'Sylvan Cottage' most delightfully situated in the Hornsey Road

This advert appeared on Friday March 1851 in the London Daily News: 

'Valuable estates, at Hornsey road, Holloway, and Islington; comprising a compact semi-detatched cottage-ornée, known as 'Sylvan Cottage' most delightfully situated in the Hornsey road, near the Hanley Arms, commanding extensive views of picturesque scenery, and containing every accommodation for a family of respectability, stable, coach-house, and loft, garden tastefully laid out with ornamental fountain, summer room, and wood, Esq., at £55 per annum. A cottage adjoining , with stable, greenhouse, and garden, let at £27, 6s per annum.'

I came across it because the British Library has put four million pages of historical newspapers online. Seems like the only thing to survive the ages untouched is estate agent prose.  In time the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, but there will still be stunning flats in highly sort after areas.

I want an ornamental fountain. Am I not a family of respectability? 

John Gay, Lewis Rogers Junk Shop, 63 Hornsey Road

The photographer Hans Gohler was born in 1909 in Karlsruhe.

In 1933 he moved to England and changed his name to John Gay (after the Beggar's Opera composer). He took pictures of every day life in the city, railway stations and Dylan Thomas. 

Sometime between 1962 and 1964 he took these three photographs of a second-hand store on the Hornsey Road: 

It sold 'anything of interest', which seems to have meant dolls' heads in vases, grandmother clocks, chandeliers, 

lamp bases, miniature chests of drawers and horns. 

John Gay died in 1999 and left his photographs to English Heritage, who've put them online.  Go look. 

'Volumes of dense smoke'

China Mieville's Unlundun is a parallel universe city with no Klinneract (say it aloud) and dirt we can't conceive of. 

This story, taken from the Saturday 3 November 1887 edition of the London Standard, reads like a chapter in Unlundun's slow retreat:

The King vs. Davison 

'Mr Chitty opened the pleadings, and the Attorney General briefly stated the substance of the case. 

The defendant, Mr Davison, stood indicted for having erected a manufactory for lamp black, at Crouch End, on the Hornsey road, to the great inconvenience of the inhabitants residing in that neighbourhood.

This factory was situated near the highway, it constantly poured forth volumes of dense smoke and had been several times on fire. The health and comfort of the inhabitants, therefore, was greatly injured by this establishment, and the present prosecution was instituted to abate such nuisance, and effect its removal from that spot. 

John Watts lives at Hendon, is surveyor of the bye-roads, knew the defendants's manufactory in Duvals-Lane on the road to Hornsey, in the parish of Islington. The building is situated between 30 and 40 yards from the high road. The premises were erected in the early part of 1826, and commenced working during the summer of the same year. 

The effluvia that issued from the manufactory while at work is so disagreeable that it frequently occasions sickness and may be smelt at the distance of about a mile. cross-examined by the Common Sergeant. 

There is a brick-kiln adjoining the defendant's manufactory, but the smell from that is by no means like what proceeds from Mr. D's premises. 

Constable 'A Kiln on the Hornsey Road' 1797

A number of wintesses, inhabitants residing near the defendant's manufactory, were called and examined, and from their evidence they corroborated the testimony of the first witness, as to the offensive effects produced from the said manufactory. They also spoke of several fires having occured in the building, and must remove from their houses if the nuisance is not abated. The Common Sergeant, who conducted the defendants' case, said, that under all the circumstances stated on the part of the prosecution, he had advised his client to submit to a verdict against him. 

The jury consequently pronounced the defendant Guilty. '

John Hitch Seating

This is a handsome shop. It's sleek and it sells good-looking furniture. If I could afford a new sofa and didn't have two cats I'd love to buy one from them.

           Special seats for London advertising agency: Urban Salon

They do everything from custom-made furniture and grand commissions from grand clients (Heals, BMW and Istanbul Airport among others) to small-scale repairs.


There are no chains on the Hornsey Road. I'm increasingly coming to think that there aren't even any ordinary shops on it. 


The vintage store sells Zambian sculptures, we have a Nigerian jazz place, and John Hitch (which I thought was just an upscale furniture showroom) turns out to be run by people who invent, design and make furniture as well as selling it.


In that spirit, my favorite picture of this business isn't of a piece of furniture, it's of the fabrics that they turn into furniture:

Possibility made into cloth. 

Swimming Costume (100 Objects)

Do you remember the 'A History of the World in One Hundred Objects' series that Radio 4 and the British Museum ran? It was very very very good and is here.

When the BBC did an extended version the  Islington Museum put in this red cotton bathing costume left behind in the lost property of the Hornsey Road Baths:

Image courtesy of the BBC

I realise I'm supposed to find this ridiculous, I get that wet cotton must be neither flattering nor comfortable nor easy to swim in, and I don't want to get into a conversation about Victorian morality and all that.

But I would like it if there were still swimwear that doesn't expect its wearers to be young and toned or whisper that they should diet for months or have surgery or otherwise act out shame before wearing it.

I like clothes because they are interesting and varied. I like how there are dresses (and shirts, trousers, skirts, blouses, ...)  out there that channel Coco Chanel and Susie Bubble, Katherine Hepburn and Amelia Earhart, Cary Grant and Kurt Cobain.

Except, it seems, when we're swimming. It's dull.

M&M Glass, auctions and a bearded dragon

A matter of weeks ago, 410 Hornsey Road was M&M Glass. It was a magical and shadowy place, but  it's gone now.* 

The space is between tenants and an inventive friend of the freeholder is hosting occasional auctions of 'antiques, furniture old and new, various bric-a-brac, etc...' 

The first one was on Wednesday and so I ambled down to take photographs. There was a small crowd gathering, and two chaps outside were saying 'he's got hold of some nice things in there, really nice things'. 

I don't think the 'Glass cut to size' sign was for sale. But there were boxes to delve through. 

and books to read.

I kind of got distracted when the-lady-with-the-red-hair turned up with a bearded dragon.

I didn't catch his name, but he seemed happy being carried around.

*Sic transit gloria mundi, et atque taberni et officini transient.

Championship Vinyl

In High Fidelity, Rob Fleming's record shop is just off the Seven Sisters Road

This proves conclusively that it's on the southern stretch of the Hornsey Road.

After all, even something that doesn't exist has to not exist somewhere.

Gratuitous John Cusack picture