Crouch End

Location

Crouch End is in a valley between Harringay to the east; Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green to the north; Stroud Green and Archway to the south; and Highgate to the west. Crouch End is located 4.6 miles north of Charing Cross and 5.1 miles from the City of London.

To the immediate west, it is bounded by Highgate Wood, and the adjacent Queen's Wood, as well as a large expanse of playing fields. To the north is Alexandra Park and to the south Finsbury Park. The Parkland Walk, a former railway line, makes a circuitous connection part of the way between these two parks. Other parks in the area include Stationers' Park, Priory Park and Crouch Hill Park.

Nearest places

History

Crouch End grew up as a hamlet on the old medieval route from London to the north. At this time it was governed as part of Hornsey, which became a parish in around 1300. The name "Cruch End" is recorded in 1593. This heavily wooded area contained farms and country houses, one of which was Crouch Hall, probably built in 1681 at the crossroads of Crouch End. The transcribed 1829–1848 diaries of William Copeland Astbury, recently made available, describe in great detail London life of the period, including walks to Crouch End. Crouch End remained rural until around 1880. Large parts remained in private ownership, inhibiting development. However, the development of the railway changed the area significantly. By 1887 there were seven railway stations in the area. Crouch End became a prosperous middle-class suburb due to an influx of mainly clerical workers who could easily commute to the city. The large old houses were replaced by comfortable middle-class housing, public parks were created, and a number of new roads and avenues, such as Elder Avenue and Weston Park, were laid out.

It expanded greatly in the late Victorian period and most of its present-day streets were built up in the late 19th century.

By the mid-1930s Crouch End had a popular shopping centre that included a Music Hall in the middle of Topsfield Parade.

Until 1965 it was administratively part of the Municipal Borough of Hornsey and that body's forerunners. In 1965, when local government in London was reorganised, Hornsey merged with the boroughs of Wood Green and Tottenham, and Crouch End became part of the London Borough of Haringey.

In the post-war years, the London-wide provision of social housing led to the building of council homes in and around Crouch End, Hornsey Vale and Hornsey itself. Many of the older houses in the area lay empty post-war and many were bought cheaply by speculative landlords who then let them out to the growing student populations of the Mountview and Hornsey Art College as well as to artists and musicians, who flocked to the area because of cheap rents. The area became known as student bedsit land for several decades into the early '80s until gentrification of the area changed the social profile and it became progressively more middle class. These social changes were illustrated by the changes in the shop types over the period; gentrification brought estate agents en masse along with up-market establishments and pavement-type cafes.

Notable buildings

Among its more prominent buildings is the modernistic Hornsey Town Hall, built by the Municipal Borough of Hornsey as their seat of government in 1933–35. The architect was the New Zealand-born Reginald Uren. The interior and exterior have been used several times as a location by the BBC soap EastEnders. At the time of writing (September 2015) the London Borough of Haringey is preparing to offer Hornsey Town Hall for disposal via the OJEU process

In the centre of Crouch End there is a prominent red-brick clock tower, built as a memorial to Henry Reader Williams in 1895.

Education

For further details of education in Crouch End see the London Borough of Haringey article

There are three state secondary schools serving the N8 Crouch End area. Highgate Wood School in Montenotte Road is a nine form entry mixed school with Performing Arts Status reflecting the area's long association with the performing arts. Highgate Wood School was the senior school to the former Crouch End School based on the corner of Wolseley Road and Park Road, opposite the Maynard Arms. Hornsey School for Girls in Inderwick Road is the only single sex school in N8. In Hornsey, there is the Greig City Academy (formerly St David and St Katherines). Further away Heartlands High School which lies between Wood Green and Alexandra Palace was opened by Haringey in 2010; despite not being in Crouch End it is close enough to provide additional provision. Over 6,000 children school in the area, approx 2,300 in primary schools and 3,700 in secondary schools (11-18).

Kestrel House is an independent special school for pupils with autistic spectrum conditions and additional learning and behavioural needs. The vast majority of pupils are referred by local authorities in London and the Home Counties who pay the fees. It is housed in the former Mountview Theatre School premises at the north end of Crouch Hill -the end nearest Crouch End Broadway. Also in the independent (fee paying sector) are Highgate School and Channing School, both used by parents in Crouch End but located in Highgate.

There are a number of primary schools serving Crouch End (seven in total within the N8 postcode):Weston Park, on Denton Road next to Stationers Park and Hornsey Vale Community Centre, Rokesly School, Coleridge Primary School at the top of Crouch End Hill near the border with Islington, St Aidans in Stroud Green (not N8), St Gildas and St Peter-in Chains, just off Crouch Hill and St Mary's in Hornsey. Campsbourne Primary School on Nightingale Lane, North Harringay Primary School on Falkland Road and Ashmount Primary School. Ashmount was until December 2012 on the south side of Hornsey Lane, in Islington and in the N19 postal district, but only meters from Haringey. (The border between Haringey and Islington runs down Hornsey Lane.) The school moved January 2013 to a new building in Crouch Hill Park adjacent to the Parkland Walk in N8. The new site, while closer to Crouch End, is both still within Islington and further from the border with Haringey than the old site on Hornsey lane. There is a continuing (August 2014) public controversy regarding the ultimate fate of the old Ashmount site; more information about this is available under the entry for Ashmount Primary School

Library Provision

The public library for Crouch End is Hornsey Library located on Haringey Park N8. The library building is on a site adjoining the south side of Hornsey Town Hall. The Library contains a large book stock, DVDs, provides free access to the Internet, meeting rooms for adult education classes, a gallery for exhibitions. There is a separate children's library, where events for pre-school children take place, with a public noticeboard with much information about local resources for parents of young children. There is also a cafe.

Music

A recording studio called KONK was established on Tottenham Lane in nearby Hornsey by Ray Davies, the Muswell Hill-born leader of The Kinks. Later, in 1990s Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics set up a recording studio in the old church on Crouch Hill called The Church. In the early 1980s The Church was owned by Bob Bura and John John Hardwick, the animators who worked on Camberwick Green, Captain Pugwash and Trumpton, who had converted part of it as a studio and later rented space to Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox.

Today Crouch End is home to Crouch End Festival Chorus, a leading symphonic chorus which has recorded with Lesley Garrett, Bryn Terfel, Ray Davies, Alfie Boe, EMI Classics and Classic FM as well as singing on the soundtrack for Doctor Who. They perform four concerts a year and also undertake other professional engagements for concerts and recordings.

Creativity

In 2011, the 'Crouch End Creatives' community group was established on Facebook and now has almost 4000 members. The group launched the 'Crouch End Festival' in May 2012, which now features over 200 local performers/artists and involves over 80 venues, over 10 days in June and is now the UK's biggest community arts festival. The next dates are Fri 9 - Sun 18 June 2017. Besides art exhibitions, drama, dance, film, poetry, photography and music, it features a number of novel events such as 'Poets in a Phone Box', 'Invented Histories', 'Art Creates Art Creates Art' and an outdoor cinema in the Town Hall square. In 2014 it held one of London's biggest Zombie Walks, with over 250 people, of all ages, dressing up to view Shaun of the Dead, which was shot in Crouch End. In 2013 it teamed up with nine local schools to encourage creativity in young people. The Festival group also runs a Christmas market, Shop Local campaigns, and works with schools to connect students with artists.

Hornsey Town Hall For a long while, the former Hornsey Town Hall was destined to be the new home of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts subject to planning permission but Mountview (23 January 2015) announced that it was no longer planning to relocate to the site leaving the future of HTH with uncertainty. Previously the Town Hall has been used as a film location for TV programmes such as The Hour and Whitechapel and films including Two Down. It was used in 2014 (20 March to 25 May) as a venue for a Surprise Cinema showing of the Coen Brothers classic gangster movie Miller's Crossing. At the end of 2014, the council granted use of the Town Hall to ANA (for 14 months) to develop it as a cultural arts centre renaming it the Hornsey Town Hall Arts Centre. Since ANA took it over it has become home to over 40 artists and centre for creativity within the community. But in Dec 2016 Haringey Council announced it was being leased to FEC, a property developer who plans to turn it into a hotel.

The Crouch End Hippodrome (on Tottenham Lane) originally opened as the Queen's Opera House in July 1897 with a production of The Geisha. The Theatre was a reconstruction of the former Crouch End Athenaeum and was built for the owners and managers H. H. Morell and Frederick Mouillot (who at the time owned another 17 Theatres between them). The theatre sat 1500 people. It was renamed the Hippodrome in 1907 and became a popular music hall. During a bombing raid in 1940 it was very badly damaged. More about the history here. It is now a gym.

Hornsey Art School

In 1880 an Art School was established which, in May 1968, as Hornsey College of Art, was the centre of a protest against the ideology of the school's teaching methods. The college was merged with what was then Middlesex Polytechnic, now University, in the 1970s. Subsequently, it was relocated to a Middlesex campus at Cat Hill and the lease of the building taken over by the TUC, which used it as its national training centre. In 2005, the TUC surrendered the lease and Haringey Council took it over, extending and converting the building in order to enlarge Coleridge Primary School.

Arts scene urban legends

Location for literature, film and television

Crouch End has been used as a location for film, TV and literature. Examples include:

Notable residents

Nearest tube stations

Nearest railway stations

Bus services