more the erection of a town hall for Hornsey was seriously considered by the Town Council. A site was to be had in Tottenham Lane, spacious and with a good frontage. The price asked was somewhere about £2,000 an acre. But there was a call for economy at the time and the scheme was rejected. Now the project has been revived.
This Shared Learning Project with the University of the Third Age (U3A) will produce an exhibition about Crouch End in the past using pictures from the HHS Archive.
A Ministry of Food was established in December 1916 to combat food shortages and price inflation, results of the ‘submarine menace’. Hornsey’s MP, Kennedy Jones, was appointed director-general of the Food Economy section. What was Hornsey’s response?
An Article from the Hornsey Journal, 24th January 1919
A meeting of the Hornsey Food Control Committee was held at the offices, Topsfield Parade, Crouch End, on Saturday afternoon.