Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Harringay House Grounds, c1885
The New River in Harringay Park just to the North of Harringay House (the house is behind the trees - as always!).
The road in the mid-ground was a track which ran from the back of the house to Hornsey Station. After the railway was built, it ran under the stone-built viaduct that carried the railway across the river.
If you'd like to learn more about the history of Harringay , see my article on Wikipedia providing an overview of the History of Harringay. The series box at the top of that page will take you to more detailed articles I've sketched out on periods in Harringay's history.
Albums: Old Harringay, before 1885
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Comment by matt on February 7, 2008 at 22:45
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Is that the new river? Looks like a pond!
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Comment by Hugh on February 7, 2008 at 22:53
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Yup, it's the New River. If you look at old maps, you'll see that it had a particularly wide stretch ( a river basin) just at the corner near by where Effingham is today.
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Comment by StephenBln on February 8, 2008 at 0:43
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When was this shot taken?
What a shame such a rural scene has been changed into a characterless suburban sprawl..
Middlesex was said to have been a very scenic county..
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This was taken in the early 1880s.
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Actually this is one of the problems with utilizing the terraced house street layout approach to planning; it mows down everything in it's path!
Installing a more hap-hazard street design that the 'new world' favours allows contours to be used, trees kept and even the occasional pond. Still, having said that most large land & housing developers can't be trusted to be sympathetic.
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Comment by Dick Harris on May 26, 2016 at 22:58
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I am fairly confident in saying that Wightman Road does not appear in this photo. In my opinion, the track in front of the river is the one that used to connect the house and its main drive with Hornsey church after passing under the railway along to the left of the camera’s standpoint. Out of frame to the right, the track curves back around the river basin and passes across the hill side to link up with the main drive just where it crossed the river out of sight on the other side of the hill. On this reading, the camera was standing on the earlier railway embankment beyond the fence (which is visible across the bottom of the photo).
The land in the foreground including the river basin is now entirely covered by about 15 feet of landfill topped by the present railway sidings. The river was straightened and moved into a new bed leading to the tunnel that takes it under the hill top before it emerges in its original course where Seymour Road now stands. The garden of my Wightman Road house is situated on the hill side such that part of the track cuts right across it. The tip of my garden reaches down to the old river bank behind the tree in the centre of the photo. The line of Wightman Road (which had not then been laid out) passes across the front of the darker trees which hide the big house. That is also where my house and several others now stand.
All this can be deduced because this river basin was the only such feature on the New River in this area. The shape of the curves and the position (or absence) of other features enable one to fix quite accurately both the field of view of the camera and where it was standing. The attached JPG file shows in blue where I suppose the camera was standing and its field of view. The red overlay map is from 1894 since when the railway sidings have been further extended.
It’s quite fun to find that there is by chance a picture of my plot before even a sod was turned. I have not found any evidence of the track in the garden. There has been some messing about with the levels of the surface in the garden so I would have to be very sure of the exact spot to dig before attempting any amateur archaeology!
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Nice sleuthing!
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Comment by Allen Cullen on August 30, 2021 at 4:02
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Nice pic & info, cheers!
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