Tuffnell Park

 

Tufnell Park is the 42nd station on the Northern Line. I still have another 9 stations to visit on this line and am hoping to complete the line this year. This is one of the lesser used stations on this branch of the Northern Line. Before this station opened there was another station just along the road from here on the corner of Station road and  Junction Road  It was a very busy station bringing people to and from the Metropolitan cattle market. The station was open from 1872 - 1943  and demolished in the early 1950s. Although the two stations were close to one another , they were on different rail lines and there was no connection between the two. This station was opened in 1907 at the same time as the other stations on the High Barnet branch line.

The station was modernised in 2004 with new tiling.

Most of the stations on the Northern Line are deep level. This one did not have escalators but two lifts that take you to and from the ticket office.

Another Leslie Green station with its blood red terracotta tiling and semi circular windows. Even though it was a Saturday morning when I visited it was very quiet. People quietly chatting and even the cars seemed to drive more slowly. As soon as I left the station I noticed buildings of interest. 

Across the road was the Aces and 8s bar in the old Barclays Bank building. I found the name of this bar more interesting than the building. I was not familiar with it but then I am not a poker player. It is the name given to a specific pairing of the cards and is also known as The Dead Man's Hand. The origin of the phrase goes back to Wild Bill Hickok who was reportedly holding two black aces and two black eights when he was shot during a poker game in 1876. I have no idea why the name was chosen for this bar which, as far as I could see, was not a casino. I found that it had previously been called 'Bar Lorca' and then 'Grand Banks' But both those ventures failed by 2004 leaving squatters to take over and set up 'Occupied Social Centre' offering cultural events. The squatters were evicted after 5 months. Aces and Eights opened about five years after that and seems to have survived so far.

Dominating  the opposite corner of the crossroads is the Boston Arms. Rebuilt in 1899 it is a large pub featuring live music and a number of different seating areas.

This building runs alongside the Boston Arms.

In 1885 The Stanley Hall and Baths were opened. The building had a 20m pool on the ground floor and a public hall above. The swimming pool was converted into the Electric Theatre in 1909, renamed the Stanley Cinema in 1914. Probably due to WW1 it closed in 1916. It later became a school of ballroom dancing and also hosted events such as wrestling. In recent times it has been used as the Boston Music Room for the Boston Arms pub next door.

There is a row of decorative terracotta tiles below the windows.

I decided the best way of looking round the area would be to walk down each of the four roads that make up the crossroads outside the tube station. I had to take a picture of this sign as I have not heard that word for years. In Manchester, where I grew up, you always referred to a shop selling alcohol as the 'Offy'., shortened version of Off Licence.

A fast disappearing ghost sign.

A little further down Junction road is the official home of Shaolin Buddhism Temple and Kung Fu in the UK. The Temple is built on the grounds of an old London Underground depot. The main pillars of Shaolin culture are Chan buddhism, martial arts, Buddhist art and traditional medicine.

A little further along from the Temple is a road called Station Road. This is the only  reminder left that there was a busy railway stop here that deposited 140,000 people a year at the stop. People mainly came for the cattle market. When the tube opened in 1907 passenger numbers dropped. The station closed in May 1943 and was demolished in the early 1950s.

Tufnell Park Road is another of the roads leading from the station. On the corner with Huddleston Road was a war memorial that was different from the usual. Placing it here made it far more personal with details of  their age and names and maybe of more relevance to the younger generation. 

This interesting building is the former St George's church. Designed by George Trufitt, it was consecrated in 1867. The circular shape of the main church was apparently modelled on a first century church in Salonika. It is very unusual to see this shape in the UK. Some bomb damage to part of the roof happened during WW2 but was repaired. Unfortunately the church had a diminishing congregation which led to its disuse and later vandalism. In the late 1960s there was a great deal of support for its preservation and in 1970 plans to convert the church to a theatre were approved. St George's Theatre opened in 1976 focussing mainly on the works of Shakespeare. This venture sadly closed in 1989 and t for a number of years the building was left abandoned. It was sold to Rock Tower in 2010 and is now 'The House on the Rock Church', an evangelical Christian Church with headquarters in Lagos Nigeria.

This modern building is another church built during 1972-75. It seems to have a wider usuage than a traditional church. There are meeting rooms as well as a prayer room and a large open space for worship. The upstairs has a co-working space. This is St George and All Saints Church of England. It replaces the old St George's and All Saints church which was converted into flats in the 1990s.

Tufnell Park was still rural, with many dairies, into the 19th century and was one of the areas responsible for supplying London with milk. During the mid 1800s a scheme for building development was agreed and many of the local houses  were being built by George Trufitt including St George's church. The houses were of a good quality and attracted retired merchants and middle class professionals.

This wooden shed was at the end of a row of houses. I would have loved to have been there when it was open to see what veggies they were selling.

Walking on I came out on Parkhurst Road looking for  Holloway Prison. The prison opened in 1852 as a mixed sex prison and became female only in 1903. It was the largest women's prison in western Europe. Many suffragettes were imprisoned here including Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Davison. Other well known prisoners were Christine Keeler in 1963 (the Profumo affair) who had committed perjury; Myra Hindley, the Moors murderer who was found guilty of 3 child murders in 1966. Ruth Ellis was executed here in 1955, the last women to be executed in the UK. I hadn't realised that the prison had closed in 2016 and the land bought by Peabody estates for residential development. The women prisoners were moved to two other prisons in Surrey.

This is the 'Cat and Mouse' library which opened in 2017 as part of the redevelopment in this area. I was intrigued by the name and carried out some research. I discovered that it was named after the 'Cat and Mouse Act'. The correct name of this Act of Parliament is the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for ill health) Act 1913. The act was passed in response to the Women's Social and Political Union, otherwise known as the suffragettes. The women were going on hunger strike, whilst in prison, as a form of protest. They were then being force fed by the prison staff leading to a public outcry. The act allowed prisoners to be temporarily released when their health deteriorated due to the hunger strikes. They were then given time to recover before being rearrested and returned to prison to serve the rest of their sentence. This meant that the suffragettes could be repeatedly released and recaptured for the same offence without a further trial.The nickname for the act was the comparison of the striking suffragettes being released and returned to prison to a cat playing with a mouse. After the act was introduced the hunger strikers were no longer force fed. The library was given the name of 'Cat and Mouse' as a recognition of the sacrifices made by the suffragettes in Holloway prison which used to be close to this site.

According to a couple of articles I have read about this area, at the junction of Brecknock Road and Carleton Road was a private girls' school. The school closed in 1878 after a large number of their pupils drowned in the SS Princess Alice shipping disaster. The collision of a paddle steamer (SS Princess Alice) and a much larger boat (SS Bywell Castle) carrying coal caused the worst ever loss of life on the River Thames. An estimated 600-700 people lost their lives. The actual number is not known as there was no passenger list or head count. The steamer travelled between London Bridge pier and Sheerness, Kent and numerous families would take a day's visit to the seaside.  On the 3rd Sept 1878 the steamer was returning to London when it was hit mid on by the collier ship. The Princess Alice was split in half and sank quickly. The point of collision was where 75 million gallons of London's raw sewage had just been released into the river. Very few people could swim and were dragged down by the weight of their Victorian clothing. Even those that managed to stay afloat were poisoned by breathing in the toxic air. The dead were laid down in their hundreds in temporary mortuaries that popped up across East London. For weeks after the event bodies decayed in the polluted water or washed up on the riverbank.  The tragedy, which is now largely forgotten, led to major changes in the shipping industry.

I decided a break was needed when I spotted The Sunshine cafe on Brecknock road. Perfect for a cup of tea and a sandwich before making my journey home.