Number 348

Last week Strettons sold a 990 year lease of 348 Hornsey Road for £61,000, £1000 above the top end of the guide price.

The shop's lain empty a long time and almost anything that opens will be an improvement, so I'm grateful to whoever bought it and look forward to becoming a customer.

In the meantime, I've been struck by how the auctioneer's advert has none of the softness of residential estate agent patter, none of that buy a lifestyle feel.


This isn't 'a rare opportunity to purchase an exceptional property in a sort after area', or 'a superb family home'. 


It's 'an inter terraced ground floor lock-up commercial unit forming part of local shopping parade on the east side of the A103 Hornsey Road about 50m south of its junction with Tollington Park'.


The rest of the advert tells you about the square footage and has a dry warning that the auctioneers have been 'unable to inspect the property internally' or check that no-one's squatting there.


This is sensible stuff, it says, for down-to earth business people. It's a practical buy. None of that silly frippery here. 


Except, of course, that buying a shop is a brave thing to do, far braver than buying a house. You have to live somewhere, the only choices are where and whether to rent or buy. You don't have to open a shop on a scruffy street and in a flat-lining economy.


That's the romance hidden in high streets:  each newsagent and cafe, each haberdashery and upholsterer  holds the story of someone's hopes. 


Where: 348 Hornsey Road
When: Not yet. 

Devil's Lane and Dick Turpin

I just found this story, in Walter Thornbury's Old and New London, about highwaymen haunting the Hornsey Road.  


"Hornsey Road, which in Camden's time was a "sloughy lane" to Whetstone, by way of Crouch End, seventy years ago [in 1802] had only three houses, and no side paths, and was impassable for carriages. 


It was formerly called Devil's, or Du Val's, Lane, and further back still Tollington Lane. There formerly stood on the east side of this road, near the junction with the Seven Sisters' Road, an old wooden moated house, called "The Devil's House," but really the site of old Tollington House. 


Tradition fixed this lonely place as the retreat of Duval, the famous French highwayman in the reign of Charles II. After he was hung in 1669, he lay in state at a low tavern in St. Giles's, and was buried in the middle aisle of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, by torchlight. 


The tradition is evidently erroneous, as the Devil's House in Devil's Lane is mentioned in a survey of Highbury taken in 1611 (James I.) Duval may, however, have affected the neighbourhood, as near a great northern road. 


The moat used to be crossed by a bridge, and the house in 1767 was a public-house, where Londoners went to fish, and enjoy hot loaves, and milk fresh from the cow. In 1737, after Turpin had shot one of his pursuers near a cave which he haunted in Epping Forest, he seems to have taken to stopping coaches and chaises at Holloway, and in the back lanes round Islington. 


A gentleman telling him audaciously he had reigned long, Dick replied gaily, "'Tis, no matter for that, I'm not afraid of being taken by you; so don't stand hesitating, but stump up the cole." Nevertheless, the gallows came at last to Dick."


Walter Thornbury wrote so much that he died of overwork and this popular history was his last  book. The Devil's House name is real enough, but much of the rest may be ornate conjecture.

This picture of Dick Turpin jumping the Horsney tollgate is pure bunkum for sure - it's from an 1849 novel.

(reading victoriana is very bad for my prose style - it gets all adjective-heavy)

Platform Cafe'

Platform is a GOOD thing. A new youth centre in the old Hornsey Road Baths building (more on that in later posts) it has  a theatre, a performance space, media suites, a recording studio, dance studio and a cafe all for and by young people. It even has a fabulous neon sign by Morag Myerscough that says  'I am the creation of your imagination'. But good things can be worthy. I worried that it would be well meaning,  a little dowdy and melancholy. I also worried that it would be full of intimidatingly cool young people and I'd feel old and dowdy. 


Anyway, I was wrong on all counts. It's a beautiful space.There are more neon signs inside:

There's enough mid century modern furniture to make an Apartment Therapy post

 

 and even the stools. lights and banisters have been turned into art:

 

It was busy enough to feel lively, but not too crowded, the people were likeably cool and my coffee was good.   

Where: 260 Hornsey Road - immediately on the left as you go into the courtyard. 

When: Mondays 9.30am - 4pm; Tuesday s9.30am - 4pm; Wednesdays 9.30am - 8pm; Thursdays 9.30am - 8pm; Fridays 9.30am - 8pm; Saturdays 10am - 8pm; Sundays Closed

How a Methodist Chapel became Holloway Police Station.

This was the Methodists' Hornsey Road Chapel, built in 1858. It replaced their smaller Chapel built in 1821, which in turn replaced the meeting house on the Hornsey Road the Methodists had been using 1811.


According to their Islington and Camden mission 'while middle-class Wesleyans were moving into the new suburbs, conditions in the area around the original Hornsey Road Chapel were declining. In an attempt to address growing poverty in the neighbourhood, missions were established in Andover Road and Hampden Road. Hornsey Road Chapel was finally closed in 1940, and demolished in 1960 to make way for a police station.'

That means, I think, that it's now Holloway Police Station and looks like this: 

Hornsey Pool & Amusements

This place used to have a sign on the door saying 'members only', but I've never seen anyone go in or anyone inside to let them in.

There are pictures of two things that look like jukeboxes on the sign. Or perhaps they're games machines? Either way, that boxy aesthetic looks early eighties to me.

I guess they're the amusements. The upper two stories have been abandoned for a long time, long enough for the plywood the windows were boarded up with to rot and for pigeons to make their way in.

I don't understand how this happens. It's a handsome building, in an area with a housing shortage. Someone must own it. Is it tangled up in a contested will? Or is the owner so wealthy that they've forgotten about it? Or, more likely, in such a fragile state that they can't do anything about it?

All I've managed to find is the Hornsey Road myspace page, which shows it with the curtains open.

Where: 382 Hornsey Road

When: Never

p.s. See Alex Pink's photostream here for another view.

Deja Vu: Retail Fashion and Culture

Deja vu has a wall painted a fashionable deep dark blue and an African art display but it's a long way from a 'curated' vintage store.

For a start, it's cheap. I've bought pretty teacups here for ridiculously little money and their second-hand books go from the very highbrow (annotated 1950s translations of the Oresteia) to the very not (Agatha Christie hardbacks) without ever going much over a quid.

For another thing, the stock is interesting and worth delving through.

One of the teacups came with a free spider, there's fine 70s/80s tourist tat to delve through, and the staircase to the basement is risky for anyone above 4 foot.

In other words, it's the kind of place that makes me happy when it's raining and where the owners listen to the cricket on sunny days.

Where: 481 Hornsey Road

When: Mon - Fri: 10:30 am - 6:30 pm, Sat:10:30 am - 5:00 pm, Sun: 10:30 am - 4:00 pm

Time Travel: Highway Robbery and the Old Bailey

On the 29th of October 1817 Justice Park and the First Middlesex Jury tried a James Whitby, accused of stealing a shawl worth ten shillings from a Mary Ann Wort on the Hornsey Road.

The Honble. Mr. Justice Park. 
Painted by W.J. Newton, Miniature Painter in Ordinary to their Majesties.

The Old Bailey record of the trial is short. I wonder if it really took that little to condemn a man.

First the victim/main witness gave evidence

MRS. MARY ANN WORT: 'I am the wife of John Wort. we live in Duval's-lane, Islington. On the 3d of October, about six o'clock in the evening, I was in the Hornsey-road , near Duval's-lane, with my little boy, it was getting dusk. I met the prisoner - He said nothing, but caught hold of my shawl as he passed; it was pinned twice-it was a large shawl; he appeared to be intoxicated. I turned round and looked at him - I am sure he is the man. He took hold of it more forcibly, uttered an oath, and immediately pushed me into a ditch; he still had hold of my shawl, he had not got it off my person-it was not a deep ditch. I kept a firm hold of my shawl, by which means he pulled me on my feet again, and he then got the shawl from me. While I was in the ditch I told my little boy to scream out, and run home to inform them-it was about four hundred yards from home - I followed my boy home. The prisoner ran the other way. I saw no person come.'

Then her son (who according to his mother is 'a little boy') spoke like no little boy has ever spoken.

JAMES WORT: 'I was in the Hornsey-road with my mother. The prisoner came up and laid hold of her shawl; he appeared intoxicated. He went on a little way-my mother turned round, and looked him full in the face. He caught hold of the shawl with more force, and finding that would not do, he threw her into a ditch, and uttered an oath. My mother told me to scream out, which I did - I did not see any person come. She remained in the ditch two or three minutes - He pulled the shawl with such force that it dragged her out of the ditch - He got it from her, and ran over the hedge into a field. My mother told me to run home and give the alarm. I am certain he is the man.'

And then two passers-by confirm the story, both of them recorded in the same stilted style.

JOHN EDWARDS: 'I am a letter-carrier. On the 3d of October I was going down Hornsey-road; I saw a bustle at a distance, and immediately saw the woman go down into the ditch. I heard the little boy cry out, and immediately ran up. When I got near the place, I saw the prisoner go over the hedge into the field, with the shawl over his arm - I ran after him - He looked back, and saw me getting near to him and dropped the shawl. I still pursued - He jumped over a ditch, and fell into it-there is another ditch at the other end of the field - I got into it and secured him. Boards came to my assistance-he was in sight at the time, and saw the prisoner drop the shawl. I am certain the prisoner is the man that I saw struggling with the lady - He was never out of my sight from the time until I took him. I told Boards to pick up the shawl, which he did, and gave it to me. I am sure it is the same shawl.'

THOMAS BOARDS: 'I was going down the Hornsey-road on the 3d of October, in the evening, and saw the lady in the ditch, and the prisoner trying to pull her shawl from her. I saw the colour of the shawl, and saw the prisoner drop it, and picked it up - He was never out of my sight from the time that I saw him with the lady till he was taken in the ditch. I helped the last witness to pull him out.'

(If I were in a solemn mood and had the inclination I'd write something serious about how this official discourse flattens out their voices and makes what happened fit within a set narrative of crime and punishment. I'm not and I don't so I won't.)

Prisoner's Defence: 'I am a poor man with a wife and five children. My character has hitherto been unimpeached, and I humble implore mercy. I had no intention of using violence to the lady. I did not know what I was about, until I was told the next morning.'

LEWIS PAGE: 'I was constable of the night. When the prisoner was brought to the watch-house he was very much intoxicated.'

GUILTY . - DEATH . Aged 25.

The court recommended mercy, perhaps because Whitby had five children and had had good character. He was one of the less frightening highwaymen.

And he may have survived. A James Whitby who had been tried in Middlesex was transported to New South Wales for seven years in 1824.