Harringay's Long Lost 4th and 5th Milestones

Because Green Lanes is part of an ancient route from London, for a long time it had milestones, indicating distances to the centre of London. Up till the middle of the nineteenth century, they were regularly used as wayfinders. You'd often see adverts in newspapers for example, guiding people by means of directions such as "on Green Lanes near the 4th milestone".

"4th" and "5th" indicate the number of miles from the centre of London. The 4th was four miles and the 5th five miles.

We had two in or near Harringay's borders. The 4th milestone was just about opposite Woodberry Grove / The Finsbury Arms. Its position on this 1893 map snippet is indicated by the letters 'MP'.

The 5th was on the southern corner of Fairfax Road.

All evidence of them is long gone. It would be kinda nice to have them reinstated, but I guess it'll never happen.