London 1978

Peter MARSHALL


Former station, Crouch End Hill, Hornsey, Haringey, 1978
16s25: cafe, Haringey, station, walk,

Thumbnails    Home                 ON>     <back

 

You can click on the image to go to the next picture

Immediately to the right of the Crescent Cafe had been the entrance to Crouch End station and the platforms were left when the station buildings were demolished.
 
The railway was opened by Great Northern in 1867 and the station was closed in 1951-2 with all passenger services on the line ending in 1954. There had been plans in 1935 to incorporate the line as a link between Finsbury Park and Highgate as a part of a more extensive development of the Northern Line, the Northern Heights Plan, but the war prevented the work starting and it was never taken up after the war, though it would have been a useful addition to the system. The line was used to move tube stock around after other traffic ceased, but around 1970 this was stopped as some of the bridges were unsafe, and the track was lifted at the start of 1972.
 
The station buildings on the bridge from which I took this picture were only demolished in 1977 when work was taking place on the bridge, though they had been largely destroyed in a fire a few years earlier, but the platforms were still in place. At road level the station was replaced by an odd and pointless architectural fixture, still in place, looking rather like an upside-down bridge, which puzzled me greatly at the time, and I took a number of photographs, none of them currently on this site.
 
I had intended to go down to the railway level, which is now a part of the Parkland Walk along the former rail line, plans for which had begun in 1976 but this section was not officially opened until 1984, and access from Crouch End Hill was fenced off when I took this picture. But as you can see from the picture it was accessible from elsewhere.