A brief history of
the area |
Green
Lanes or "The Green Lanes" appears on the very
oldest maps of London (eg John Rocque 1741). Within the area
of what is now the park (the eponymous Finsbury Park) there
was a wood called Hornsey Wood. There was a manor house close
to the pond called Hornsey Wood House which is no longer
extant but which is clearly shown in the Cruchley map of
1828. By
1858 this house appears to have become the original Hornsey
Wood Tavern which was certainly at the south end of Hornsey
Wood within the present boundaries of the Park. The present
Alexandra Bar (formerly until 2005, the Hornsey Wood Tavern)
must have been built after the Seven Sisters Road was pushed
through which had been done by 1858. |
| Some
years ago an active resident's association for the triangle
bounded by Green Lanes, Seven Sisters Road and the filter beds,
tried to revive the name Hornsey Wood for this area by calling
themselves the Hornsey Wood Residents' Association, although
the name never passed into general usage. However the area
was in the old parish of Hornsey and in the South Hornsey Urban
District. |
| The
Post Office London Directory map of 1858 shows the Seven Sisters
Road but there are no houses on it south of the Park. There
were still none by 1862. However, by 1877 there were houses
on the south side of Seven Sisters Road between Manor House
and Blackstock Road but no building within the triangle. Adolphus
Road was laid out between 1877 and 1879. The other roads in
the triangle were all built about the same time since the Hutchings
and Crowsley map of 1880 shows them all. |
| Some
time between 1930 and 1946 the neighbouring Portland Road,
Alexandra Road and Gloucester Road became respectively a Rise,
a Grove and a Drive. This was probably to avoid the duplication
of names in other parts of london. |
| During
the last war the area around the filter beds suffered extensive
damage as the Germans tried to disrupt London's water supply.
The nearest Council estates in Portland Rise, Woodberry Down
and Princess Crescent were all built in the 1950's on sites
flattened by the Luftwaffe. So far as we know there is no evidence
of bomb damage in Adolphus Road itself. |
|
| References |