Lower Holloway Sands and whatever happened to Leslie Compton

There are two posts on the Derelict London website about the old Hanley Arms and the damage that was done to it in the name of restoration (as M'Turk didn't quite say to Stalky 'Ruskin says that any man who'll restore a pub is an umitigated sweep'). 

 

I've tried to track down confirmation of the Compton rumour and pictures of the old Hanley arms and got nowhere. 

Here are the posts: 


John writes: 'the licensee during the 60s and I think 70s was one of the Compton brothers of cricketing fame not sure whether it was Denis or Lesley we used to have a couple of pints in there and then go a bit further up the road and have pie and mash'

Ian writes: 'This used to be a lovely pub with a wonderful ornate late Victorian fire surround and sparkling engraved glass all around the walls. I've no idea where it all went and the only current sign of the pubs past glory is the decorative wrought iron surrounding the entrance and above the fascia, what a shame .I remember going in there few years ago and was shocked to see that the glass had all disappeared and had been replaced with flock wall paper. It's not my local but I used to go to the art school at the top of the hill and have the occasional pint there on the way home. Very enjoyable environment to drink in then. He told me that he'd got the pub redecorated in exchange for the glass, or at least I think that's what he said. He seemed quite satisfied with the deal. God knows where it's all gone, beautiful stuff. I live in Holloway and have lived there for years and I'm quite amused at the new names given to areas like these: Crouch End Village, Crouch End Heights. I remember reading an article a few months ago from someone who lives in Gravesend, he said some places wear their names around their necks like a stone: Wormwood Scrubs, Pentonville, Holloway. I wonder how they'll muck around with Holloway when they get round to it, Holloway Bay, Lower Holloway Sands, Great North Avenue and so on maybe. The Globe Hotel opposite the Sobell has gone too, another great pub in its day. What I liked best about it was the heated foot rail at the bar. Wonderful on wet and cold evenings.'

Beloved Readers, do you remember more? Are any of you John or Ian?

A Caution to Mothers

I've been reading through old Islington Gazettes in the British Newspaper Archive and this story stood out for its thorough-going wrong-headedness. Note the bolded sections.

'Dr Lankester held an inquiry on Wednesday at the Hanley Arms, Hornsey Road, concerning the death of Susan Elizabeth Wyatt, aged thirty years, who committed suicide by cutting her throat.

The old Hanley Arms, now a mosque.

Alfred Wyatt of 4 Westmoreland Terrace, Hornsey Road, husband of deceased, said he was an omnnibus conductor. 

Deceased had had three children. Witness went to bed on Saturday night about eleven o'clock and deceased complained of depression of spirits. 

She had been in the habit of drinking, but she did not seem under the influence of drink on that night. She had a strange way and seemed to do things mechanically. 

At three o'clock on Sunday morning he was awoken by deceased getting out of bed. He told her it was to early to get up, and told her to see what time it was. She looked at the clock and told him and he then asked her to go to bed again. She got into bed and he fell asleep. 

When he woke at eight o'clock she was not in bed and he got up and went downstairs to the kitchen, where he discovered deceased with her throat cut. 

Witness called for assistance. Deceased had lately been fretting about the illness of her child and thought she should not be able to bring it up.

Dr R. Fouracres said he knew deceased and had attended her in her last confinement a year and eight months ago. He might remark that she suckled her child up to her death, and this would tend to produce insanity in women. It was a frequent cause.

He was called to deceased after death and found a large wound in her throat, which had divided the windpipe theere were some smaller wounds on the throat and some wounds alson on the breast wheich seemed to show an attempt to stab herself. The wounds were such as could only be inflicted by herself. 

Evidence having been given to show that Wyatt and his wife live harmoniously.

The coroner pointed out to the jury the evidence as to the suckling of the child. he thought it could not be too generally known, as a caution to mothers, that insanity was often produced by suckling a child so old. 

The jury returned a verdict of 'suicide while of unsound mind'.

Islington Gazette - Friday 24 November 1871

Context: Formula isn't poison. Babies fed on it (including me - preens) grow up fine. In the 1870s, however, the alternative to breastmilk was pap and the water round here was a petri dish of horribleness.

More context: That coroner, who comes across here as such a fool, was Dr Edwin Lankester. He helped rid London of cholera, and generally did more for humanity than I or you ever will.

I think the moral of the story is that however hard you try and however smart you are, there will be times when you make a complete ass of yourself.

Spooksbury Halloween

The Gothic WI meet every second Thursday in the Shaftesbury. Their next meeting is a clothes swap, and this is where I regret giving away only corset I've ever owned*.

Oh well.

Anyway, the Gothic WI are/were (depending on when you read this) hosting two Halloween parties. The children's party ends in about fifteen minutes as I write. There were cobwebby cakes,

pastries shaped like dead men's fingers**,

and a smiley ghost cake.

I bought some apple butter because I couldn't resist mystery confectionery with a corset logo.

The grown-up shindig (hootenanny?) starts/started at 7. I'd go, but I'm not drinking until April 7th and I'd have to be a kinder, more mature and altogether better person go to a party in a pub, not drink and not sulk.

*I threw out my blessed Hussein Chalayan jacket the same day. Why? What was I thinking? Why didn't you stop me?
** Talking of which, have you tried these pathology cakes?  

Puss in Tollington

This is Puss:

Puss

Puss padded into the Tollington a couple of years ago. 

The landlady let him stay because thought a mouser might be useful.

Match day

Puss finessed his 'occasional mouser' role into a permanent position.

Your round

Now he runs the place. Go say hi.

How the Shaftesbury was saved

The Shaftesbury nearly didn't make it.  In 2007 it was owned by Sabretooth Vintners:  

Sabretooth Vintners

They gave up and tried to turn it into flats. It would have gone from this: 

To this:

Note how trees magically appear in the second drawing. 

The council turned them down because 'the proposal would result in the change of use of the host building that contributes to the liveliness and vitality of the street scene and provide a service of local value'.

If you're worried your local pub might close, go talk to CAMRA.

singing and dancing

Music to start the week:

Jesse Pie trio recorded at the Shaftesbury.

Jessie Pie vox, guitar

Emily Hannah cello, backing vocals
Danny Bryan percussion, backing vocals

Danno Sheehan production
Paul Soper lighting

This show was recorded on the 17th April, 2011, at The Shaftesbury Tavern, 534 Hornsey Road, London N19 3QN.

All songs written by Jessica Houghton (Jessie Pie) apart from "Yellow Moon", by The Neville Brothers, 1989. All cello arrangements by Emily Hannah.

The Eaglet & the Zeppelin

In honour of the New Year today's post is about renewal and transformation. This is what the Eaglet on the corner of Seven Sisters and Hornsey Road looks like now:

Those beautiful tiles are much younger than the building above. At the end of September 1917 the pub was hit by a Zeppelin raid. Two photographs (here and here) taken the day show the ground floor wrecked, with the glass and woodwork smashed and the beer barrels clattered down from their storage loft.

Even though it has a better story to tell than most, the Eaglet isn't a nostalgic pub. The landlords haven't decorated it with sepia photographs of the Hornsey Road, old theatre playbills, or First World War newspaper reports. There's a mural with an Elvis impersonator instead: 

Where: 124 Seven Sisters Road.

The Plough in Frank Swinnerton's, 'Coquette'

'It was Saturday night—a winter night in which the wind hummed through every draughty crevice between the windows and under the doors and down the chimneys. 


Outside, in the Hornsey Road, horse-omnibuses rattled by and the shops that were still open at eleven o'clock glistened with light. Up the road, at the butcher's just below the Plough public-house, a small crowd lingered, turning over scraps of meat, while the butcher himself, chanting "Lovely, lovely, lovely!" in a kind of ecstasy, plunged again into a fresh piece of meat the attractive legend, "Oh, mother, look! Three ha'pence a pound!" 


Just over the way, at the Supply Stores, they had begun to roll down the heavy shutter, hiding the bright windows, and leaving only a narrow doorway, through which light streamed and made rainbow colours on the pavement outside. The noise of the street was a racketting roar, hardly lower now than it had been all the evening.'

Opening paragraph of the novel written in 1921,  but set in 1912, by Frank Swinnerton, who liked gin & vermouth and the King's College Chapel Choir. 

Masjid -e-Yusuf mosque

According to  muslimsinbritain this mosque has a Deobandi theme, a capacity of 200, does not admit women and looks like this inside: 

From the outside it still looks like a pub even though the new name has been painted across where it used to say 'Hanley Arms'.    

    

It's grade II listed, and so the old wrought-iron signs survive, as does some very pretty moulding. 

   

The Hanley Arms was built around 1850. In 1881 it was home to John Diggins, his wife Mary and their children Mary, Clara and Florence. I wonder if they liked the wrought-iron, or fretted that it was looking dated.

The transformation reminds me of a lot of things: of Simon Armitage's line about churches in Yorkshire becoming carpet warehouses, of the ghost signs you see all over London, of Odradek, and of how buildings outlive us.

If you use the mosque, please tell me what it's like. I'm curious.

Where: 440 Hornsey Road
When: ?