Noel Park
Encyclopedia
Noel Park in London, England, is a late-19th early 20th-century planned community
consisting of 2,200 model dwellings
, designed by Rowland Plumbe. It was developed in open countryside to the north of London in the valley of the River Moselle
, about half-way between the historic villages of Highgate
and Tottenham
. It is one of four developments on the outskirts of London built by the Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company
(Artizans Company). Since 2003, the name has also been given to a small park near the southern edge of Noel Park, formerly known as Russell Park.
One of the earliest garden suburbs
in the world, Noel Park was designed to provide affordable housing for working class families wishing to leave the inner city; every property had a front and rear garden. It was planned from the outset as a self-contained community close enough to the rail network to allow its residents to commute to work. In line with the principles of the Artizans Company's founder, William Austin, no public house
s were built within the estate, and there are still none today.
As a result of London's rapid growth during the early 20th century, and particularly after the area was connected to the London Underground
in 1932, Noel Park became completely surrounded by later developments. In 1965, it was incorporated into the newly created London Borough of Haringey
, and in 1966 it was bought by the local authority and taken into public ownership.
Despite damage sustained during World War II
and demolition work during the construction of Wood Green Shopping City
in the 1970s, Noel Park today remains largely architecturally intact. In 1982, the majority of the area was granted Conservation Area
and Article Four Direction
status by the Secretary of State for the Environment
, in recognition of its significance in the development of suburban and philanthropic housing and in the history of the modern housing estate
.
, near the centre of the modern London Borough of Haringey
, of which it is a ward. The area forms a rough triangle, bordered by the A109 road (Lordship Lane) to the north, A1080 road (Westbury Avenue) to the south-east, and A105 road
(Wood Green High Road, formerly part of Green Lanes
) to the west.
When construction began, the River Moselle
, running parallel to Lordship Lane a short distance south of it, formed the de facto northern boundary of the area. During the development of the area in the 1880s the river was culvert
ed and the land between the river and Lordship Lane built on.
The historic western boundary was the now-defunct Palace Gates Line
of the Great Eastern Railway
(GER), a short distance to the east of Wood Green High Road. Since the railway's closure in 1964, much of the area between the former railway line and Wood Green High Road has been occupied by the eastern section of the large The Mall Wood Green shopping, cinema and residential complex (commonly known as Shopping City).
and pasture
, with the only building shown in the area which was to become Noel Park being Dovecote House itself, dating from 1254 and the earliest recorded property in Wood Green. The small village of Wood Green
itself is shown a short distance to the north-east. The manor itself was situated on the ancient arterial road of Green Lanes
. The last recorded occupancy of the manor was in 1881, shortly before the site was cleared for the construction of Noel Park.
By 1880 the estate had been broken up into fifteen smaller farms. The rough northern meadows adjacent to the Moselle were used for beef farming, whilst the southern fields, known as Grainger's Farm, were used as grazing land. The western edge of the estate was by this time occupied by the Great Eastern Railway
's Palace Gates Line
and Green Lanes railway station
, opened in 1878.
(Artizans Company) was established in 1867 by William Austin. Austin was an illiterate who had begun his working life on a farm as a scarecrow
paid 1d per day, and had worked his way up to become a drainage
contractor. The company was established as a for-profit joint stock company
, with the objective of building new houses for the working classes "in consequence of the destruction of houses by railroads and other improvements". The company aimed to fuse the designs of rural planned suburbs such as Bedford Park
with the ethos of high-quality homes for the lower classes pioneered at Saltaire
. Whilst earlier philanthropic housing companies such as the Peabody Trust
and the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company focused on multi-storey blocks of flats in the inner cities, the Artizans Company aimed to build low-rise housing in open countryside alongside existing railway lines to allow workers to live in the countryside and commute into the city. The company attracted the attention of Lord Shaftesbury
, who served as president until 1875.
The company built and immediately sold a group of houses in Battersea
, then still a rural village. The proceeds of the sale were used to purchase a plot of land in Salford for development, and by 1874 the company had developments in Liverpool
, Birmingham
, Gosport
and Leeds
.
The first of the four large-scale estates built by the Artizans Company was Shaftesbury Park, a development of 1,200 two-storey houses covering 42.5 acre (0.17199155 km²; 0.0664063087146759 sq mi) built in 1872 on the site of a former pig
farm in Battersea. The success of Shaftesbury Park led to the construction of Queen's Park, built in 1874 on a far more ambitious scale on 76 acre (0.30756136 km²; 0.118750104995656 sq mi) of land to the west of London, adjacent to the newly opened Westbourne Park station
, purchased from All Souls College, Oxford
. A third London estate was planned at Cann Hall
, and a site of 61 acre (0.24685846 km²; 0.095312584272829 sq mi) was purchased.
However, the Queen's Park project suffered serious mismanagement and fraud; the company secretary
William Swindlehurst and two others were found guilty in 1877 of defrauding £9,312 (approximately £ today) from the project. The company was forced to raise rents and tenants were no longer permitted to buy their houses; by 1880 the company's finances had recovered sufficiently to allow further expansion.
since 1876.
In April 1881, the Artizans Company inspected sites at Fulham
and "in the vicinity of Alexandra Park
" in the Tottenham Local Board
. The Fulham site was rejected as too prone to flooding, and the Wood Green site rejected as being too far from any centre of population.
However, the next month, the decision was taken to bid for the site near Wood Green. Despite its distance from London at the time, the area was well served by railways. The Palace Gates Line, opened in 1878 to serve nearby Alexandra Palace
, had an intermediate station at Green Lanes, immediately adjacent to the site in question. This provided direct service to the City of London
from the outset; following the construction of a link with the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway on 1 June 1880, direct services also ran to Blackwall
and North Woolwich
, providing direct links with the Port of London
. In addition, the Great Northern Railway
's station at Wood Green
(now Alexandra Palace station) was within walking distance. The company decided that the quality of transport links compensated for the distance from any significant centre of population, and, in June 1881, a site of 100 acre (0.404686 km²; 0.156250138152179 sq mi) was purchased by the company for £56,345 (approximately £ today).
style. Although the houses were built to the same five basic designs, each street was given a distinct style of design and ornamentation. Varying mixes of red and yellow bricks, and variations in window design and ornamental motifs were used to give each street a distinct identity. All were designed with front and rear gardens. Corner houses were given distinctive designs and turret
s.
The distribution of houses followed the traditional Victorian model of town planning. The larger first- and second-class houses were built in the centre, close to the church and school, while the more numerous third-, fourth- and fifth-class houses were built in the estate's outskirts. Welch (2006) speculates that this segregation of housing was not Plumbe's intention; Plumbe himself was quoted in 1896 as saying that "I regret that it is necessary to separate the richer and more cultured classes from the poorer, owing to the prejudices which exist; and these prejudices exist on the part of the poor as well as on the part of the other class".
Except for the corner houses, the houses were built in pairs, each sharing a porch with its neighbour. For many of the smaller fourth- and fifth-class houses, the doors were aligned at right angles to the façade of the house, so as not to open directly adjacently to their neighbours. All houses were designed with at least one parlour
and with the kitchen
, scullery
, and toilet
in separate rooms at the rear of the house; the first-class houses also had toilets upstairs. In line with the design principles of the time, the downstairs toilets were accessible only from the rear gardens, and the houses were not fitted with separate bathrooms; baths were taken in a moveable bath located in the kitchen.
All houses were built with marble
-mantelpieced
fireplace
s and flue
s. All houses were supplied with running water supplied from the New River
, which flowed through nearby Wood Green
. However, not all houses were supplied with gas
or mains electricity
from the outset, the remainder being lit by candles or oil or paraffin lamps.
Houses at Noel Park were deliberately designed to be relatively small, both for cheapness and to discourage tenants from taking on lodgers. Many of the larger houses at Shaftesbury Park had been sublet and split, and the practice went against the principles of the Artizans Company's founders. To discourage the practice at Queen's Park and Noel Park cottage flat
s were built; these maintained the terraced façade, but split the house into upper and lower flats, each flat having a separate front door onto the street. Many properties, particularly on the central Gladstone Avenue, were built in this style; this maintained the unbroken façade of the first-class houses, but allowed large numbers of smaller and low-income families to be housed.
was built into the development site. Although initially the company had considered making bricks on the site, the rail yard allowed raw materials to be purchased wholesale and transported cheaply to the site, with large warehouses and workshops constructed for the manufacture of doors, flooring and other necessary materials; in 1884 the Pall Mall Gazette
reported that "in a shed 330ft long by 50ft broad are stored a million superficial feet of flooring boards".
In early 1883 serious discrepancies were discovered between the amounts of building material apparently purchased and the actual amounts acquired. Rowland Plumbe and Sir Richard Farrant, Deputy Chairman of the Artizans Company, visited the site to investigate the matter. Mr Hunt, the foreman
, advised that "in answer to questions as to the mode of measurement in use for Ballast heaps, that one third was added to the measurement for shrinkage".
When summoned to appear before the "Hornsey Committee" of the Artizans Company the next day, Hunt instead sent his assistant, without the relevant ledgers and instead with a paper described in the Committee minutes as "a paper of measurements which were soon ascertained not to be the actual measurements but measurements falsified so as to work out cubically to about the measurements certified by Mr Hunt". The total overpaid by the company was calculated by Plumbe as £1,071.14s
.3d
(approximately £ today); Hunt was immediately dismissed and a gatekeeper to record all goods entering the site was put in place to avoid a repetition of the incident.
In 1883, is was decided to name the estate "Noel Park", in honour of Ernest Noel
(1831–1931), Liberal
Member of Parliament for Dumfries Burghs
and chairman of the Artizans Company since 1880. The streets were laid out on a grid plan
of broad avenues running on a south-west to north-east axis and narrower roads running north-west to south-east. Streets were named after prominent members of the Artizans Company and leading political figures of the time, with the exception of Darwin Avenue, named for Charles Darwin
, prominent naturalist and an early investor in the Artizans Company, and Moselle Avenue, which was to follow the course of the culvert
ed River Moselle; see Derivation of street names, below.
, Archbishop of Canterbury
, sent a note which was read to the crowd in which he stated that "no one who cares for our labouring population can doubt that this is one of the first, perhaps the most, necessary of all steps for their good".
(now Alexandra Palace station) on the Great Northern Railway
. By 1886 Noel Park had over 7,000 residents.
However, the poor workers at whom the Noel Park development was aimed found themselves unable to afford railway tickets. The issuing of cheap early morning workman's fares on the Great Eastern Railway's lines further east in Tottenham
, Stamford Hill
and Walthamstow
had led to overcrowding on trains and large numbers of poor workers moving to the areas (many of them displaced by the construction of the GER's Liverpool Street station
in the City of London and rehoused by the company). William Birt, General Manager of the GER was strongly against extending the policy of workmen's fares, stating that "to issue them from Green Lanes would do us a very large amount of injury, and would cause the same public annoyance and inconvenience as exists already upon the Stamford Hill and Walthamstow lines" and that "no one living in Noel Park could desire to possess the same class of neighbours as the residents of Stamford Hill have in the neighbourhood of St Ann's Road
".
In 1884, a deputation led by Lord Shaftesbury was made to the Great Eastern Railway and Great Northern Railway, proposing that for trains due to arrive in central London prior to 8 am, third class tickets should be sold at a fare of 3d providing the return journey was not made before 4 pm. By May 1885 both railways had adopted this policy. However, the delays and uncertainty caused by the fares dispute had discouraged prospective tenants, leaving large numbers of properties vacant and causing further building work to slow considerably. In 1887, construction work was temporarily suspended altogether, in response to the large backlog of un-let properties.
By the time of the 1894 Ordnance Survey, roughly 50% of the estate was complete. The entire southern half of the estate between Gladstone Avenue and Westbury Avenue at this point remained open fields.
One of the few buildings constructed in the early stages of Noel Park's development not designed by Rowland Plumbe, Noel Park School was built in 1889 by the Wood Green School Board, to the design of architect Charles Wall.
The school was designed to accommodate 1,524 pupils of both sexes; however, by 1898 the growth of the Noel Park estate led to severe overcrowding problems, with an average attendance of 1,803, making it the most overcrowded school in the School Board's area. In 1924 a school for the partially blind opened within the school.
In 1946, the school became a Secondary Modern
. Between 1957 and 1963 the secondary facilities were closed, leaving the school as a primary school. In 1965, the school came under the control of the newly created London Borough of Haringey
. Following reorganisation of Haringey's education services, it is now a primary school serving approximately 500 pupils between the ages of three and 11.
Although Plumbe's original plans for the estate had envisaged a recreational area in the centre of the estate, this never came into being and the land reserved for it was built over during the estate's early development. Despite Noel Park's proximity to the leisure facilities of nearby Alexandra Park
, in 1929 a long, thin strip of land near the south of the estate was designated as parkland and given the name "Russell Park". In 2003, following consultation with residents, the park was renamed "Noel Park" by Haringey Council. , local residents were lobbying for the name to be changed back to Russell Park to avoid confusion.
A site for a church had been set aside on the estate from the outset, and in 1884 Plumbe submitted designs for a church and mission hall. The mission hall opened in March 1885 with room for 350, and soon began to suffer from overcrowding. The people of Noel Park started a fund to pay for the church, which was consecrated on 1 November 1889 as St Mark's.
The church is relatively large, seating 850. It is built in the Venetian Gothic
style, and divided into a five-bay nave, transepts, chancel, morning chapel and organ chamber. Although Plumbe's original design envisaged a tower, one was never built. By 1900, St Mark's was reported as having a congregation twice that of any other church in Wood Green.
In 1913, a second much larger mission hall was opened nearby, named the Walsham-How Mission Hall after William Walsham How
, leader of the Shropshire Mission to East London. The Shropshire Hall, built by the Shropshire Mission in Gladstone Avenue, is now the Noel Park Children's Centre. Noel Park's relative geographic isolation led to the formation of large numbers of clubs and societies using the two mission halls for a wide range of activities, including large numbers of sporting societies.
Due to the temperance
views of the Artizans Company's directors, no public houses were built in Noel Park, a situation which remains the case today.
style, with white-rendered brickwork, regular low gables, and curved ground floor windows. The toilets were now designed with connecting doors to the sculleries, and in some cases the staircases repositioned to the front of the house. They were no longer described or marketed as "third-class" houses.
By October 1906 1,999 properties were let, including 88 shops and 4 stables. Although the estate was nearing completion by this point, construction work was not entirely completed until 1929.
By this point, the Noel Park development and the growing nearby community of Wood Green were coming to dominate the area. In recognition of this, in 1902 Green Lanes railway station was renamed Noel Park & Wood Green. In 1911 a group of mid-Victorian houses on Wood Green High Road, immediately south of the railway station, were demolished by the Artizans Company to make way for the Cheapside shopping parade, built to serve residents of Noel Park and the growing community of Wood Green.
The centrepiece of the Cheapside development was the Wood Green Empire, a 3,000-capacity theatre designed by Frank Matcham
. The Empire soon became one of London's leading entertainment venues, hosting acts such as Marie Lloyd
, Frankie Vaughan
and Shirley Bassey
. The Empire is best known as the theatre in which magician Chung Ling Soo
(William Ellsworth Robinson) was fatally shot in the chest on 23 March 1918, when a theatrical pistol used in a bullet catch
demonstration malfunctioned.
With the postwar decline of variety
and music hall
and increased competition from cinema and television, the theatre went into decline and was closed on 31 January 1955. Following its closure it was used by Associated TeleVision
as a studio until 1963. The interior was demolished in 1970, but the building remains intact and is now used as a shop and offices.
underground railway had opened, running from the City of London to a terminus at Finsbury Park station
, followed in 1906 by the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway
(GNP&BR) from the western suburbs through central London to Finsbury Park, approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Noel Park; both were prevented from expanding further north by a legal agreement with the Great Northern Railway giving the GNR a veto on any expansion of underground railways into areas within which they would compete with the GNR. This led to serious congestion at Finsbury Park as passengers from the expanding suburbs changed from buses and trams to the GN&CR and GNP&BR, and in June 1923 a petition of 30,000 signatures calling for the extension of one of the underground lines northwards was delivered to the Ministry of Transport.
The London and North Eastern Railway
(LNER), successor to the GNR, was compelled by the Ministry of Transport to waive the veto or proceed with its own electrification. In November 1925, the LNER abandoned its electrification scheme. In 1929 the incoming Second Labour Government initiated a policy of direct subsidy for major infrastructure projects, and, in 1930, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London
began work on extending the GNP&BR, now the Piccadilly line
. The Piccadilly Line Cockfosters extension
opened in stages, with stations at Wood Green
and Turnpike Lane
– both on the western edge of Noel Park, at the junctions of Wood Green High Road and Lordship Lane, and Wood Green High Road and Westbury Avenue, respectively – opening on 19 September 1932. With the area now connected to west and central London by clean, rapid and frequent electric trains, the population of the surrounding areas began to rise rapidly.
, in the final stages of the war a number of V-1
flying bombs and V-2 ballistic missiles struck the area. The worst attack occurred in February 1945, when a V-2 struck Westbeech Road, killing 17 and injuring 68. The bombsite
s were redeveloped with housing in then-current styles, rather than to Plumbe and Earle's designs.
In 1958, as part of the commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the creation of the Wood Green Local Board
, the railway goods depot was used for a three day exhibition of locomotives and other railway rolling stock. The exhibition was a great success, and was visited by around 14,000 spectators. Among locomotives on exhibit were the land speed record holder Mallard
and a Class 9F
steam locomotive.
However, by this point the Palace Gates Line was in severe decline. Passenger numbers had fallen greatly since the opening of the Piccadilly Line, while freight usage dropped throughout the 1950s as a result of improved road haulage and declining demand for coal. The line was closed to passengers on 7 January 1963. With freight usage dwindling to a trickle following the ending of passenger services, the goods yard was closed on 7 December 1964. The site of the goods yard was used for the construction of a large apartment block known as The Sandlings, and Noel Park & Wood Green railway station was converted into commercial premises, before being demolished in the early 1970s to become the site of the eastern section of Wood Green Shopping City.
before tax was permitted. In 1966, ownership of the four original London estates (Shaftesbury Park, Queen's Park, Noel Park and Leigham Court) was transferred to the respective local authorities as council housing
– in the case of Noel Park, the newly created London Borough of Haringey
, which purchased the 2,175 properties comprising the Noel Park estate for a total of £2,917,000 (approximately £ today) – leaving 377 homes at Pinnerwood Park in Pinner
as the last residential estate in Greater London owned by the company.
In 1976, the Artizans Company, by then renamed Artagen Properties Ltd, became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sun Life
, and on, 3 February 1981, the company was renamed Sun Life Properties Ltd.
In the early 1970s, the nine-storey Wood Green Shopping City shopping, cinema and residential complex was built on both sides of Wood Green High Road, and now dominates the area. Although some houses were demolished during construction works, it was intended at the time to divert Wood Green High Road around Shopping City, which would have necessitated the demolition of much of the western section of Noel Park. However, the diversion scheme was abandoned, leading to the current unusual situation in which the road runs directly through the shopping centre; Cherry & Pevsner note that Noel Park was "spared worse damage by the abandonment of the proposed road".
In 1980, the Housing Act 1980
gave council tenants the right to buy their homes. In light of this, a group of 1500 properties in the area was given Conservation Area
status, and Plumbe's northern section of the estate was granted Article Four Direction
by Michael Heseltine
, Secretary of State for the Environment
, preventing any alterations to the external appearances of the properties without planning permission, in recognition of its architectural and historic interest. St Mark's Church was meanwhile Grade II listed. However, these measures have not been consistently enforced, and Noel Park has been cited in a report by English Heritage
as a prominent example of the failure of conservation areas.
In line with the original principles of the Artizans Company, there are still no public houses in Noel Park. In 2008 parts of Noel Park and the surrounding area were declared a Controlled Drinking Zone, allowing police to confiscate alcohol from those engaged in anti-social behaviour.
As with much of Haringey, Noel Park is now one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the world. In 2002, 86% of pupils attending Noel Park School were from ethnic minorities.
, MP for Isle of Wight
, son of Lord Shaftesbury and Chairman of the Artizans Company
Buller Road:Redvers Buller
, winner of the Victoria Cross
at the Battle of Hlobane
, 1879
Darwin Road:Charles Darwin
, naturalist and early investor in the Artizans Company
Dovecote Avenue:On the site of the original Duckett's (Dovecote) Manor, by this time demolished
Farrant Avenue:Sir Richard Farrant, Deputy Chairman of the Artizans Company 1881-1906
Gladstone Avenue:William Ewart Gladstone
, Prime Minister at the time of the opening of Noel Park
Hewitt Avenue:Thomas Hewitt QC, Director of the Artizans Company 1895-1917
Lymington Avenue:Viscount Lymington
, Director of the Artizans Company 1883-1891
Mark Road:Mark H Judge, Director of the Artizans Company 1878-1922
Maurice Avenue:Maurice Powell, Director of the Artizans Company 1880-1914
Morley Avenue:Samuel Morley
, MP for Bristol
and Director of the Artizans Company 1877-1880
Moselle Avenue:Runs above the culvert
ed River Moselle
Pelham Road:T W Pelham, Director of the Artizans Company 1880-1894
Redvers Road:Redvers Buller (see Buller Road, above)
Russell Avenue:John Russell
, former Liberal Prime Minister
Salisbury Road:Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, leader of the Conservative Party
Vincent Road:Unknown; Welch speculates from Rev. Henry Vincent Le Bas, the only member of the Noel Park Committee at the time of opening not known to have had a street named for him
Planned community
A planned community, or planned city, is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in a more ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are less frequent in planned communities since...
consisting of 2,200 model dwellings
Model dwellings company
Model Dwellings Companies were a group of private companies in Victorian Britain that sought to improve the housing conditions of the working classes by building new homes for them, at the same time receiving a competitive rate of return on any investment...
, designed by Rowland Plumbe. It was developed in open countryside to the north of London in the valley of the River Moselle
River Moselle (London)
The River Moselle, also referred to as Moselle Brook, is in North London and flows through Tottenham towards the Lea Valley. The river was originally a tributary of the River Lea, but it now flows into Pymmes Brook, another Lea tributary....
, about half-way between the historic villages of Highgate
Highgate
Highgate is an area of North London on the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath.Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, to protect its character....
and Tottenham
Tottenham
Tottenham is an area of the London Borough of Haringey, England, situated north north east of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:Tottenham is believed to have been named after Tota, a farmer, whose hamlet was mentioned in the Domesday Book; hence Tota's hamlet became Tottenham...
. It is one of four developments on the outskirts of London built by the Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company
Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company
The Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company was a nineteenth century philanthropic model dwellings company, which later became a multinational property developer before being absorbed into Sun Life.-Origins:...
(Artizans Company). Since 2003, the name has also been given to a small park near the southern edge of Noel Park, formerly known as Russell Park.
One of the earliest garden suburbs
Garden city movement
The garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts" , containing proportionate areas of residences, industry and...
in the world, Noel Park was designed to provide affordable housing for working class families wishing to leave the inner city; every property had a front and rear garden. It was planned from the outset as a self-contained community close enough to the rail network to allow its residents to commute to work. In line with the principles of the Artizans Company's founder, William Austin, no public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
s were built within the estate, and there are still none today.
As a result of London's rapid growth during the early 20th century, and particularly after the area was connected to the London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
in 1932, Noel Park became completely surrounded by later developments. In 1965, it was incorporated into the newly created London Borough of Haringey
London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey is a London borough, in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of three former boroughs. It shares borders with six other London boroughs...
, and in 1966 it was bought by the local authority and taken into public ownership.
Despite damage sustained during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and demolition work during the construction of Wood Green Shopping City
The Mall (Wood Green)
The Mall Wood Green is a large shopping centre and residential complex in Wood Green, North London. It is generally still referred to by its former name of Wood Green Shopping City; the signage on the building still uses that name....
in the 1970s, Noel Park today remains largely architecturally intact. In 1982, the majority of the area was granted Conservation Area
Conservation area
A conservation areas is a tract of land that has been awarded protected status in order to ensure that natural features, cultural heritage or biota are safeguarded...
and Article Four Direction
Article Four Direction
An Article Four Direction is made by a Local Planning Authority in the United Kingdom and confirmed by the Government. It serves to restrict Permitted Development rights, which means that a lot of the things people do to their land or houses without planning permission and often take for granted,...
status by the Secretary of State for the Environment
Secretary of State for the Environment
The Secretary of State for the Environment was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Department of the Environment . This was created by Edward Heath as a combination of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Public Building and Works on 15...
, in recognition of its significance in the development of suburban and philanthropic housing and in the history of the modern housing estate
Housing estate
A housing estate is a group of buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Accordingly, a housing estate is usually built by a single contractor, with only a few styles of house or building design, so they tend to be uniform in appearance...
.
Location
Noel Park is 6.4 miles (10.3 km) north of Charing CrossCharing Cross
Charing Cross denotes the junction of Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in central London, England. It is named after the now demolished Eleanor cross that stood there, in what was once the hamlet of Charing. The site of the cross is now occupied by an equestrian...
, near the centre of the modern London Borough of Haringey
London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey is a London borough, in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of three former boroughs. It shares borders with six other London boroughs...
, of which it is a ward. The area forms a rough triangle, bordered by the A109 road (Lordship Lane) to the north, A1080 road (Westbury Avenue) to the south-east, and A105 road
A105 road
The A105 road is an A road in London, England. It runs from Canonbury, in between Highbury and Dalston, to Enfield Town. The road is long. Part of the road forms Green Lanes, one of the longest streets in London, while the A105 also serves as the primary access route to the Shopping City shopping...
(Wood Green High Road, formerly part of Green Lanes
Green Lanes
Green Lanes, London, is a main road in North London and forms part of the A105. At approximately 7.5 miles from end to end, it is one of the longest streets in the capital....
) to the west.
When construction began, the River Moselle
River Moselle (London)
The River Moselle, also referred to as Moselle Brook, is in North London and flows through Tottenham towards the Lea Valley. The river was originally a tributary of the River Lea, but it now flows into Pymmes Brook, another Lea tributary....
, running parallel to Lordship Lane a short distance south of it, formed the de facto northern boundary of the area. During the development of the area in the 1880s the river was culvert
Culvert
A culvert is a device used to channel water. It may be used to allow water to pass underneath a road, railway, or embankment. Culverts can be made of many different materials; steel, polyvinyl chloride and concrete are the most common...
ed and the land between the river and Lordship Lane built on.
The historic western boundary was the now-defunct Palace Gates Line
Palace Gates Line
The Palace Gates Line was a short railway branch line in north London running from the main line at Seven Sisters station in Tottenham to Palace Gates station in Wood Green....
of the Great Eastern Railway
Great Eastern Railway
The Great Eastern Railway was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia...
(GER), a short distance to the east of Wood Green High Road. Since the railway's closure in 1964, much of the area between the former railway line and Wood Green High Road has been occupied by the eastern section of the large The Mall Wood Green shopping, cinema and residential complex (commonly known as Shopping City).
Early history
Historically, the site of Noel Park was virtually uninhabited. The 1619 Earl of Dorset's Survey of Tottenham shows the area as forming the historic Duckett's (Dovecote) Manor; as with the rest of the Moselle valley the land consisted almost entirely of woodlandWoodland
Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...
and pasture
Pasture
Pasture is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep or swine. The vegetation of tended pasture, forage, consists mainly of grasses, with an interspersion of legumes and other forbs...
, with the only building shown in the area which was to become Noel Park being Dovecote House itself, dating from 1254 and the earliest recorded property in Wood Green. The small village of Wood Green
Wood Green
Wood Green is a district in north London, England, located in the London Borough of Haringey. It is situated north of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London.-History:...
itself is shown a short distance to the north-east. The manor itself was situated on the ancient arterial road of Green Lanes
Green Lanes
Green Lanes, London, is a main road in North London and forms part of the A105. At approximately 7.5 miles from end to end, it is one of the longest streets in the capital....
. The last recorded occupancy of the manor was in 1881, shortly before the site was cleared for the construction of Noel Park.
By 1880 the estate had been broken up into fifteen smaller farms. The rough northern meadows adjacent to the Moselle were used for beef farming, whilst the southern fields, known as Grainger's Farm, were used as grazing land. The western edge of the estate was by this time occupied by the Great Eastern Railway
Great Eastern Railway
The Great Eastern Railway was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia...
's Palace Gates Line
Palace Gates Line
The Palace Gates Line was a short railway branch line in north London running from the main line at Seven Sisters station in Tottenham to Palace Gates station in Wood Green....
and Green Lanes railway station
Noel Park and Wood Green railway station
Noel Park and Wood Green is a closed railway station on the Palace Gates Line in Wood Green, north London. It was located on the north-east side of The Broadway adjacent to Pelham Road...
, opened in 1878.
Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company
The Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings CompanyArtizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company
The Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company was a nineteenth century philanthropic model dwellings company, which later became a multinational property developer before being absorbed into Sun Life.-Origins:...
(Artizans Company) was established in 1867 by William Austin. Austin was an illiterate who had begun his working life on a farm as a scarecrow
Scarecrow
A scarecrow is, essentially, a decoy, though traditionally, a human figure dressed in old clothes and placed in fields by farmers to discourage birds such as crows or sparrows from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.-History:In Kojiki, the oldest surviving book in Japan...
paid 1d per day, and had worked his way up to become a drainage
Drainage
Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of surface and sub-surface water from an area. Many agricultural soils need drainage to improve production or to manage water supplies.-Early history:...
contractor. The company was established as a for-profit joint stock company
Joint stock company
A joint-stock company is a type of corporation or partnership involving two or more individuals that own shares of stock in the company...
, with the objective of building new houses for the working classes "in consequence of the destruction of houses by railroads and other improvements". The company aimed to fuse the designs of rural planned suburbs such as Bedford Park
Bedford Park, London
Bedford Park is a suburban development in west London, England. It forms a conservation area that is mostly within the London Borough of Ealing, with a small part to the east within the London Borough of Hounslow. The nearest underground station is Turnham Green .-History:It can be justly described...
with the ethos of high-quality homes for the lower classes pioneered at Saltaire
Saltaire
Saltaire is a Victorian model village within the City of Bradford Metropolitan District, West Yorkshire, England, by the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal...
. Whilst earlier philanthropic housing companies such as the Peabody Trust
Peabody Trust
Peabody Trust , founded in 1862, is one of London's oldest and largest housing associations with over 19,000 properties. It also a charity and urban regeneration agency...
and the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company focused on multi-storey blocks of flats in the inner cities, the Artizans Company aimed to build low-rise housing in open countryside alongside existing railway lines to allow workers to live in the countryside and commute into the city. The company attracted the attention of Lord Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury KG , styled Lord Ashley from 1811 to 1851, was an English politician and philanthropist, one of the best-known of the Victorian era and one of the main proponents of Christian Zionism.-Youth:He was born in London and known informally as Lord Ashley...
, who served as president until 1875.
The company built and immediately sold a group of houses in Battersea
Battersea
Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...
, then still a rural village. The proceeds of the sale were used to purchase a plot of land in Salford for development, and by 1874 the company had developments in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, Gosport
Gosport
Gosport is a town, district and borough situated on the south coast of England, within the county of Hampshire. It has approximately 80,000 permanent residents with a further 5,000-10,000 during the summer months...
and Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
.
The first of the four large-scale estates built by the Artizans Company was Shaftesbury Park, a development of 1,200 two-storey houses covering 42.5 acre (0.17199155 km²; 0.0664063087146759 sq mi) built in 1872 on the site of a former pig
Domestic pig
The domestic pig is a domesticated animal that traces its ancestry to the wild boar, and is considered a subspecies of the wild boar or a distinct species in its own right. It is likely the wild boar was domesticated as early as 13,000 BC in the Tigris River basin...
farm in Battersea. The success of Shaftesbury Park led to the construction of Queen's Park, built in 1874 on a far more ambitious scale on 76 acre (0.30756136 km²; 0.118750104995656 sq mi) of land to the west of London, adjacent to the newly opened Westbourne Park station
Westbourne Park tube station
Westbourne Park is a London Underground station on the Circle and Hammersmith and City lines, between Ladbroke Grove and Royal Oak stations, and in Travelcard Zone 2 in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea . Although the Metropolitan Railway had been extended to Notting Hill and Hammersmith...
, purchased from All Souls College, Oxford
All Souls College, Oxford
The Warden and the College of the Souls of all Faithful People deceased in the University of Oxford or All Souls College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England....
. A third London estate was planned at Cann Hall
Cann Hall
Cann Hall is a ward, and former civil parish, in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It is north of Stratford and Forest Gate, east of Leyton, and west of Wanstead Flats, the southernmost tip of Epping Forest.-History:...
, and a site of 61 acre (0.24685846 km²; 0.095312584272829 sq mi) was purchased.
However, the Queen's Park project suffered serious mismanagement and fraud; the company secretary
Company secretary
A company secretary is a senior position in a private company or public organisation, normally in the form of a managerial position or above. In the United States it is known as a corporate secretary....
William Swindlehurst and two others were found guilty in 1877 of defrauding £9,312 (approximately £ today) from the project. The company was forced to raise rents and tenants were no longer permitted to buy their houses; by 1880 the company's finances had recovered sufficiently to allow further expansion.
Selection of the site
On 14 February 1881, Rowland Plumbe was appointed Consulting Architect to the Artizans Company, with a brief to prepare a third estate. A leading architect of the period, Plumbe had primarily been a designer of hospitals, such as the London Hospital, and Poplar Hospital; he had been President of the Architectural Association in 1871–72 and a Council Member of the Royal Institute of British ArchitectsRoyal Institute of British Architects
The Royal Institute of British Architects is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally.-History:...
since 1876.
In April 1881, the Artizans Company inspected sites at Fulham
Fulham
Fulham is an area of southwest London in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, SW6 located south west of Charing Cross. It lies on the left bank of the Thames, between Putney and Chelsea. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London...
and "in the vicinity of Alexandra Park
Alexandra Park, London
Alexandra Park is an 80 hectare, Green Flag Award and Green Heritage winning landscaped park in the Borough of Haringey in north London.-Overview:...
" in the Tottenham Local Board
Municipal Borough of Tottenham
Tottenham was a local government district in north east Middlesex from 1850 to 1965. It was part of the London postal district and Metropolitan Police District....
. The Fulham site was rejected as too prone to flooding, and the Wood Green site rejected as being too far from any centre of population.
However, the next month, the decision was taken to bid for the site near Wood Green. Despite its distance from London at the time, the area was well served by railways. The Palace Gates Line, opened in 1878 to serve nearby Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a building in North London, England. It stands in Alexandra Park, in an area between Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green...
, had an intermediate station at Green Lanes, immediately adjacent to the site in question. This provided direct service to the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
from the outset; following the construction of a link with the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway on 1 June 1880, direct services also ran to Blackwall
Blackwall railway station
Blackwall railway station was a railway station in Blackwall, London, that served as the eastern terminus of the London and Blackwall Railway. It was located on the south side of the East India Docks, near the shore of the River Thames. It opened on 6 July 1840 with services connecting with a ferry...
and North Woolwich
North Woolwich railway station
North Woolwich railway station in North Woolwich in east London was the eastern terminus of the North London Line. It was in Travelcard Zone 3. The next station was .-History:...
, providing direct links with the Port of London
Port of London
The Port of London lies along the banks of the River Thames from London, England to the North Sea. Once the largest port in the world, it is currently the United Kingdom's second largest port, after Grimsby & Immingham...
. In addition, the Great Northern Railway
Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)
The Great Northern Railway was a British railway company established by the Great Northern Railway Act of 1846. On 1 January 1923 the company lost its identity as a constituent of the newly formed London and North Eastern Railway....
's station at Wood Green
Alexandra Palace railway station
Alexandra Palace railway station is in the London Borough of Haringey in north London, and is in Travelcard Zone 3. The station, and all trains serving it, are operated by First Capital Connect...
(now Alexandra Palace station) was within walking distance. The company decided that the quality of transport links compensated for the distance from any significant centre of population, and, in June 1881, a site of 100 acre (0.404686 km²; 0.156250138152179 sq mi) was purchased by the company for £56,345 (approximately £ today).
Design
Plumbe designed the estate with five classes of houses, all built in the Gothic RevivalGothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
style. Although the houses were built to the same five basic designs, each street was given a distinct style of design and ornamentation. Varying mixes of red and yellow bricks, and variations in window design and ornamental motifs were used to give each street a distinct identity. All were designed with front and rear gardens. Corner houses were given distinctive designs and turret
Turret
In architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification...
s.
The distribution of houses followed the traditional Victorian model of town planning. The larger first- and second-class houses were built in the centre, close to the church and school, while the more numerous third-, fourth- and fifth-class houses were built in the estate's outskirts. Welch (2006) speculates that this segregation of housing was not Plumbe's intention; Plumbe himself was quoted in 1896 as saying that "I regret that it is necessary to separate the richer and more cultured classes from the poorer, owing to the prejudices which exist; and these prejudices exist on the part of the poor as well as on the part of the other class".
Except for the corner houses, the houses were built in pairs, each sharing a porch with its neighbour. For many of the smaller fourth- and fifth-class houses, the doors were aligned at right angles to the façade of the house, so as not to open directly adjacently to their neighbours. All houses were designed with at least one parlour
Parlour
Parlour , from the French word parloir, from parler , denotes an "audience chamber". In parts of the United Kingdom and the United States, parlours are common names for certain types of food service houses, restaurants or special service areas, such as tattoo parlors...
and with the kitchen
Kitchen
A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation.In the West, a modern residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and kitchen cabinets arranged according to a modular design. Many households have a...
, scullery
Scullery (room)
A scullery is a room in a house traditionally used for washing up dishes and laundering clothes, or as an overflow kitchen when the main kitchen is overloaded. Tasks performed in the scullery include cleaning dishes and cooking utensils , occasional kitchen work, ironing, boiling water for cooking...
, and toilet
Toilet
A toilet is a sanitation fixture used primarily for the disposal of human excrement, often found in a small room referred to as a toilet/bathroom/lavatory...
in separate rooms at the rear of the house; the first-class houses also had toilets upstairs. In line with the design principles of the time, the downstairs toilets were accessible only from the rear gardens, and the houses were not fitted with separate bathrooms; baths were taken in a moveable bath located in the kitchen.
All houses were built with marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
-mantelpieced
Fireplace mantel
Fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and can include elaborate designs extending to the ceiling...
fireplace
Fireplace
A fireplace is an architectural structure to contain a fire for heating and, especially historically, for cooking. A fire is contained in a firebox or firepit; a chimney or other flue allows gas and particulate exhaust to escape...
s and flue
Flue
A flue is a duct, pipe, or chimney for conveying exhaust gases from a fireplace, furnace, water heater, boiler, or generator to the outdoors. In the United States, they are also known as vents and for boilers as breeching for water heaters and modern furnaces...
s. All houses were supplied with running water supplied from the New River
New River (England)
The New River is an artificial waterway in England, opened in 1613 to supply London with fresh drinking water taken from the River Lea and from Amwell Springs , and other springs and wells along its course....
, which flowed through nearby Wood Green
Wood Green
Wood Green is a district in north London, England, located in the London Borough of Haringey. It is situated north of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London.-History:...
. However, not all houses were supplied with gas
Coal gas
Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made by the destructive distillation of coal containing a variety of calorific gases including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and volatile hydrocarbons together with small quantities of non-calorific gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen...
or mains electricity
Mains electricity
Mains is the general-purpose alternating current electric power supply. In the US, electric power is referred to by several names including household power, household electricity, powerline, domestic power, wall power, line power, AC power, city power, street power, and grid power...
from the outset, the remainder being lit by candles or oil or paraffin lamps.
Houses at Noel Park were deliberately designed to be relatively small, both for cheapness and to discourage tenants from taking on lodgers. Many of the larger houses at Shaftesbury Park had been sublet and split, and the practice went against the principles of the Artizans Company's founders. To discourage the practice at Queen's Park and Noel Park cottage flat
Cottage flat
Cottage flats, also known as Four-in-a-block flats, are a style of housing common in Scotland, where there are single floor dwellings at ground level, and similar dwellings on the floor above. All have doors directly to the outside of the building, rather than into a 'close', or common staircase...
s were built; these maintained the terraced façade, but split the house into upper and lower flats, each flat having a separate front door onto the street. Many properties, particularly on the central Gladstone Avenue, were built in this style; this maintained the unbroken façade of the first-class houses, but allowed large numbers of smaller and low-income families to be housed.
Construction
On 4 May 1883, the Artizans Company sold a parcel of land adjacent to the railway line to the Great Eastern Railway for construction of a goods yard, and a sidingRail siding
A siding, in rail terminology, is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line or branch line or spur. It may connect to through track or to other sidings at either end...
was built into the development site. Although initially the company had considered making bricks on the site, the rail yard allowed raw materials to be purchased wholesale and transported cheaply to the site, with large warehouses and workshops constructed for the manufacture of doors, flooring and other necessary materials; in 1884 the Pall Mall Gazette
Pall Mall Gazette
The Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
reported that "in a shed 330ft long by 50ft broad are stored a million superficial feet of flooring boards".
In early 1883 serious discrepancies were discovered between the amounts of building material apparently purchased and the actual amounts acquired. Rowland Plumbe and Sir Richard Farrant, Deputy Chairman of the Artizans Company, visited the site to investigate the matter. Mr Hunt, the foreman
Construction foreman
A construction foreman is the worker or tradesman who is in charge of a construction crew. While traditionally this role has been assumed by a senior male worker, the title in the modern sense is gender non-specific in intent...
, advised that "in answer to questions as to the mode of measurement in use for Ballast heaps, that one third was added to the measurement for shrinkage".
When summoned to appear before the "Hornsey Committee" of the Artizans Company the next day, Hunt instead sent his assistant, without the relevant ledgers and instead with a paper described in the Committee minutes as "a paper of measurements which were soon ascertained not to be the actual measurements but measurements falsified so as to work out cubically to about the measurements certified by Mr Hunt". The total overpaid by the company was calculated by Plumbe as £1,071.14s
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
.3d
Penny (British pre-decimal coin)
The penny of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, was in circulation from the early 18th century until February 1971, Decimal Day....
(approximately £ today); Hunt was immediately dismissed and a gatekeeper to record all goods entering the site was put in place to avoid a repetition of the incident.
In 1883, is was decided to name the estate "Noel Park", in honour of Ernest Noel
Ernest Noel
Ernest Noel FGS was member of Parliament for the Scottish seat of Dumfries Burghs from 1874 to 1886. He was chairman of the Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company from 1880, during the construction of a new suburb for the working classes in Wood Green which was named "Noel Park" in his...
(1831–1931), Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
Member of Parliament for Dumfries Burghs
Dumfries Burghs (UK Parliament constituency)
Dumfries Burghs was a district of burghs constituency of the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1708 to 1801 and of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 until 1918...
and chairman of the Artizans Company since 1880. The streets were laid out on a grid plan
Grid plan
The grid plan, grid street plan or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid...
of broad avenues running on a south-west to north-east axis and narrower roads running north-west to south-east. Streets were named after prominent members of the Artizans Company and leading political figures of the time, with the exception of Darwin Avenue, named for Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, prominent naturalist and an early investor in the Artizans Company, and Moselle Avenue, which was to follow the course of the culvert
Culvert
A culvert is a device used to channel water. It may be used to allow water to pass underneath a road, railway, or embankment. Culverts can be made of many different materials; steel, polyvinyl chloride and concrete are the most common...
ed River Moselle; see Derivation of street names, below.
Opening
On 4 August 1883, with approximately 200 houses completed, Noel Park was formally opened. Noel gave a speech at the opening ceremony in which he described the development as: Lord Shaftesbury then laid the memorial stone, praising Noel Park as "the furtherance of a plan which has proved to be most beneficial, and would, if carried out to its full extent, completely alter for the better the domiciliary habits of the people of the metropolis". Edward White BensonEdward White Benson
Edward White Benson was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1883 until his death.-Life:Edward White Benson was born in Highgate, Birmingham, the son of a Birmingham chemical manufacturer. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1852...
, Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
, sent a note which was read to the crowd in which he stated that "no one who cares for our labouring population can doubt that this is one of the first, perhaps the most, necessary of all steps for their good".
Financial difficulties
Noel Park was heavily marketed as a "Suburban Workman's Colony", with promotional material playing heavily on the area's transport links. The Great Eastern Railway was persuaded in 1884 to rename Green Lanes railway station to "Green Lanes (Noel Park)" (shown on some signs and maps as "Green Lanes & Noel Park"); the area was also less than half a mile from Wood Green railway stationAlexandra Palace railway station
Alexandra Palace railway station is in the London Borough of Haringey in north London, and is in Travelcard Zone 3. The station, and all trains serving it, are operated by First Capital Connect...
(now Alexandra Palace station) on the Great Northern Railway
Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)
The Great Northern Railway was a British railway company established by the Great Northern Railway Act of 1846. On 1 January 1923 the company lost its identity as a constituent of the newly formed London and North Eastern Railway....
. By 1886 Noel Park had over 7,000 residents.
However, the poor workers at whom the Noel Park development was aimed found themselves unable to afford railway tickets. The issuing of cheap early morning workman's fares on the Great Eastern Railway's lines further east in Tottenham
Tottenham
Tottenham is an area of the London Borough of Haringey, England, situated north north east of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:Tottenham is believed to have been named after Tota, a farmer, whose hamlet was mentioned in the Domesday Book; hence Tota's hamlet became Tottenham...
, Stamford Hill
Stamford Hill
Stamford Hill is a place in the north of the London Borough of Hackney, England, near the border with Haringey. It is home to Europe's largest Hasidic Jewish and Adeni Jewish community.Stamford Hill is NNE of Charing Cross.-History:...
and Walthamstow
Walthamstow
Walthamstow is a district of northeast London, England, located in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It is situated north-east of Charing Cross...
had led to overcrowding on trains and large numbers of poor workers moving to the areas (many of them displaced by the construction of the GER's Liverpool Street station
Liverpool Street station
Liverpool Street railway station, also known as London Liverpool Street or simply Liverpool Street, is both a central London railway terminus and a connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, England...
in the City of London and rehoused by the company). William Birt, General Manager of the GER was strongly against extending the policy of workmen's fares, stating that "to issue them from Green Lanes would do us a very large amount of injury, and would cause the same public annoyance and inconvenience as exists already upon the Stamford Hill and Walthamstow lines" and that "no one living in Noel Park could desire to possess the same class of neighbours as the residents of Stamford Hill have in the neighbourhood of St Ann's Road
St Ann's Road railway station
St Ann's Road railway station was opened by the Tottenham & Hampstead Junction Railway on 2 October 1882. It was at the corner of St Ann's Road and Seven Sisters Road in N15, in south west Tottenham, London....
".
In 1884, a deputation led by Lord Shaftesbury was made to the Great Eastern Railway and Great Northern Railway, proposing that for trains due to arrive in central London prior to 8 am, third class tickets should be sold at a fare of 3d providing the return journey was not made before 4 pm. By May 1885 both railways had adopted this policy. However, the delays and uncertainty caused by the fares dispute had discouraged prospective tenants, leaving large numbers of properties vacant and causing further building work to slow considerably. In 1887, construction work was temporarily suspended altogether, in response to the large backlog of un-let properties.
By the time of the 1894 Ordnance Survey, roughly 50% of the estate was complete. The entire southern half of the estate between Gladstone Avenue and Westbury Avenue at this point remained open fields.
Amenities
Terraces of shops were built around the fringes of the estate, both to cater for the residents of Noel Park and for residents of the expanding suburb of Wood Green and the users of the adjacent railway station. The designs of the terraces varied, from short terraces of small shops on the edges of the less-visited eastern portions of the estate, to parades of large shops on Wood Green High Road near the railway station.One of the few buildings constructed in the early stages of Noel Park's development not designed by Rowland Plumbe, Noel Park School was built in 1889 by the Wood Green School Board, to the design of architect Charles Wall.
The school was designed to accommodate 1,524 pupils of both sexes; however, by 1898 the growth of the Noel Park estate led to severe overcrowding problems, with an average attendance of 1,803, making it the most overcrowded school in the School Board's area. In 1924 a school for the partially blind opened within the school.
In 1946, the school became a Secondary Modern
Secondary modern school
A secondary modern school is a type of secondary school that existed in most of the United Kingdom from 1944 until the early 1970s, under the Tripartite System, and was designed for the majority of pupils - those who do not achieve scores in the top 25% of the eleven plus examination...
. Between 1957 and 1963 the secondary facilities were closed, leaving the school as a primary school. In 1965, the school came under the control of the newly created London Borough of Haringey
London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey is a London borough, in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of three former boroughs. It shares borders with six other London boroughs...
. Following reorganisation of Haringey's education services, it is now a primary school serving approximately 500 pupils between the ages of three and 11.
Although Plumbe's original plans for the estate had envisaged a recreational area in the centre of the estate, this never came into being and the land reserved for it was built over during the estate's early development. Despite Noel Park's proximity to the leisure facilities of nearby Alexandra Park
Alexandra Park, London
Alexandra Park is an 80 hectare, Green Flag Award and Green Heritage winning landscaped park in the Borough of Haringey in north London.-Overview:...
, in 1929 a long, thin strip of land near the south of the estate was designated as parkland and given the name "Russell Park". In 2003, following consultation with residents, the park was renamed "Noel Park" by Haringey Council. , local residents were lobbying for the name to be changed back to Russell Park to avoid confusion.
A site for a church had been set aside on the estate from the outset, and in 1884 Plumbe submitted designs for a church and mission hall. The mission hall opened in March 1885 with room for 350, and soon began to suffer from overcrowding. The people of Noel Park started a fund to pay for the church, which was consecrated on 1 November 1889 as St Mark's.
The church is relatively large, seating 850. It is built in the Venetian Gothic
Venetian Gothic architecture
Venetian Gothic is a term given to an architectural style combining use of the Gothic lancet arch with Byzantine and Moorish architecture influences. The style originated in 14th century Venice with the confluence of Byzantine styles from Constantinople, Arab influences from Moorish Spain and early...
style, and divided into a five-bay nave, transepts, chancel, morning chapel and organ chamber. Although Plumbe's original design envisaged a tower, one was never built. By 1900, St Mark's was reported as having a congregation twice that of any other church in Wood Green.
In 1913, a second much larger mission hall was opened nearby, named the Walsham-How Mission Hall after William Walsham How
William Walsham How
William Walsham How was an English bishop.The son of a Shrewsbury solicitor, How was educated at Shrewsbury School, Wadham College, Oxford and University College, Durham. He was ordained in 1846, and for upwards of thirty years was actively engaged in parish work at Whittington in Shropshire and...
, leader of the Shropshire Mission to East London. The Shropshire Hall, built by the Shropshire Mission in Gladstone Avenue, is now the Noel Park Children's Centre. Noel Park's relative geographic isolation led to the formation of large numbers of clubs and societies using the two mission halls for a wide range of activities, including large numbers of sporting societies.
Due to the temperance
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
views of the Artizans Company's directors, no public houses were built in Noel Park, a situation which remains the case today.
Early 20th-century expansion
In 1905, G. J. Earle, the Artizans Company's Surveyor, drew up plans for the remainder of the site based on the experiences learned from the completed northern half of the estate. Buildings were designed to a modified version of Plumbe's third-class house plan in the Arts and CraftsArts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
style, with white-rendered brickwork, regular low gables, and curved ground floor windows. The toilets were now designed with connecting doors to the sculleries, and in some cases the staircases repositioned to the front of the house. They were no longer described or marketed as "third-class" houses.
By October 1906 1,999 properties were let, including 88 shops and 4 stables. Although the estate was nearing completion by this point, construction work was not entirely completed until 1929.
By this point, the Noel Park development and the growing nearby community of Wood Green were coming to dominate the area. In recognition of this, in 1902 Green Lanes railway station was renamed Noel Park & Wood Green. In 1911 a group of mid-Victorian houses on Wood Green High Road, immediately south of the railway station, were demolished by the Artizans Company to make way for the Cheapside shopping parade, built to serve residents of Noel Park and the growing community of Wood Green.
The centrepiece of the Cheapside development was the Wood Green Empire, a 3,000-capacity theatre designed by Frank Matcham
Frank Matcham
Frank Matcham was a famous English theatrical architect. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery.-Early career:...
. The Empire soon became one of London's leading entertainment venues, hosting acts such as Marie Lloyd
Marie Lloyd
Matilda Alice Victoria Wood was an English music hall singer, best known as Marie Lloyd. Her ability to add lewdness to the most innocent of lyrics led to frequent clashes with the guardians of morality...
, Frankie Vaughan
Frankie Vaughan
Frankie Vaughan, CBE, DL was an English singer of traditional pop music, who issued more than 80 recordings in his lifetime. He was known as "Mr. Moonlight" after one of his early hits.-Life and career:...
and Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
. The Empire is best known as the theatre in which magician Chung Ling Soo
Chung Ling Soo
Chung Ling Soo was the stage name of the American magician William Ellsworth Robinson who is mostly remembered today for his tragic death after a bullet catch trick went wrong.- Biography :...
(William Ellsworth Robinson) was fatally shot in the chest on 23 March 1918, when a theatrical pistol used in a bullet catch
Bullet catch
The bullet catch is a conjuring illusion in which a magician appears to catch a bullet fired directly at him—often in his mouth, sometimes in his hand or caught with other items such as a dinner plate...
demonstration malfunctioned.
With the postwar decline of variety
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
and music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
and increased competition from cinema and television, the theatre went into decline and was closed on 31 January 1955. Following its closure it was used by Associated TeleVision
Associated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
as a studio until 1963. The interior was demolished in 1970, but the building remains intact and is now used as a shop and offices.
Piccadilly line
In 1904 the Great Northern & City RailwayNorthern City Line
The Northern City Line is a railway line from Moorgate to Finsbury Park in London, once part of the Great Northern Electrics line. It should not be confused with the City branch of the Northern line, nor with the North London Line...
underground railway had opened, running from the City of London to a terminus at Finsbury Park station
Finsbury Park station
Finsbury Park Station is a busy transport interchange in North London. The interchange consists of an interconnected National Rail station, London Underground station and two bus stations. The main entrances are by the eastern bus station on Station Place...
, followed in 1906 by the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway
Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway
The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway , also known as the Piccadilly tube, was a railway company established in 1902 that constructed a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London. The GNP&BR was formed through a merger of two older companies, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus...
(GNP&BR) from the western suburbs through central London to Finsbury Park, approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Noel Park; both were prevented from expanding further north by a legal agreement with the Great Northern Railway giving the GNR a veto on any expansion of underground railways into areas within which they would compete with the GNR. This led to serious congestion at Finsbury Park as passengers from the expanding suburbs changed from buses and trams to the GN&CR and GNP&BR, and in June 1923 a petition of 30,000 signatures calling for the extension of one of the underground lines northwards was delivered to the Ministry of Transport.
The London and North Eastern Railway
London and North Eastern Railway
The London and North Eastern Railway was the second-largest of the "Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain...
(LNER), successor to the GNR, was compelled by the Ministry of Transport to waive the veto or proceed with its own electrification. In November 1925, the LNER abandoned its electrification scheme. In 1929 the incoming Second Labour Government initiated a policy of direct subsidy for major infrastructure projects, and, in 1930, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London
Underground Electric Railways Company of London
The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited , known operationally as The Underground for much of its existence, was established in 1902. It was the holding company for the three deep-level "tube"A "tube" railway is an underground railway constructed in a circular tunnel by the use...
began work on extending the GNP&BR, now the Piccadilly line
Piccadilly Line
The Piccadilly line is a line of the London Underground, coloured dark blue on the Tube map. It is the fifth busiest line on the Underground network judged by the number of passengers transported per year. It is mainly a deep-level line, running from the north to the west of London via Zone 1, with...
. The Piccadilly Line Cockfosters extension
Piccadilly Line Cockfosters extension
The Piccadilly line extension to Cockfosters added eight new stations to the northern end of London Underground's Piccadilly Line. The extension through north London from to was opened in three stages between 19 September 1932 and 31 July 1933.-Need:...
opened in stages, with stations at Wood Green
Wood Green tube station
Wood Green is a London Underground station on the Piccadilly Line. The station is between Turnpike Lane and Bounds Green stations and is in Travelcard Zone 3. It is located at junction of Wood Green High Road and Lordship Lane...
and Turnpike Lane
Turnpike Lane tube station
Turnpike Lane tube station is a station at Turnpike Lane on the Piccadilly Line of the London Underground, between Manor House and Wood Green stations, and in Travelcard Zone 3.It is located within the London Borough of Haringey...
– both on the western edge of Noel Park, at the junctions of Wood Green High Road and Lordship Lane, and Wood Green High Road and Westbury Avenue, respectively – opening on 19 September 1932. With the area now connected to west and central London by clean, rapid and frequent electric trains, the population of the surrounding areas began to rise rapidly.
Postwar reconstruction
Although of little strategic value and undamaged during the early stages of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, in the final stages of the war a number of V-1
V-1 flying bomb
The V-1 flying bomb, also known as the Buzz Bomb or Doodlebug, was an early pulse-jet-powered predecessor of the cruise missile....
flying bombs and V-2 ballistic missiles struck the area. The worst attack occurred in February 1945, when a V-2 struck Westbeech Road, killing 17 and injuring 68. The bombsite
Bombsite
A bombsite is the wreckage that remains after a bomb has destroyed a building or other structure.-World War II bombsites:After World War II many European cities remained severely damaged from bombing. London and other British cities which had suffered the Blitz were pock-marked with bombsites,...
s were redeveloped with housing in then-current styles, rather than to Plumbe and Earle's designs.
In 1958, as part of the commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the creation of the Wood Green Local Board
Municipal Borough of Wood Green
Wood Green was a local government district in south east Middlesex from 1888 to 1965.Until 1888 Wood Green was part of Tottenham, and was included in the district of the Tottenham Local Board in 1850...
, the railway goods depot was used for a three day exhibition of locomotives and other railway rolling stock. The exhibition was a great success, and was visited by around 14,000 spectators. Among locomotives on exhibit were the land speed record holder Mallard
LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard
Number 4468 Mallard is a London and North Eastern Railway Class A4 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive built at Doncaster, England in 1938. While in other respects a relatively typical member of its class, it is historically significant for being the holder of the official world speed record for steam...
and a Class 9F
BR standard class 9F
The British Railways BR Standard Class 9F 2-10-0 is a class of steam locomotive designed for British Railways by Robert Riddles. The Class 9F was the last in a series of standardised locomotive classes designed for British Railways during the 1950s, and was intended for use on fast, heavy freight...
steam locomotive.
However, by this point the Palace Gates Line was in severe decline. Passenger numbers had fallen greatly since the opening of the Piccadilly Line, while freight usage dropped throughout the 1950s as a result of improved road haulage and declining demand for coal. The line was closed to passengers on 7 January 1963. With freight usage dwindling to a trickle following the ending of passenger services, the goods yard was closed on 7 December 1964. The site of the goods yard was used for the construction of a large apartment block known as The Sandlings, and Noel Park & Wood Green railway station was converted into commercial premises, before being demolished in the early 1970s to become the site of the eastern section of Wood Green Shopping City.
Transfer to local authority control
In 1952, the Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company was renamed the Artizans and General Properties Company Ltd. The combination of a taxation system biased against private property developments and legal restrictions on raising rents made the company's traditional model unprofitable, and it began to divest itself of its original low-rent developments and instead to sell vacant houses on the estates and to reinvest in non low-rent housing and commercial property, especially in the United States and Canada where depreciationDepreciation
Depreciation refers to two very different but related concepts:# the decrease in value of assets , and# the allocation of the cost of assets to periods in which the assets are used ....
before tax was permitted. In 1966, ownership of the four original London estates (Shaftesbury Park, Queen's Park, Noel Park and Leigham Court) was transferred to the respective local authorities as council housing
Council house
A council house, otherwise known as a local authority house, is a form of public or social housing. The term is used primarily in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Council houses were built and operated by local councils to supply uncrowded, well-built homes on secure tenancies at...
– in the case of Noel Park, the newly created London Borough of Haringey
London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey is a London borough, in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of three former boroughs. It shares borders with six other London boroughs...
, which purchased the 2,175 properties comprising the Noel Park estate for a total of £2,917,000 (approximately £ today) – leaving 377 homes at Pinnerwood Park in Pinner
Pinner
- Climate :Pinner's geographical position on the far western side of North West London makes it the furthest London suburb from any UK coastline. Hence the lower prevalence of moderating maritime influences make Pinner noticeably warmer in the spring and the summer compared to the rest of the capital...
as the last residential estate in Greater London owned by the company.
In 1976, the Artizans Company, by then renamed Artagen Properties Ltd, became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sun Life
Sun Life Financial
Sun Life Financial Inc. is an international financial services company known primarily as a life insurance company. Based in Toronto, Canada, Sun Life and its partners provide insurance, retirement and investment solutions for individuals and businesses around the world including Canada, the United...
, and on, 3 February 1981, the company was renamed Sun Life Properties Ltd.
Modern Noel Park
Following the transfer to local authority control, much of the property on the estate was found to be in poor condition. In 1971 a report by the London Borough of Haringey found that half the properties on the estate were still lacking basic facilities such as baths, internal toilets and hot water. Houses were systematically extended to the rear to accommodate modern bathrooms.In the early 1970s, the nine-storey Wood Green Shopping City shopping, cinema and residential complex was built on both sides of Wood Green High Road, and now dominates the area. Although some houses were demolished during construction works, it was intended at the time to divert Wood Green High Road around Shopping City, which would have necessitated the demolition of much of the western section of Noel Park. However, the diversion scheme was abandoned, leading to the current unusual situation in which the road runs directly through the shopping centre; Cherry & Pevsner note that Noel Park was "spared worse damage by the abandonment of the proposed road".
In 1980, the Housing Act 1980
Housing Act 1980
The Housing Act 1980 was an Act of Parliament passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom that gave five million council house tenants in England and Wales the Right to Buy their house from their local authority. The Act came into force on the 3 October 1980 and is seen as a defining policy of...
gave council tenants the right to buy their homes. In light of this, a group of 1500 properties in the area was given Conservation Area
Conservation area
A conservation areas is a tract of land that has been awarded protected status in order to ensure that natural features, cultural heritage or biota are safeguarded...
status, and Plumbe's northern section of the estate was granted Article Four Direction
Article Four Direction
An Article Four Direction is made by a Local Planning Authority in the United Kingdom and confirmed by the Government. It serves to restrict Permitted Development rights, which means that a lot of the things people do to their land or houses without planning permission and often take for granted,...
by Michael Heseltine
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC is a British businessman, Conservative politician and patron of the Tory Reform Group. He was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001 and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major...
, Secretary of State for the Environment
Secretary of State for the Environment
The Secretary of State for the Environment was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Department of the Environment . This was created by Edward Heath as a combination of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Public Building and Works on 15...
, preventing any alterations to the external appearances of the properties without planning permission, in recognition of its architectural and historic interest. St Mark's Church was meanwhile Grade II listed. However, these measures have not been consistently enforced, and Noel Park has been cited in a report by English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
as a prominent example of the failure of conservation areas.
In line with the original principles of the Artizans Company, there are still no public houses in Noel Park. In 2008 parts of Noel Park and the surrounding area were declared a Controlled Drinking Zone, allowing police to confiscate alcohol from those engaged in anti-social behaviour.
As with much of Haringey, Noel Park is now one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the world. In 2002, 86% of pupils attending Noel Park School were from ethnic minorities.
Derivation of street names
Ashley Crescent:Evelyn AshleyEvelyn Ashley
Evelyn Melbourne Ashley PC , was British barrister and Liberal politician. He was private secretary to Lord Palmerston and later published a biography of him...
, MP for Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight (UK Parliament constituency)
Isle of Wight is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Created by the Great Reform Act for the 1832 general election, it covers the whole of the Isle of Wight and elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post voting system.-...
, son of Lord Shaftesbury and Chairman of the Artizans Company
Buller Road:Redvers Buller
Redvers Buller
General Sir Redvers Henry Buller VC GCB GCMG was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces....
, winner of the Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....
at the Battle of Hlobane
Battle of Hlobane
The Battle of Hlobane was a battle of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 that took place at Hlobane, near the current town of Vryheid in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.- Prelude :...
, 1879
Darwin Road:Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, naturalist and early investor in the Artizans Company
Dovecote Avenue:On the site of the original Duckett's (Dovecote) Manor, by this time demolished
Farrant Avenue:Sir Richard Farrant, Deputy Chairman of the Artizans Company 1881-1906
Gladstone Avenue:William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
, Prime Minister at the time of the opening of Noel Park
Hewitt Avenue:Thomas Hewitt QC, Director of the Artizans Company 1895-1917
Lymington Avenue:Viscount Lymington
Newton Wallop, 6th Earl of Portsmouth
Newton Wallop, 6th Earl of Portsmouth JP, DL , styled Viscount Lymington until 1891, was a British Liberal politician...
, Director of the Artizans Company 1883-1891
Mark Road:Mark H Judge, Director of the Artizans Company 1878-1922
Maurice Avenue:Maurice Powell, Director of the Artizans Company 1880-1914
Morley Avenue:Samuel Morley
Samuel Morley (MP)
Samuel Morley , was an English woollen manufacturer, philanthropist, dissenter , abolitionist, political radical, and statesman.-Introduction:...
, MP for Bristol
Bristol (UK Parliament constituency)
Bristol was a two member constituency, used to elect members to the House of Commons in the Parliaments of England , Great Britain and the United Kingdom . The constituency existed until Bristol was divided into single member constituencies in 1885.-Boundaries:The historic port city of Bristol, is...
and Director of the Artizans Company 1877-1880
Moselle Avenue:Runs above the culvert
Culvert
A culvert is a device used to channel water. It may be used to allow water to pass underneath a road, railway, or embankment. Culverts can be made of many different materials; steel, polyvinyl chloride and concrete are the most common...
ed River Moselle
Pelham Road:T W Pelham, Director of the Artizans Company 1880-1894
Redvers Road:Redvers Buller (see Buller Road, above)
Russell Avenue:John Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC , known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century....
, former Liberal Prime Minister
Salisbury Road:Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, leader of the Conservative Party
Vincent Road:Unknown; Welch speculates from Rev. Henry Vincent Le Bas, the only member of the Noel Park Committee at the time of opening not known to have had a street named for him
External links
- Noel Park Official site of Haringey Council's Noel Park Neighbourhood Management Service
- A history of Noel Park
- Noel Park Conservation Area Advisory Committee
- Noel Park North Area Residents Association
- St Mark's Church
- The Salvation Army, Wood Green