Noel Park in
north London
North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshire.
The term ''nort ...
is a
planned community
A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...
built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries consisting of 2,200
model dwellings
Model dwellings companies (MDCs) were a group of private companies in Queen Victoria, Victorian United Kingdom, Britain that sought to improve the housing conditions of the working classes by building new homes for them, at the same time receiving ...
, designed by
Rowland Plumbe. It was developed as the Noel Park Estate on a tract of land on the edge of north London as part of the fast growing development of
Wood Green
Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a maj ...
. It is one of four developments on the outskirts of London built by the
Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company
The Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company (Artizans Company) was a nineteenth-century philanthropic model dwellings company, which later became a multinational property developer before being absorbed into Sun Life.
Origins
The Artizans ...
(Artizans Company). From 2003 to sometime in 2009, the name was also given to a small park near the southern edge of Noel Park, formerly known – and now known again – as Russell Park.
One of the earliest
garden suburbs
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both ...
in the world, the Noel Park Estate was designed to provide affordable housing for working-class families wishing to leave the
inner city
The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists some ...
; every property had both a front and back 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
A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
s were built within the estate, and there are still none today.
As a result of London's rapid expansion during the early 20th century, and particularly after the area was connected to the
London Underground
The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...
in 1932, Noel Park became completely surrounded by later developments. In 1965 it was incorporated into the newly created
London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey (pronounced , same as Harringay) 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 t ...
, and in 1966 it was bought by the
local authority
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
and taken into public ownership.
Despite damage sustained during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
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
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...
and
Article Four Direction status by the
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 (DoE). This was created by Edward Heath as a combination of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Ministry of Tra ...
, in recognition of its significance in the development of suburban and philanthropic housing and in the history of the modern
housing estate
A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country.
Popular throughout the United States a ...
.
Location
![Noel Park locator](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Noel_Park_locator.svg)
Noel Park is a neighbourhood of
Wood Green
Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a maj ...
, north of
Charing Cross
Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Clockwise from north these are: the east side of Trafalgar Square leading to St Martin's Place and then Charing Cross Road; the Strand leading to the City; ...
, near the centre of the modern
London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey (pronounced , same as Harringay) 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 t ...
, of which it is a
ward
Ward may refer to:
Division or unit
* Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward
* Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...
. The area forms a rough triangle, bordered by the
A109 road (
Lordship Lane) to the north,
A1080 road
List of A roads in zone 1 in Great Britain beginning north of the River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longe ...
(Westbury Avenue) to the south-east, and
A105 road (Wood Green High Road, formerly part of
Green Lanes Green Lanes may refer to:
*A green lane (road), a type of road, usually an unpaved rural route.
*Green Lanes (London), a major road running through north London
* Harringay, a neighbourhood in the London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough o ...
) to the west.
When construction began, the
River Moselle
The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it jo ...
, 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
A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe, reinforced concrete or other material. In the United Kingdom ...
ed and the land between the river and Lordship Lane built on.
[Welch, p. 48]
The historic western boundary was the now-defunct
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 (Wood Green) station in Wood Green.
Opening
The line was constructed by the Great Eastern ...
of the
Great Eastern Railway
The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...
(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
The Mall Wood Green is a large Shopping mall, shopping centre and residential complex in Wood Green, north London. It was originally known as Wood Green Shopping City.
The Mall had over 100 retail shops, seven of them Shopping mall#Department s ...
shopping, cinema and residential complex (commonly known as Shopping City).
History and development
Early history
![Noel Park and Wood Green, Earl of Dorset's Survey](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Noel_Park_and_Wood_Green%2C_Earl_of_Dorset%27s_Survey.jpg)
Most of
Wood Green
Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a maj ...
, including the site of Noel Park, was sparsely populated up until the nineteenth century. The 1619
Earl of Dorset
Earl of Dorset is a title that has been created at least four times in the Peerage of England. Some of its holders have at various times also held the rank of marquess and, from 1720, duke.
A possible first creation is not well documented. Abou ...
's Survey of Tottenham shows the area as forming the historic
Duckett's Manor; as with the rest of the Moselle valley, the land consisted almost entirely of
woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...
and
pasture
Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") 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 ...
, with the only building shown in the area which was to become Noel Park being Ducketts Farm. This building was the former manor house of Ducketts dating from 1254 and is the earliest recorded property in
Wood Green
Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a maj ...
.
[Welch, p. 11] The tiny settlements at
Wood Green
Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a maj ...
and Elses Green are shown a short distance to the north-east. The manor itself was situated on the ancient drovers' road of
Green Lanes Green Lanes may refer to:
*A green lane (road), a type of road, usually an unpaved rural route.
*Green Lanes (London), a major road running through north London
* Harringay, a neighbourhood in the London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough o ...
. The last recorded occupancy of the manor was in 1881, shortly before the site was cleared for the construction of the Noel Park Estate.
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
The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...
's
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 (Wood Green) station in Wood Green.
Opening
The line was constructed by the Great Eastern ...
and
Green Lanes railway station, opened in 1878.
[Connor, p. VIII]
Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company
The
Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company
The Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company (Artizans Company) was a nineteenth-century philanthropic model dwellings company, which later became a multinational property developer before being absorbed into Sun Life.
Origins
The Artizans ...
(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
A scarecrow is a decoy or mannequin, often in the shape of a human. Humanoid scarecrows are usually dressed in old clothes and placed in open fields to discourage birds from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.Lesley ...
paid 1 penny per day, and had worked his way up to become a
drainage
Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess of water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils is good enough to prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic conditio ...
contractor.
The company was established as a for-profit
joint stock company
A joint-stock company is a business entity in which shares of the company's stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares (certificates of ownership). Shareholders are ...
, with the objective of building new houses for the working classes "in consequence of the destruction of houses by railroads and other improvements".
[Welch, p. 8] 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.
[Welch, p. 7] Whilst earlier philanthropic housing companies such as the
Peabody Trust
The Peabody Trust was founded in 1862 as the Peabody Donation Fund and now brands itself simply as Peabody. and the
Improved Industrial Dwellings Company
The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company (IIDC) was a Victorian Model dwellings company founded in 1863 by the printer, philanthropist and later Lord Mayor of London Sir Sydney Waterlow. The company operated predominantly in Central London as a ...
focused on multi-storey
blocks of flats
A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdictio ...
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.
[Welch, p. 9] The company attracted the attention of
Lord Shaftesbury
Earl of Shaftesbury is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1672 for Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Baron Ashley, a prominent politician in the Cabal then dominating the policies of King Charles II. He had already succeeded his f ...
, who served as president until 1875.
![Artizans Company logo (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Artizans_Company_logo_%28cropped%29.JPG)
The company built and immediately sold a group of houses in
Battersea
Battersea is a large district in south London, part of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross and extends along the south bank of the River Thames. It includes the Battersea Park.
History
Batter ...
, then still a rural village. The proceeds of the sale were used to purchase a plot of land in
Salford
Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
for development, and by 1874 the company had developments in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
,
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
,
Gosport
Gosport ( ) is a town and non-metropolitan borough on the south coast of Hampshire, South East England. At the 2011 Census, its population was 82,662. Gosport is situated on a peninsula on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, opposite t ...
and
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
.
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 built in 1872 on the site of a former
pig farm
Pig farming or pork farming or hog farming is the raising and breeding of domestic pigs as livestock, and is a branch of animal husbandry. Pigs are farmed principally for food (e.g. pork: bacon, ham, gammon) and skins.
Pigs are amenable to ...
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 of land to the west of London, adjacent to the newly opened
Westbourne Park station
Westbourne Park is a London Underground station in the Notting Hill area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is on the Circle and Hammersmith and City lines, between Ladbroke Grove and Royal Oak stations, and is in Travelcard Z ...
, purchased from
All Souls College, Oxford
All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...
. A third London estate was planned at
Cann Hall
Cann Hall is a ward, and former civil parish, in the south of Leytonstone 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.
His ...
, and a site of 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.
[Welch, p. 10]
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
The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and sp ...
,
and
Poplar Hospital; he had been President of the
Architectural Association
The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme ...
in 1871–72 and a Council Member of the
Royal Institute of British Architects
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...
since 1876.
![Rowland Plumbe](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Rowland_Plumbe.jpg)
In April 1881, the Artizans Company inspected sites at
Fulham
Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...
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
Alexandra Palace is a Grade II listed entertainment and sports venue in London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. It is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and the later Tottenham Wood Farm. Origi ...
, had an intermediate station at Green Lanes, immediately adjacent to the site in question.
[Connor, § 109] This provided direct service to the
City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...
from the outset; following the construction of a link with the
Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway
The Tottenham & Hampstead Junction Railway was a railway line in north London, formed by an Act of Parliament of 28 July 1862, which today is mostly part of the Gospel Oak to Barking line. It was effectively part of an attempt by the Great East ...
on 1 June 1880, direct services also ran to
Blackwall and
North Woolwich
North Woolwich is an area in the London Borough of Newham in East London. It is located on the northern bank of the River Thames, across the river from Woolwich. It is connected to Woolwich by the Woolwich Ferry and Woolwich foot tunnel.
De ...
, providing direct links with the
Port of London
The Port of London is that part of the River Thames in England lying between Teddington Lock and the defined boundary (since 1968, a line drawn from Foulness Point in Essex via Gunfleet Old Lighthouse to Warden Point in Kent) with the North Sea ...
. In addition, the
Great Northern Railway's station at
Wood Green
Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a maj ...
(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 was purchased by the company for £56,345 (approximately £ today).
[Welch, p. 12]
Design
![Noel Park original designs](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Noel_Park_original_designs.jpg)
Plumbe designed the estate with five classes of houses. 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.
[Welch, p. 25] All were designed with front and back gardens.
[Welch, p. 30] Corner houses were given distinctive designs and
turret
Turret may refer to:
* Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building
* Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon
* Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope
* Mi ...
s.
[Welch, p. 27]
![Class 5 house, Noel Park](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Class_5_house%2C_Noel_Park.JPG)
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, p. 32] 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
A parlour (or parlor) is a reception room or public space. In medieval Christian Europe, the "outer parlour" was the room where the monks or nuns conducted business with those outside the monastery and the "inner parlour" was used for necessar ...
and with the
kitchen
A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a ...
,
scullery
A scullery is a room in a house, traditionally used for washing up dishes and laundering clothes, or as an overflow kitchen. Tasks performed in the scullery include cleaning dishes and cooking utensils (or storing them), occasional kitchen work, ...
, and
toilet
A toilet is a piece of sanitary hardware that collects human urine and feces, and sometimes toilet paper, usually for disposal. Flush toilets use water, while dry or non-flush toilets do not. They can be designed for a sitting position popu ...
in separate rooms at the rear of the house; the first-class houses also had toilets upstairs.
[Welch, p. 28] In line with the design principles of the time, the downstairs toilets were accessible only from the back gardens, and the houses were not fitted with separate bathrooms; baths were taken in a moveable bath located in the kitchen.
![Noel Park plans](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Noel_Park_plans.jpg)
All houses were built with
marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...
-
mantelpieced fireplace
A fireplace or hearth is a structure made of brick, stone or metal designed to contain a fire. Fireplaces are used for the relaxing ambiance they create and for heating a room. Modern fireplaces vary in heat efficiency, depending on the design.
...
s and
flue
A flue is a duct, pipe, or opening in a chimney for conveying exhaust gases from a fireplace, furnace, water heater, boiler, or generator to the outdoors. Historically the term flue meant the chimney itself. In the United States, they are ...
s. All houses were supplied with
running water
Tap water (also known as faucet water, running water, or municipal water) is water supplied through a tap, a water dispenser valve. In many countries, tap water usually has the quality of drinking water. Tap water is commonly used for drinking, ...
supplied from the
New River, which flowed through
Wood Green
Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a maj ...
.
However, not all houses were supplied with
gas
Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma).
A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...
or
mains electricity
Mains electricity or utility power, power grid, domestic power, and wall power, or in some parts of Canada as hydro, is a general-purpose alternating-current (AC) electric power supply. It is the form of electrical power that is delivered to h ...
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
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...
and
split
Split(s) or The Split may refer to:
Places
* Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia
* Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay
* Split Island, Falkland Islands
* Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua
Arts, enterta ...
, 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 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 buil ...
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.
Construction
![Noel Park cottage flats](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Noel_Park_cottage_flats.JPG)
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
A goods station (also known as a goods yard or goods depot) or freight station is, in the widest sense, a railway station where, either exclusively or predominantly, goods (or freight), such as merchandise, parcels, and manufactured items, are l ...
, and a
siding was built into the development site.
[Connor, § 108][Welch, p. 15] 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
''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. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed int ...
'' reported that "in a shed 330ft long by 50ft broad are stored a million superficial feet of flooring boards".
![Ernest Noel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Ernest_Noel.jpg)
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
__NOTOC__
A foreman, forewoman or foreperson is a supervisor, often in a manual trade or industry.
Foreman may specifically refer to:
*Construction foreman, the worker or tradesman who is in charge of a construction crew
* Jury foreman, a head j ...
, 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".
[Welch, p. 17]
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 £1,071.14
s.3
d (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.
![Gladstone Avenue, N22](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Gladstone_Avenue%2C_N22.jpg)
In 1883, it was decided to name the estate "Noel Park", in honour of
Ernest Noel
Ernest Noel, FGS (18 August 1831 – 20 May 1931) was Member of Parliament (MP) 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 constructi ...
(1831–1931),
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
Member of Parliament for
Dumfries Burghs and chairman of the Artizans Company since 1880.
[Welch, p. 18] The streets were laid out on a
grid plan
In urban planning, 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.
Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogona ...
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 Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
, prominent naturalist and an early investor in the Artizans Company, and Moselle Avenue, which was to follow the course of the
culvert
A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe, reinforced concrete or other material. In the United Kingdom ...
ed River Moselle; see
Derivation of street names, below.
[Welch, p. 23]
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".
[Welch, p. 19] Edward White Benson
Edward White Benson (14 July 1829 – 11 October 1896) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1883 until his death. Before this, he was the first Bishop of Truro, serving from 1877 to 1883, and began construction of Truro Cathedral.
He was previousl ...
,
Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
, 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".
[Welch, p. 20]
A newspaper report of the event included the following, "the Noel Park Estate, Green Lanes, Wood Green, London — quite a town of artisans' and labourers' dwellings — was opened by Lord Shaftesbury....All the streets are wide, and the architecture houses and the agreeable surroundings of trees and fields give them a singularly comfortable and pleasant appearance".
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 station (now Alexandra Palace station) on the
Great Northern Railway. By 1886 Noel Park had over 7,000 residents.
![Moselle Avenue & Vincent Road](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Moselle_Avenue_%26_Vincent_Road.JPG)
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 () is a town in North London, England, within the London Borough of Haringey. It is located in the ceremonial county of Greater London. Tottenham is centred north-northeast of Charing Cross, bordering Edmonton to the north, Waltham ...
,
Stamford Hill
Stamford Hill is an area in Inner London, England, about 5.5 miles north-east of Charing Cross. The neighbourhood is a sub-district of Hackney, the major component of the London Borough of Hackney, and is known for its Hasidic community, the l ...
and
Walthamstow
Walthamstow ( or ) is a large town in East London, east London, England, within the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London and the Historic counties of England, ancient county of Essex. Situated northeast of Chari ...
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, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It is the t ...
in the City of London and rehoused by the company).
[Connor, p. V] 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".
[Olsen, p. 290]
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.
[Welch, p. 21] 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
![Moselle Avenue shops](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Moselle_Avenue_shops.JPG)
Terraces of shops were built around the fringes of the estate, to cater for the residents of the expanding suburb of Wood Green including the Noel Park Estate as well as for 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.
![Noel Park School](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Noel_Park_School.JPG)
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.
[Welch, p. 44]
In 1946, the school became a
Secondary Modern
A secondary modern school is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Schools of this type continue in Northern Ireland, where they are usuall ...
. Between 1957 and 1963 the secondary facilities were closed, leaving the school as a
primary school
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...
. In 1965, the school came under the control of the newly created
London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey (pronounced , same as Harringay) 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 t ...
.
Following reorganisation of Haringey's education services, it is now a primary school serving approximately 500 pupils between the ages of three and 11.
![Football pitches in Noel Park](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Football_pitches_in_Noel_Park.jpg)
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.
Its name has since been changed back to Russell Park.
![St Mark's, N22](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/St_Mark%27s%2C_N22.JPG)
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.
[Welch, p. 39]
The church is relatively large, seating 850.
It is built in the
Venetian Gothic
Venetian Gothic is the particular form of Italian Gothic architecture typical of Venice, originating in local building requirements, with some influence from Byzantine architecture, and some from Islamic architecture, reflecting Venice's trading ...
style, and divided into a five-bay
nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
,
transept
A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...
s,
chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse.
Ove ...
, morning chapel and organ chamber.
Although Plumbe's original design envisaged a tower, none was ever built. By 1900, St Mark's was reported as having a congregation twice that of any other church in Wood Green.
![Shropshire Hall](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Shropshire_Hall.JPG)
In 1913, a second much larger mission hall was opened nearby, named the Walsham-How Mission Hall after
William Walsham How
William Walsham How (13 December 182310 August 1897) was an English Anglican bishop.
Known as Walsham How, he was the son of a Shrewsbury solicitor; How was educated at Shrewsbury School, Wadham College, Oxford and University College, Durham. ...
, 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.
[Welch, p. 41]
Due to the
temperance
Temperance may refer to:
Moderation
*Temperance movement, movement to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed
*Temperance (virtue), habitual moderation in the indulgence of a natural appetite or passion
Culture
*Temperance (group), Canadian danc ...
views of the Artizans Company's directors, no public houses were built in Noel Park, a situation which remains the case today.
20th century
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 Crafts
A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...
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.
[Welch, p. 35]
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 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.
[Welch, p. 36]
![Shops on Wood Green High Road](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Shops_on_Wood_Green_High_Road.JPG)
The centrepiece of the Cheapside development was the Wood Green Empire, a 3,000-capacity theatre designed by
Frank Matcham
Francis Matcham (22 November 1854 – 17 May 1920)Mackintosh, Iain"Matcham, Frank" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, accessed 7 July 2019 was an English architect who specialised in the design o ...
. The Empire soon became one of London's leading entertainment venues, hosting acts such as
Marie Lloyd
Matilda Alice Victoria Wood (12 February 1870 – 7 October 1922), professionally known as Marie Lloyd (), was an English music hall singer, comedian and musical theatre actress. She was best known for her performances of songs such as " T ...
,
Frankie Vaughan
Frankie Vaughan (born Frank Fruim Abelson; 3 February 1928 – 17 September 1999) was an English singer and actor who recorded more than 80 easy listening and traditional pop singles in his lifetime. He was known as "Mr. Moonlight" after his ...
and
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey (; born 8 January 1937) is a Welsh singer. Best known for her career longevity, powerful voice and recording the theme songs to three James Bond films, Bassey is widely regarded as one of the most popular vocalists ...
. The Empire is best known as the theatre in which magician
Chung Ling Soo
William Ellsworth Robinson (April 2, 1861 – March 24, 1918) was an American magician who went by the stage name Chung Ling Soo (). He is mostly remembered today for his accidental death due to a failed bullet catch trick.
Early years
Robinso ...
(William Ellsworth Robinson) was fatally shot in the chest on 23 March 1918, when a theatrical pistol used in a
bullet catch
The bullet catch is a stage magic illusion in which a magician appears to catch a bullet fired directly at them — often in the mouth, sometimes in the hand or sometimes caught with other items such as a dinner plate. The bullet catch ma ...
demonstration malfunctioned.
[Welch, p. 46]
With the postwar decline of
variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
and
music hall
Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Bri ...
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 was the original name of the British broadcaster ATV, part of the Independent Television (ITV) network. It provided a service to London at weekends from 1955 to 1968, to the Midlands on weekdays from 1956 to 1968, and ...
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 Railway
The Northern City Line is a commuter railway line in England, which runs from Moorgate station to Finsbury Park in London with services running beyond. It is part of the Great Northern Route services, and operates as the south-eastern branc ...
underground railway had opened, running from the City of London to a terminus at
Finsbury Park station
Finsbury Park is an intermodal interchange station in north London. It serves a number of National Rail, London Underground and bus services. The station is the third busiest Underground station outside Zone 1, with over 33 million passengers u ...
, followed in 1906 by the
Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway (GNP&BR) from the western suburbs through central London to Finsbury Park, approximately 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.
[Croome, p. 26] 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
The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...
(LNER), successor to the GNR, was compelled by the
Ministry of Transport
A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government age ...
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
The second (symbol: s) is the unit of Time in physics, time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally t ...
initiated a policy of direct subsidy for major infrastructure projects, and in 1930 the
Underground Electric Railways Company of London
The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited (UERL), 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 und ...
began work on extending the GNP&BR, now the
Piccadilly line.
[Croome, p. 28] The
Piccadilly line extension to Cockfosters opened in stages, with stations at
Wood Green
Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a maj ...
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.
[Croome, p. 30] 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.
[Croome, p. 44]
Postwar reconstruction
Although of little strategic value and undamaged during the early stages of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, in the final stages of the war a number of
V-1 V1, V01 or V-1 can refer to version one (for anything) (e.g., see version control)
V1, V01 or V-1 may also refer to:
In aircraft
* V-1 flying bomb, a World War II German weapon
* V1 speed, the maximum speed at which an aircraft pilot may abort ...
flying bombs and
V-2
The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was develope ...
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
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 su ...
s were redeveloped with housing in then-current styles, rather than to Plumbe and Earle's designs.
![New & old houses, Noel Park](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/New_%26_old_houses%2C_Noel_Park.JPG)
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
The mallard () or wild duck (''Anas platyrhynchos'') is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Arge ...
'' and a
Class 9F steam locomotive.
![The Sandlings](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/The_Sandlings.JPG)
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
depreciation
In accountancy, depreciation is a term that refers to two aspects of the same concept: first, the actual decrease of fair value of an asset, such as the decrease in value of factory equipment each year as it is used and wear, and second, the a ...
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
Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...
– in the case of Noel Park, the newly created
London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey (pronounced , same as Harringay) 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 t ...
, which purchased the 2,175 properties comprising the Noel Park estate for a total of £2,917,000 (approximately £ today)
[Welch, p. 50] – leaving 377 homes at Pinnerwood Park in
Pinner
Pinner is a London suburb in the London borough of Harrow, Greater London, England, northwest of Charing Cross, close to the border with Hillingdon, historically in the county of Middlesex. The population was 31,130 in 2011.
Originally a med ...
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 Inc. is a Canadian financial services company. It is primarily known as a life insurance company.
Sun Life has a presence in investment management with over CAD$1.3 trillion in assets under management operating in a number ...
, and on 3 February 1981 the company was renamed Sun Life Properties Ltd.
Modern Noel Park
![Prefabs on the Palace Gates trackbed](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Prefabs_on_the_Palace_Gates_trackbed.JPG)
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.
![Pelham Road](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Pelham_Road.JPG)
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".
[Cherry & Pevsner, p. 594]
In 1980, the
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 3 Oc ...
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
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...
status,
and Plumbe's northern section of the estate was granted
Article Four Direction by
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served a ...
,
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 (DoE). This was created by Edward Heath as a combination of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Ministry of Tra ...
, 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
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
However, these measures have not been consistently enforced, and Noel Park has been cited in a report by
English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
as a prominent example of the failure of conservation areas.
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the estate was the home of a large squatter community, mostly made up of young
punks
Punk or punks may refer to:
Genres, subculture, and related aspects
* Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres
* Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture ...
from Ireland, Wales, Scotland and outside London, which greatly enlivened the area but also led to many legal and other conflicts with Haringey Council, who ironically had left so many of the properties empty in the first place. Many of these were later to move to the Woodberry Down Estate in
Manor House
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...
.
In line with the original principles of the Artizans Company, there are still no public houses in Noel Park. In 2008 parts of
Wood Green
Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a maj ...
including Noel Park 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 Ashley, MP for
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Isle of ...
, son of Lord Shaftesbury and Chairman of the Artizans Company
*Buller Road:
Redvers Buller
General Sir Redvers Henry Buller, (7 December 1839 – 2 June 1908) was a British Army officer and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forc ...
, winner of the
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...
at the
Battle of Hlobane
The Battle of Hlobane (28 March 1879) took place at Hlobane, near the modern town of Vryheid in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa during the Anglo-Zulu War
The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdo ...
, 1879
*Darwin Road:
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
, 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 ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
, 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
A viscount ( , for male) or viscountess (, for female) is a title used in certain European countries for a noble of varying status.
In many countries a viscount, and its historical equivalents, was a non-hereditary, administrative or judicial ...
, 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
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
and Director of the Artizans Company 1877–1880
*Moselle Avenue: Runs above the
culvert
A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe, reinforced concrete or other material. In the United Kingdom ...
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
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times for a total of over thirteen y ...
, 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
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Noel ParkOfficial site of Haringey Council's Noel Park Neighbourhood Management Service
Noel Park Conservation Area Advisory CommitteeNoel Park North Area Residents AssociationSt Mark's ChurchThe Salvation Army, Wood Green
{{Model dwellings companies
Housing estates in London
Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Haringey
Districts of the London Borough of Haringey
Conservation areas in London
Planned communities
Garden suburbs
Architecture in England
Places formerly in Middlesex