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Seven Sisters Road, LONDON, N15 5JT

At the junction with Seven Sisters Road

A 1960's advert for compulsorily purchased homes in N15, part of supposed slum clearance. Now this very building will be compulsorily purchased to make way for a new Seven Sisters retail venture. The 1960's estates are now in disrepair and the houses not compulsorily purchased then are highly sought after and overpriced. Plus ca change.

Note the barrels outside -- someone will buy them, pack them full of items that are cheaper here than in the Caribbean and ship them off to relatives or friends over there. In the Caribbean most consumer goods have to be imported and are much more expensive in real terms than they are here. You will sometimes hear the expression "sending a barrel over" and this is what's meant. The emptied barrel then sits outside the recipient's house. But as you can see, it starts the journey outside shops like these. This unit was once part of a large department store called "Ward's", which is why the area is still called "Ward's Corner". There was a cinema the other side of Seven Sisters Road called the "Corner Cinema".

Platforms 1 and 2 at Seven Sisters are at the overground station. Platform 3 is for northbound (Walthamstow) Victoria Line trains, and platform 5 is for southbound (central London) trains. The view is south(west) bound. Note the small number of advertising panels, and the complete lack of adverts. At the far end of the platform, there is a pedestrian overbridge cut into the roof of the tunnel - no other Victoria line stations have these (apparently for aesthetic reasons). There is also a signal permanently on red (so trains never depart in that direction). See also Image My photos of the tube station are at http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=70088506 .

Completely out of keeping with the locality the block of luxury flats rises up from the site of the old Haringey Council Apex House offices. What appears to be the priapic central concrete structure is in fact two parallel lift shafts. This monster of a building is already dominating the low rise streets around but will make commuting easy for the wealthy flat owners as it sits next to Seven Sisters underground station. Our bright future.

Shows one of the entrances to Seven Sisters tube station (Victoria Line). There are no station entrance buildings on the High Road - but see Image

In the late 1960s, London Transport appointed a collective of designers, artists and architects who designed all aspects of the Victoria Line. The distinctive designs in each platform seat recess on all of its 16 stations provided much needed colour and decoration and gave each stop its own visual identity. The results were a mixture of direct inspiration from the station name and references to historical details of the local area. The design for Seven Sisters is by is by Hans Unger (1915-1975) http://www.ltmcollection.org/posters/artist/artist.html?IXartist=Hans+Unger . The name is derived from seven elms which were planted in a circle with an ancient walnut tree at their centre, on an area known as Page Green. The clump was known as the Seven Sisters by 1732. My photos of the tube station are at http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=70088506 .