 It's taken six years, cost a small fortune and been beset by controversy - but the refurbishment of Hornsey's fabulous Town Hall is at last complete. Just in time for Christmas. The building celebrated its reopening over the weekend with a community fair, an art exhibition, foodstalls and several competing groups of carol singers. And I have to say, the old place has polished up well!
Part of the town hall complex (which is in Crouch End) is to be a hotel, and quite a lot has been turned into up-market flats. But there are still wonderful spaces, including the main hall (where the Kinks among others started out), the council chamber (complete with mayor's chair) and the members' room.    Hornsey Town Hall is acclaimed as a modernist masterpiece. It was designed by a young New Zealand architect, Reginald Uren, and opened in 1935. The building won the Royal Institute of British Architects' bronze medal in that year. But after just thirty years as the focal point for the Borough of Hornsey, in 1965 it lost its purpose. Hornsey was merged with Wood Green and Tottenham to form the London Borough of Haringey. The centre of gravity of the new borough was further east. The building was still used as municipal offices, and the main hall was kept busy, but a slow process of decline set in.  The refurbishment has done justice to the design - the windows, the staircases, the angular aspect, all comes shining through. 
 What remains unclear is the extent to which the restored building will serve Crouch End and become once again a focus for the local community. But it's certainly got off to a good start. 
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 The Muswell Hill murals are one of N10's hidden secrets. They are in the children's library on the first floor of the recently - and expensively -refurbished library building in the heart of Muswell Hill. The library, commissioned by Hornsey Borough Council, opened in 1931. And students at Hornsey School of Art were prevailed upon to provide artwork to make the first floor more appealing to younger library users. Their initial handiwork - which seem to have been canvases hung to appear as murals and depicting the origins of printing - haven't survived. But three murals from a few years later are still there - stylised, striking, and apparently showing scenes from Muswell Hill's past.  To be honest, not all that much happened before the development of the modern suburb from the 1890s. There was a well, of course (long, long gone) ... and that's one of the few places and episodes identifiable in the murals. But they are rather lovely - if not exactly, I suspect, to the taste of the youngsters who make use of the library today.  Muswell Hill Library is Grade II listed, in no small part because of the murals. The Historic England listing says the children's section is significant 'especially for a deep frieze of murals painted by the Hornsey School of Art in 1937-8; they are the earliest mural decorations known to survive in a children's library, - once a popular repository for mural painting as a device to encourage learning, but now rare. The murals depict local scenes through the ages, and were the work of J B Shaw, D Fuller, R Woodward, G Makins and Miss W M Gamlen of-the Hornsey School of-Art.'   This is a marvellous item - articles of an early nineteenth century federation of trade societies (local trade unions). The articles are dated 1815 and the broadsheet was published in Nottingham the following year. The Society of Skinners had its own emblem - showing Britannia and a blindfolded Justice, and a ram (presumably a reminder of what it was the skinners were skinning). And is that a teazle between Britannia and the sheep, which might have been used in the craft? The central motif is of four clasped hands - a sign of solidarity - girdled by a belt, presumably the sort of thing that the hides were used for. The emblem has the slogan: 'United to Support but not combined to Injure'.  I bought this wonderful document about a decade ago from a second-hand bookshop in Cambridge. It was folded and kept in an envelope. I have now had it repaired and framed. And it will - for the first time in many, many years, I imagine - be put on display. I have been able to find out very little about the United Societies of Skinners. This document predates Tolpuddle, and the legal attempts to inhibit trade unionism. If anyone knows about skinners' trade unions, do please get in touch.   What a wonderful venue for live music. Hoxton Hall was built as a music hall in 1863 but closed down after a few years following complaints from the police. It was subsequently a temperance gospel hall and a Quaker meeting house before being reborn as a venue and community centre. It still is much as it was built. This was my first time at Hoxton Hall, which is just north of Shoreditch and bordering London's East End. It's on two levels and feels very intimate - I guess there's room for between 200 and 300 people. And the main band, Brown Wimpenny - I know, it sounds more like a breed of North American duck than a musical troupe - were well good. They are an eleven member (OK, one of them had flu last night) folk ensemble from Manchester, inventive, fun, lively - and great musucians and singers. Just a pity they cut short a rendition of 'Ilkley Moor', but then these Lancastrians ...  The main support act, Goblin Band, was also a treat - and all told, it was a really good October evening out. I'll be back!    It's more than half-a-century since I last saw Wishbone Ash. They were a good live band with their duelling lead guitars. And they had some good numbers. Last night, I saw them again. Well, Andy Powell with the V-shaped guitar (then and now) is the only survivor from the line-up back in the day. He's still pretty nifty. And the audience at the Islington Assembly Hall was appreciative. And do you need reminding about Wishbone Ash? 'Jailbait', 'The King Will Come', 'Throw Down the Sword', 'Blowing Free' ... well, that's about it! All played last night. 'Blowing Free' was the encore. Here's what they looked and sounded like in their prime: The venue is decent - but down below they have a really strange sign ... an invitation, a warning? Who knows!  And in case you are wondering, my mate Michael and I were among the younger members of the audience.   This wonderful cartoon graced postcards sent by British troops in the trenches of Belgium and northern France during the First World War back to their family and friends in 'blighty'. I came across it the other day at the wonderful Mildmay Club - established in the 1880s as the Mildmay Radical Club - on Newingon Green in North London. The club sent packets of cigarettes and other supplies to its members serving in the army. These postcards were often sent back to the club to acknowledge safe receipt and express thanks. The club has hundreds of cards and letters sent from the trenches and battlefield during the war. Sadly, hundreds (no exaggeration) of club members never made it back. These cards were addressed to the longrunning club secretary, Ralph Manley - a fixture at the Mildmay for decades, but with a remrkable personal back story which is only now coming to light. More to come ..   Crouch End is not, I suspect, a crime hotspot. So the act of vandalism to the wonderful fountain outside Hornsey Library perhaps ranks higher than you might imagine in the priorities of the local police.  A police sign urges locals to be vigilant for other anti-social acts after an incident in which - wait for it - washing-up liquid was added to the fountain without authorisation. Some in N8, it seems, are foaming with rage. (Other puns are available ...) I was much too late at the scene to capture a shot of the sud-covered 'reclining female figure' at the centre of the fountain. A pity! I like the scu;lpture. It's the work of T.B. Huxley-Jones and recently celebrated its 60th birthday. Hornsey Library, a magnificent building, was opened in March 1965, just days before the Borough of Hornsey sank beneath the waves to become a reluctant part of the new Borough of Haringey.  The fountain and sculpture were installed at the same time - close to the municipal toilets. Both library and fountain have recently been refurbished, and now look altogether more elegant.
It looks to me that the 'reclining female figure' - the sculpture doesn't have any other name - has cleaned up quite nicely. So, please, hold the Fairy Liquid!
 I love Indian food - and I love Brick Lane and the area around - but I wouldn't often think of having an Indian meal there. There are thirty or more Indian restaurants on Brick Lane (there used to be many more), just about all Bangaldeshi run. But even those that proclaim that they also do Bangladeshi food, don't. It's the usual chicken korma with naan type menu - with none of the river fish and piquant side dishes, often cooked in pungent mustard, oil which - to me at least - are the hallmarks of Bengali cuisine.
But things are starting to change. Graam Bangla on Brick Lane - not far from the mosque - does quite a few of the standards, but also offers pukka Bengali cuisine, with a wide range of fish dishes and lots of small 'bortha' side dishes. And the food is good. Many of the dishes were unfamiliar and the proprietor talked us through what was on offer and gave us tiny tasting spoons of quite a few of the dishes. Then we ate: black beef, a wonderful lamb dish, two types of fish, a selection of borthas, and brilliant flaky parathas. All four of us were well impressed,
Graam Bangla is a cafe-style eating place and it's not licensed, but the food is distinctive and really enjoyable (spicy mind you!). It's not expensive. And I'll be going back. See you there?   Wandering around the City, London's financial district, the other day, I was intrigued to see a sign: Bengal Court. Not so much a court as a narrow passageway.  But at the end ..., the Caribbean. Or rather, the Jamaica Wine House - aka the Jampot - one of the more historic of the City's many drinking spots.   It stands on the site of London's first coffee house, established in the 1650s
And getting there is simple - fr0m the Bank of England, go via Bengal and Jamaica's just in front of you. And when you get there, it's got to be a pint of Indian Pale Ale!   The York Rise estate is a smart 1930s development in Dartmouth Park in north London, tucked alongside the railway line that leads west towards Gospel Oak. It was built just before the Second World War for the St Pancras Housing Improvement Society, which had been set up by Father Basil Jellicoe and had demolished some of the worst slums in Somers Town, replacing them by similarly sturdy, and well-designed mansion blocks. Much like the Somers Town estates, the York Rise estate had lots of drying grounds, where residents could put out their washing to dry. And as with Somers Town, some of these drying posts were at one time decorated by splendid finials designed by the ceramicist Gilbert Bayes.  The York Rise estate was built on railway land, and the original five blocks of flats were named after railway or engineering pioneers: Brunel, Faraday, Newcomen, Stephenson and Trevethick. When it opened, it was home to almost 600 residents. All the original Bayes finials are long gone, sad to say. Probably stolen, as they are choice collectors' pieces and really valuable.  If you want to get a sense of what the Bayes finials at York Rise might have looked like, then here's a couple that were once in Somers Town. They are just wonderful!  These are in the small People's Museum in Somers Town, where there's also a photo showing some of the finials, depicting four-and-twenty blackbirds (they were based on fairy tales, children's songs and the like), in place in a Somers Town drying yard back in the day.  Mind you, even without the Bayes finials, the York Rise estate is something special. Take a look!   |
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