Pages Hill Brook - Muswell Hill

Pages Hill Brook
Pages Hill Brook rises in this area and flows north towards Bounds Green Brook
Muswell Stream rises in this area from a number of sources and flows north eastwards

Post to the west Coldfall Woods
Post to the north Colney Hatch Asylum
Post to the east Alexandra Park
Post to the south Muswell Hill

Albion Avenue
The road falls steeply downhill westwards to the valley of the Pages Hill Brook
St.Peter le Poer.  This was founded in 1866 as a mission and in 1884 a temporary church was built until a permanent structure was built in 1909 by Caroe & Passmore, funded by money from the sale of the redundant church of St. Peter-le-Poer, Old Broad Street, in the City of London.  It is a red brick building “with a bushy eyebrow effect” Inside are furnishings from the old City church including an ample alabaster font c. 1873, and a curved pulpit with carving and twisted balusters, probably dating from the rebuilding of the City church in 1788-92.  Stations of the Cross engraved and coloured wood, by Wilfred Lawson as well as stained glass of Christ in Glory..
Flats on the site of a prefabricated church hall, built in 1964 to replace the temporary church of 1904.
The vicarage and garden adjoin the church to the north. There is a war memorial in the garden to the dead of two world wars. It was rededicated in 2010 following destruction in a storm four years earlier
Halliwick Recreation Ground. Pages Hill Brook went down the east side of this field. The field was purchased by the local authority in 1927.

Alexandra Park Road
Flats 1985 block. From 1904 to 1984 this site was occupied by a Wesleyan Methodist Church, designed by Gunton, and adjacent hall. 1899. The church was in red brick and had a corner turret with an octagonal lantern. In the early 1980s structural defects led to its demolition and replacement elsewhere.
St. Andrew.  Built 1903 by J.S. Alder, but bombed gutted in the Second World War II. The old walls were incorporated in the church rebuilt by R. S. Morris in 1957. It is in red brick

Cecil Road
Muswell Stream - one of the head streams flows into the road where a dip can be seen.
Colney Hatch Lane
Tudor route to the North. The name "Muswell" was established by the end of the 15th and means "mossy spring". The spring was on an area made up of  64 acres of land east of Colney Hatch Lane which had been held in the 12th by the Bishop of London as Lord of the Manor.
Our Lady of Muswell, The Roman Catholic Parish of Muswell Hill was founded in 1917. The church was built in 1938 to designs by T.H.B.Scott and is in brown brick with capitals at the entrance. Named after the medieval well shrine here,
3 19th detached house with mature trees
5-7 19th detached houses with decorative woodwork at the front.
40 built by a Dr.Webster who put a spider's web device under the eaves as a pun on his name - but it is no longer there.
156 The Minstrel Boy. Pub.
Flats – post war by Friern Borough Council designed by J. Marshall Engineer and Surveyor, 1946-51
Pillar Box. By T Allen & Co.  Ltd- 1884 .1901 with a vending machine on top. Now gone
Garden walls containing brick maker’s wasters.
South Friern Library. The library dated from 1963 built by Friern Borough Council. It has since been rebuilt.
Muswell Hill Farm lay on the east side of the road south of the junction with Pembroke Road. It was in existence by the mid 18th and continued until 1902

Coniston Road
Muswell Stream - one of the head streams crosses the road

Coppetts Road
3-11 Corner with Pages Lane called Tatterdown Place. 19th cottages
Pillar Box G.R. cypher, type 'D'. Oval 1932
Coppetts Wood Primary School
Coppetts Farm. Old farm site to the east of the lane.  By the early 20th it was a dairy farm. The farm house survived after the demolition of other buildings, and was in use as a shop
Wilton Community Church. Evangelical church which began with Christian Brethren, who began an Assembly at Wilton Chapel.

Creighton Avenue
Fortismere School – north wing only

Curzon Road
Muswell Stream - one of the head streams crosses this road
Halliwick Road
Pillar Box G.R. cypher, type 'D'. Oval 1932. No longer in place

Muswell Avenue
Muswell Stream - one of the head streams rises in this area
House on the corner dated 1891
Norfolk ’Preparatory’ School. The school has been on this site since 1897 and originally prepared boys for the navy.

Muswell Road
The Muswell Stream ran between this roasd and Cranbourne Road.
40 Plaque on the house. site of holy well and one source of Muswell Stream. The spring was on the area of a farm given by the Bishop of London as Lord of the Manor of Hornsey to the nuns of the Priory of St. Mary in Clerkenwell for use as a farm. It was the shrine of Our Lady of Muswell which included a chapel and pilgrims visited it  Said to be holy and supposed to cure scrofula. King  Malcolm of Scotland visited it and was allegedly cured and there was a resulting Papal edict.   After the dissolution the land passed into private ownership.   In 1865 the well was described as being brick lined to a depth of about 5 feet below which was water. It was obliterated when the houses were built at the end of the 19th century
47 Boundary marker on the boundary of Hornsey & Wood Green
64 Boundary marker on the boundary of Hornsey & Wood Green

Newton Road
Robert Paul’s film studios 1897 - 1910. Paul built the first British movie camera, called the Paul-Acres camera, and opened one of the first film studios. The 'Animatograph Works' included a studio, which built up imaginary spaces and places.  Paul’s studio produced fantasies like The Magic Sword in 1902.  In 1900 he moved his instrument workshop here from Hatton Garden and in 1903 produced a galvanometer and a prototype of the pulsator, forerunner of the iron lung. From 1912, the firm made measuring instruments, notably thermometers. In 1920 the firm amalgamated with the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Co. The premises were extended in 1937-9,1959-61, and from 1963, but in 1975 production in Sydney Road was transferred to St. Neot's as part of the Swiss firm of Brown Boveri.

Pages Hill
Pages Hill Brook follows down the west side of the road

Pages Lane
The palings and trees of the estate which line Pages Lane are typical of Muswell Hill's appearance before Edwardian development.
North Bank Estate.  This was an estate of eleven acres given to the Methodist church in 1947 by. H. Guy Chester. It is called ‘North Bank’ after one of the houses on it,
North Bank House.  This is a 19th house with large grounds, stables and other outbuildings used by the Methodist Church. L-shaped stable group.  It is used for The Methodist Division of Education and Youth.  Methodist Home for the Aged, sheltered housing, and Chester House hostel and offices of the Christian Education Movement plus Muswell Hill Methodist Church. The grounds are used for social evenings.
Muswell Hill Methodist Church.  Part of the North Bank Estate, complex. The church was built in 1984, by Peter Knollt and Chris Leiliot of Daniel & Leiliot, and is next to the house. It includes stained glass from the old Methodist church in Colney Hatch Lane.
Chester House, Methodist Youth Headquarters, and Youth Hostel, by Charles Pike, 1959-60, in pale brick. It commemorates Harold Chester, the stockbroker who financed the site and whose portrait and a plaque are in the entrance hall.
Hazlehyrst. This was Chester's own house and is used as staff flats at his request.
Tennis courts.  These were provided by Chester for the Muswell Hill Methodist Tennis Club, and were opened in April 1925 by Miss Dorothy Round and other Wimbledon celebrities.
Whitehall Lodge.  Modern movement flats built in 1938 on the site of almshouses.
Our Lady of Muswell RC Primary School opened in 1959 in old buildings of St.Martin's convent
St.Martins Convent School opened in 1904 by the Sisters of St.Martin of Tours. Closed in the late 1950s.
1-11 row of 19th century cottages with a further terrace known as Victoria
Post box on the north side has a VR cypher.

St.Regis Close
5 Artists garden which includes a Baroque temple, pagodas overlooking ponds, raku-tiled mirrored wall, around the compost heap is a wall with a stained glass window salvaged from the porch of the local Methodist Church demolished in the 1980- and an American Gothic Bates Motel shed.

Sources

Cherry and Pevsner London North
Middlesex Churches
A walk round Muswell Hill
Pinching and Dell. Haringey’s Hidden Streams Revealed
History of the County of Middlesex web site
St.Peter le Poer web site
National Gardens Scheme web site
LMA web site
Muswell Hill Methodist church web site
Coppetts Wood Primary School web site
Wilton Community Church web site
Fortismere School website
GLIAS Newsletter
Our Lady of Muswell web site
Locallocalhistory web site

Comments

Tony said…
Re the 2012 mention of St Peter-le-Poer that states "Flats on the site of a prefabricated church hall, built in 1964 to replace the temporary church of 1904."

Does the 1964 refer to the flats or the hall? I worked on the hall while it was being built so wonder if it is still there!
Anonymous said…
as far as I know the Muswell Hill Methodist Church has long gone and been replaced by posh flats
Anonymous said…
Some of the stained glass from the old Methodist Church is in the new church next to Chester House. The rest is on display in Birmingham Museum as it was made in that city. Very surprised to come upon it by chance- v. interesting contemporary scenes.

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