IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Topsfield Parade, Tottenham Lane, LONDON, N8 8QB

These shops with three storey residential accommodation above are typical of the ones to be found lining Crouch End's main roads. I would guess that they date from the 1890s or 1900s. The road, Tottenham Lane, is also the A103, which must be one of the shortest A roads in the country, running as it does from Lower Holloway only as far as Hornsey.

One of the facscinating aspects of shop refurbishment is the removal of the facsia boards to reveal an earlier use of the premises.

Shops with houses on this road in Crouch End.

Connects Crouch End Broadway with Hornsey, seen from the junction with Weston Park. Taken around 09:45, the pavements are relatively quiet in this view as many of the shops don't open until 10:00.

For the history of the company visit http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/rep_pub/reports/1960_1969/fulltext/041c02.pdf

Quite extraordinarily this is not a clock tower built to commemorate a jubilee of Queen Victoria, as almost all of this age are. Instead it was raised in 1895 by subscription in appreciation and recognition of the public services rendered by Henry Reader Williams to the district of Hornsey over a period of twenty five years. He was a local wine merchant and local councillor who led the campaign to preserve Highgate Wood against threatened development. He was born in London in 1822 and died in 1897 aged 75 so lived to see the clock tower built in his recognition. Not only that but the tower is also substantially higher and bulkier than many that were built to record Queen Victoria's jubilees. No doubt she would not have been amused.

A number 41 bus passes Crouch End's clock tower on its way to Tottenham Hale from Archway. The clock tower was erected by public subscription in honour of Henry Reader Williams (1822-97) who was a local politician. He served with on several local bodies, arguing for extra expenditure in order to secure good quality architecture, numerous trees along streets, high quality amenities and a pleasant layout of streets and buildings as the area quickly developed in the late nineteenth century. He also fought hard to protect open spaces, including starting the campaign to save Highgate Woods from development, securing Crouch End Playing Fields and paving the way for the protection of Queen's Wood and for the purchase of Alexandra Park and Palace by a group of London councils. Information from http://www.markpack.org.uk/crouch-end-clock-tower-a-little-history/ . The bus, operated by Arriva, is a Volvo B7TL with ADL ALX400 body.

Dumping rubbish on Felix Avenue just behind the shops and cafes of Crouch End's Broadway Parade seems to have become an established local practice maybe worthy of an annual award. As this rubbish was blocking a fire exit I moved it away.