U N C O V E R E D

HORNSEYHaringey’s revolting parish

H a r i n g e y

ALL IN A NAMEIf you split Haringey in half along GreenLanes and Wood Green High Street, thenalmost everything to the west, includingStroud Green, Crouch End, and MuswellHill, would be part of the old parish ofHornsey.

“Haringey and Hornsey are the sameword,” says local councillor DavidWinskill, who has lived in the area hiswhole life. “Up to about about 150 yearsago there was no formalised spelling inthis country, so words would change anawful lot.”

It wasn’t until the 1960s, when theparishes of Hornsey and Tottenhamwere joined together, that the newBorough took Hornsey’s original name:Haringey.

DOWN WITH THE KINGHornsey Lodge, which was probablymore like a castle, was once theresidence of the Duke of Gloucester, aroyal title often given to someone closeto the King (who often wanted to beking themselves).

The first Duke of Gloucester was theleader of the Lords Appellant, a groupof rich noblemen who in 1386 met up inHornsey Park to ride into London andoppose King Edward II. They seizedpower in an armed rebellion in 1388.

In 1441, the second Duke of Gloucester’swife Eleanor was part of a supernaturalconspiracy to kill King Henry VI bysorcery so that her husband could takethe thrown himself. At the Duke’s lodgein Hornsey, she met with a priest, awitch, and Robert Bolingbroke, ‘a mostnotorious evoker of demons’. There they‘endeavoured to consume the king'sperson by necromantic art.’

It didn’t work, obviously. Bolingbrokewas hanged; the priest died in prison;the witch was burned in Smithfield; andthe Duchess was forced to walk thestreets in a shameful state of undressand imprisoned for the rest of her life.

DID YOUKNOW... The third Duke ofGloucester did manageto become King, and isthought to havemurdered Henry VI andhis two young nephewsto do it.

DID YOUKNOW... It is rumoured that theremains of WilliamWallace (the Scottishhero made famous bythe film Braveheart) werehidden in Hornsey Lodgewhile being secretlyreturned to Scotland.

DID YOUKNOW... Muswell Hill is namedafter the Mus well, aspring whose miraculoushealing propertiesbecame the object ofpilgrimages in theMiddle Ages.

GOING WITH THE FLOWWhen the Great Northern Railway wasbuilt in 1850, the population of Hornseygrew from 6,000 people to 90,000 in just50 years.

“The railway line is probably the mostimportant thing that happened toHornsey,” says David Winskill. “Hornseywas the first station out of Kings Crossand suddenly it became a possibility tocommute. At that stage Hornsey wasrural and central London - Camden,Islington, Westminster, the City, andHackney - was an incredibly squalid,dirty place. People were dying of allsorts of diseases, and the populationthere was going through the roof. It washorrible to live in.”

Most houses had a cesspit under thefloor where they threw absolutelyeverything. Whole families suffocated todeath overnight in the poisonous fumescoming from the cesspit, andsometimes the fumes even exploded.When the cesspits were full, theyoverflowed into the street and then intothe Thames. In 1858, The Great Stink fromthe Thames caused thousands to fleethe city and finally persuaded theGovernment to build some propersewers.

Not that rural retreats like Highgate weremuch better. In 1868 there were opensewers in the street where sewagemixed with waste from slaughter houses,offal pits, and pigsties, and in onebuilding 135 people were sharing sixtoilets that weren’t even connected to awater supply.

Even though the New River had beenbringing fresh water into London since1603, it wasn’t until 1902, almost 300years later, that every home in Hornseywas finally connected. The fresh waterdidn’t just go into the taps, it diluted thesewage, helped flush it away and waseven used in high pressure jets to cleanyears and years’ worth of dried-onsewage from the streets and house-fronts.

DID YOUKNOW...One of the first peopleto design a flush toiletwas Sir ThomasCrapper.

DID YOUKNOW...For years, SouthHornsey's sewage wassecretly pumped into themetropolitan sewerswithout payment,leading the Hornetnewspaper to dubHornsey the 'worstgoverned parish aboutLondon'.

DID YOUKNOW...In 1950, 33,000 peoplea year still took baths inthe public wash houseon Hornsey High Street.

THE BOMBWith Crouch End growing quickly, oneman stopped it being swallowed upcompletely by the big dirty city: “Henry Reader Williams saw all thedevelopment around him, and the ruralatmosphere of Hornsey disappearing,and managed to get some of the landput in trust so no one could build on it,”says David Winskill. “It was really far-sighted because one of the attractionsof living round here is we’ve got lots ofgreen open space. So a gratefulcommunity erected the Crouch Endclock tower in his name.”

The clock tower was unveiled in 1895.With a new library, fire station andpolice station, shopping parades,churches, schools, Alexandra Palace,several new railway stations and openspaces like Priory Park and HighgateWood preserved by Henry Williams, allthat was missing was somewhere for thelocal authority to do all its talking.Hornsey Town Hall opened in 1935.

“At its height there were about 100people working there,” says David. “Theyhad guys looking after the roads, thesewers, a primitive social services, theborough electricians who put thelighting up - in those days there mighthave been a gas lamp or somethingbut basically this was completely andutterly dark. The stuff that we rely on justdidn’t exist in those days, and it took thelocal authority to put it all together.”

And it was nearly taken apart by WorldWar II. “Hornsey got hit by the V1, thedoodlebug, the great grandfather of thecruise missile,” says David. “They wereset off from France or Germany andthey had a little gizmo in so they knewwhen they had travelled far enough.The motor would cut out and theywould just nosedive. You’d be sittingthere having your tea and all of asudden your whole world woulddisintegrate. It seems so far away butthe things that are going on in Baghdadand all over the world, Hornsey wentthrough.”

DID YOUKNOW...The band Queenplayed their first everconcert in HornseyTown Hall in 1971.

DID YOUKNOW...Hornsey Town Hall wonan award from theRoyal Institute of BritishArchitects as the bestpublic building inLondon when itopened.

DID YOUKNOW...Crouch End clocktower was paid for bythe local residents,who raised £900 of the£1,200 it cost to build injust three weeks.

Produced by 020 8883 0260

This booklet was produced by young people at Exposure, Haringey’s award-winningyouth media charity, with help from BTCV, Hornsey Historical Society and BruceCastle Library and Archive Service. It was paid for by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The following young people took part in this project:

Ab

be

y G

arr

oo

d

Am

anu

el T

ew

od

ros

Da

vid

Mo

rde

n

Nic

k M

ay

Pip

pa

Ca

se

Ric

ca

rdo

Le

ttie

ri

Ga

bre

ille

Asa

re

He

nrie

tta M

orr

is