IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
St. Mary's Green, LONDON, N2 0UZ

Seen from Thomas More Way, part of the Thomas More estate built on the site of a convent - see Image for a bit of the history.

Part of the Thomas More estate built on the site of a convent - see Image for a bit of the history.

Part of the Thomas More estate, built on the site of a convent - see Image for a bit of the history.

Located on the edge of the estate bearing the same name, the centre has been used as an educational facility and is subsequently part of The Institute art college - the main buildings of which are located behind East Finchley Station and in the McDonald's head office on the High Road.

I believe this was the entrance to the convent of the Good Shepherd Sisters on East End Road, though current road access is via the same entrance as the Carmelite Friars further along. The convent on this site has a dark history. Founded around 1873, it was originally one of the Magdalene Asylums where women spent large parts of their lives laundering for schools and prisons and were abused. The trade died out with the wide availability of washing machines from the 1960's. Much of the original convent was burned down in the 1970's and became the site of the Thomas More estate and Bishop Douglass School. Information from The Archer, May 2003.

This is the eastbound East Finchley Cemetery bus stop on the A504 East End Road, with the cemetery on the side of the road that the photographer is standing on. Apart from the bus stop with its ephemeral adverts, there is a dark green gateway through the brick wall with a pointed arch with a cross on top, and a Victorian letterbox set into the wall. Old Victorian Ordnance Survey maps describe the building beyond the wall as The Convent of The Good Shepherd, so perhaps the nuns used, and still do use, the gateway to get to the letterbox to send their letters. The letterbox does not currently have a collection plate, but the flap is still open so presumably it is still in use.

Evening traffic on a very cold January day. A 143 bus collects passengers from the stop for East Finchley Cemetery as the cars squeeze past. The frost has remained on the shady side of the street all day and it's going to be another cold night.

One of the entrances from East End Road viewed across the car park beside the Thomas More centre. The cemetery is on the former Newmarket farm, which was purchased by the St.Marylebone Burial Board in 1854. There is now also a crematorium on the site, which has its own chapel.

Located on a footpath section of the Thomas More estate, This cottage and the adjacent building is part of the original convent on this site, though what its role was I don't know. The bricks are significantly smaller than the modern bricks used to build the new housing estate. There is evidence of a wall extending at rightangles from the right hand end of the building - the area where the bricks were removed can be just made out behind the pink Hydrangea.

Houses at the southwestern end of Briar close. The estate is built on land between the North Circular Road and an old lane, Green Lane, that used to route between Long Lane and East End Road. The original lane would probably have entered this photo on the right where the fencing is.