Tag Archives: Stoke Newington

Scrap Metals, Pubs and Shops in Allen Road, Stoke Newington

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This week, I am continuing my walk around parts of the London Borough of Hackney, searching for the location of some 1980s photos, and looking at how streets which are today mainly long rows of residential homes, were once far more diverse.

I am in Allen Road, Stoke Newington, and in the mid 1980s, at number 33 Allen Road, was a scrap metal dealer:

Today, the scrap metal dealer’s business is now residential:

The signage on the scrape metal dealer advertised that there was a drive-in yard to the side, and this is what made number 33 the perfect location for such a business, as it was the only building in Allen Road with a large yard at the back.

The entrance to the yard today:

Today, the yard has been filled in with residential properties, following that modern London approach, where any available space or building is converted to residential.

In the following extract from the 1969 revision of the OS map, I have marked number 33, the scrap metal dealers with the lighter blue circle, just to the right of the middle of the map. I will cover the other circled buildings later in the post (‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland“):

You can that to the left and behind number 33 is Leonard Place, which was the yard of the scarp metal dealers. The impact of this yard was to shorten the gardens of the houses to the right of number 33, far shorter than the rest of the houses on the street.

This yard behind these houses is shown in earlier maps of Allen Road, so must have been part of the original construction of the street, during the mid 19th century expansion of north London.

Use of one of these north London 19th century terrace houses as a scrap metal dealer was not that common, but there were many small industrial business to be found among the terraces.

Number 33 had been built as a general shop, which was a typical use for this type of house, a corner shop among the terraces, although it is not clear why Leonard Place was built to the side and rear. Its only original purpose or impact seems to be depriving the street of another terrace house, and a row of houses to have smaller back gardens than their neighbours.

Confirmation of use as a shop can be found in newspaper references, for example with the following from the Hackney and Kingsland Gazette on the 25th of October 1907:

“General, double fronted shop, genuine business, one change 17 years, well fitted, no reasonable offer refused, good cause for selling. 33 Allen Road, Stoke Newington”

The terrace houses that spread across north London during the 19th century, were meant to be the homes of the middle class, professional trades people etc. and by the time of the 1921 census this still applied to the majority of homes in Allen Road, where 577 people were recorded as being in residence.

Number 33 however was home to three different families, a total of ten people:

There was the Forsyth family, consisting of Thomas (aged 32), Julia, his wife (aged 25 and from Ireland), and their son Michael (aged 1). Thomas was a Compositor, a job that involved setting the type for a printing press.

Arthur Mead (aged 24), his wife Maud (aged 19), and their daughter Irene Francis, who had been born in the same year as the census. Arthur was a bricklayer for a builder in Lower Edmonton.

The final family were the Payne’s, consisting of Harry Joshua (aged 30), his wife May Beatrice Lilian (aged 29), their son Henry George (aged 2) and daughter May Patricia Lilian (aged 1). Harry was a General Labourer.

As number 33 seems to have been quite a crowded home for three families, I suspect that as it had a business on the ground floor, it was not considered by purchasers as being to the same standard as the other terrace homes on the street which occupied the whole house, so number 33 became a multi-occupancy house.

Whilst residents could work across London, with the expanding train, underground, tram and bus networks doing their best to keep up with the rapid growth of housing; shopping, schooling and socialising would generally be a local activity, and all these streets had shops and pubs, to an extent which seems remarkable compared to the streets we see today.

Allen Road is not a particularly long road, but it had four pubs.

In the map earlier in the post. the red circle on the right is around the Prince of Wales. I cannot find exactly when, but the Prince of Wales has been demolished and replaced with a new residential block.

Then the green circle is around the Allen Arms, which closed in 1993 after a fire, and is now residential.

The Stack Rock at number 48, the purple circle. An unusual name for a pub, but the name did appear in several newspapers, for example in 1897, the landlord was advertising a concertina competition. Not sure when the Stack Rock closed, but again it is now residential.

The dark blue circle is around the Shakespeare, at number 57, which of the original four, is the only pub still open on Allen Road:

The Shakespeare once had an ex Arsenal and England player as landlord. Lionel Smith became landlord of the pub in September 1960, after he had retired from football.

He played for Arsenal between 1939 and 1954, with a break during the war, playing as full back, which probably accounts for the fact that during his time with the club, he had never scored a goal.

He played for England between 1950 and 1953, then after leaving Arsenal, he was a manager of Gravesend & Northfleet between 1955 and 1960, when he retired and took over the Shakespeare.

Opposite the Shakespeare is number 50, another corner shop:

I believe at some point, this was a fish and chip shop, but in the 1921 census it was a green grocers, run by Marks and Marie Rwaries, who had both been born in Russia. They lived in the building along with their five children, all girls.

Today, number 50 is a coffee shop.

If you look to the right of the corner building in the above photo, there are two ground floors painted with bright white paint. The one on the left is number 54, and I think that back in the 1980s, the was L. King’s shop:

I am not 100% sure, but the photo is in the right place in the strip of negatives, and the moulded decoration to the sides and along the top of the shop are the same as on the building today. These moulded decorations are called Pilasters (thanks to “Chase” for his comment on a previous post). An amazing transformation when you consider the white fronted residential ground floor today, compared to a working, local butcher, 40 years ago.

There are still a few shops on Allen Road, but the majority have been converted to residential. A couple still show their early origins, with number 62 displaying signs for Harvey’s Snack Bar and Light Refreshments. The later seems to be written over the former name:

The brown circle, to the left of the map earlier in the post, shows the location of another closed business, where at number 72, on the corner with Milton Grove, was once a Post Office:

To the left of the corner post office building in the above photo can be seen typical 19th century shop fronts, although all these are now residential.

The painted sign advertising the Post Office is on the rounded corner to the building, which again, has also been converted to residential:

There are two other photos on the strip of negatives that should be in Allen Road, but I could not find, or be sure of their location. The first has no identifiable features:

The second photo should be at the junction of Allen Road and Milton Grove according to the photo’s location on the negative strip and relation with other photos:

This is the corner building today:

The corner building has been considerably rebuilt, but it is the numbers that confuse as the florist is at number 75, whilst number 75 today is the house to the right.

I did have a walk around the surrounding streets, but could not find a number 75 on a corner, which looked as if it may have once been a shop.

Whether the corner of Allen Road is the correct location, the florists is another example of the number and varied type of shops that could once be found along these mid 19th century streets.

Their loss over the last 40 years has been down to many factors. Demographics, growth in the number of large chain supermarkets offering a single place for the majority of shopping, car ownership, online delivery services, and probably the major cause, the number of developers looking to turn shops and pubs into residential. For a business with declining sales, and the challenge of making a profit, the sale of the property, or hand back of the lease, was often the best way out.

Industrial premises such as the scrap metal dealer have generally closed or moved further out of London. It is still reasonably common to find car repair businesses among residential streets.

Allen Road was a normal residential street in north London, and it had four pubs. This was probably the right number to serve residents of Allen Road and surrounding streets in the 19th century, when a pub was the main place to socialise and there were no alternative entertainments such as the cinema or TV at home.

Today, the Shakespeare is the one surviving pub. Shops mainly gravitate to busier streets such as Kingsland Hight Street, Stoke Newington Road and Green Lanes.

All part of the continuing evolution of London’s street, but I cannot help thinking that for both residents and just walking the streets, they have lost some local community and character as these places disappear.

And if you know anything about Lloyds Minicars or Le-Jardin Flowers as seen in the photos above, I would be grateful for comments.

A Stoke Newington Church Street Ghost Sign

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I often get asked about resources to research and discover London’s history, so I plan to add a resources page to the blog / website, and to build up to that I am starting a monthly addition to a blog post covering one specific resource. This month it is the London Topographical Society, and is at the end of the post, but first, a visit to Stoke Newington Church Street, to find the site of a photo taken by my father, 40 years ago in 1985:

This is the building in 2025, with the same ghost sign on the front, along with a second on the side of the building, which seems to be advertising the Westminster Gazette and Criterion Matches, there may be something else there as well, but the signs shows how new advertisements resulted in the overpainting of earlier adverts:

The signage on the front of the building also shows evidence of earlier changes and additions, but looks much as it did 40 years ago:

The ladder at the ground floor shop was a nice bit of symmetry with the sign above, as it was being used by a sign writer to add the name of the business. Good that these are still done manually.

Walker Brothers (their name is top right on the front of the building) presumably had a shop in the building, selling and repairing fountain pens, including those made by Watermans (bottom right panel), who are still in business today.

Interesting that the word Fountain is abbreviated to Fount, presumably to get all the text on the sign at the right size to be seen.

There was very little to be found about the company, and they do not appear to have advertised, or been mentioned in the newspapers in the British Newspaper Archive.

The building is Grade II listed, and dates to early 18th century, indeed there are a number of listed buildings in Stoke Newington Church Street, which tells a story of the age of this street.

In the following map, Stoke Newington Church Street is the yellow road running left to right across the centre. Stoke Newington High Street, also known as the A10, is the road on the right running from bottom to top of the map. Abney Park Cemetery is the green space to the right, and Clissold Park is the green space to the left, so there is plenty of interest along this one street (map © OpenStreetMap contributors):

Much of this area is of 19th century and later development, so why is there an early 18th century house in Stoke Newington Church Street?

To answer that, we can look at Rocque’s 1746 map of London, and we can see the street running left to right across the centre, from what is now Stoke Newington High Street on the right, to Newington Common on the left, which is now part of Clissold Park. The small river running to the left, and around Newington Common was the New River, bringing water in from Hertfordshire to the New River Company reservoirs at north Clerkenwell:

The wavy line of another stream can be seen in the upper half of the map, crossing the road at Stamford Bridge (hence the name), and then flowing south, heading towards the River Lea.

This was the Hackney Brook, one of London’s many lost streams and rivers, and a stream that was covered up during the mid 19th century, effectively becoming part of the sewer network.

We can see that in 1746, there were houses lining the street, including the house with the Fountain Pen sign we see today, and these houses had gardens extending behind them, with the rest of the map being fields.

Newington Church Street is therefore a street with some history, an interesting walk, with a number of other ghost signs, but in this post I want to look at some of the buildings, and what could be classed as modern day ghost signs.

I am starting on the corner of Stoke Newington High Street and Stoke Newington Church Street, where we find the Three Crowns:

The pub’s website claims that a pub has been here since the 1600s, with an original name of Cock and Harp, changed to the Three Crowns to represent England, Scotland and Ireland for James 1.

How far back in the 1600s is unclear, however there was a building on the site in Rocque’s 1746 map, and it would be the logical location for a pub, on the junction with a major road leading out of London, and the only significant set of buildings between Hoxton to the south and Tottenham to the north.

Surprisingly, the pub, and its rather decorative Saloon Lounge are not listed:

Another ghost sign:

This sign is not old, rather it is part of the Stoke Newington Heritage Mural project, and the poem that makes up the words across the wall is by children of the William Pattern Primary School.

I mentioned that there were what might be classed as modern ghost signs along the street. The first of these is above the middle (light blue) shop in the following photo:

A clock, presumably paid for, supplied by BASF when Church Street Electronics (television and audio) occupied the shop. BASF still exist as a chemicals company, and back in the 1970s / 80s made and sold cassette tapes. I remember them as being one of the more expensive, but better quality cassette tapes, and which did not jam in my Sharp cassette player in the car:

A short distance along is Stoke Newington Fire Station, and on the lower right of the building is a sign:

Proudly proclaiming that this is the G.L.C. London Fire Brigade:

The G.L.C. or Greater London Council was dissolved in 1986, so this sign is at least 39 years old, and interesting to see its survival on an official and still working building. I wonder if the phone to the left still works? In the days before the mobile phone, if you saw a fire, you could run to your nearest fire station, and use the phone on the wall outside to contact the fire brigade.

I do not know whether it is correct to call the clock and the GLC sign, ghost signs, but there are interesting reminders of the continuous change across London’s streets. I hope they both survive for many years to come. There are many similar examples to find across the streets of London.

Another traditional painted ghost sign, above a Gail’s bakery – a shop that is often used as an indicator of gentrification:

One of the entrances to Abney Park Cemetery is on Stoke Newington Church Street – a cemetery that deserves at least a couple of posts to do it justice:

The Clarence on the corner of Stoke Newington Church Street and Bouverie Road:

Not as old as the Three Crowns, the pub has the date 1860 on the side, and the date would seem right as I cannot find any earlier records of the pub, and it was probably built as the streets north of Stoke Newington Church Street were being developed, providing an increasing population and customers for the pub.

One of the newspaper reports mentioning the Clarence in the years after it opened, dates from the 26th of August, 1876. It reports that Charles Howard, a teetotal Police Detective, amused himself for a few nights by watching the pub, and seeing four Police Constable drinking outside of the pub, one of them from a pewter pot.

Howard took out summonses against them for drinking an intoxicating drink whilst on duty, however the case was thrown out by the magistrate as it was impossible to prove whether the Constables were drinking alcohol, or water or ginger beer.

Charles Howard had to pay a guinea costs, and I bet he was not popular with his work colleagues.

Further along is this lovely red brick pub – the Red Lion:

There appears to have been a pub on the site since the end of the 17th century, however the pub we see today dates from the 1920, when Lordship Road alongside was widened.

I generally do not trust AI, but results can be interesting to follow up. When I Googled the Red Lion, Google’s AI summary included the following: “some accounts suggest its original name was “The Greene Dragon”.

I always try to get references from the time, or from books and journals rather than Google, but I searched the British Newspaper Archive for the Greene Dragon, and found the following from the 22nd of October, 1773:

On Wednesday Night as Mr. Smith, a Barbados Merchant in Winchester Street, was going in his chariot to his house in Tottenham, he was stopped by a single Highwayman, who demanded his Money, putting a pistol into the Carriage and threatening to shoot him on not complying with his demand. Mr. Smith, not delivering the Cash immediately, the Fellow snapped his Pistol, which missed fired; the Gentleman’s Footman then prepared to fire at the Highwayman, which the later perceiving, discharged another Pistol at him, but missed; the Servant then discharged a Blunderbuss, when one of the Balls went through the Highwayman’s Arm, and entered his Heart, upon which he dropped from his Horse, and expired immediately. Mr. Smith called at the Green Dragon, Newington, and desired that the Body might be fetched thither, till the Coroner can sit upon it.

Yesterday Afternoon the Coroner’s Inquest sat on the Body of the Highwayman who was shot, at the Green Dragon at Stoke Newington, and brought in their Verdict, killed by Mr. Smith’s Servant in defending himself.

The above Highwayman was lately Coachman to Heaton Wilkes, Esq; had a Letter of Recommendation to that Gentleman, and Advertisement for a Service, and but Sixpence in his Pockets.”

The attempted robbery must have taken place on Stoke Newington High Street as Mr. Smith was going in his “chariot” to his house in Tottenham.

If the Green Dragon was the original name for the Red Lion, then it is interesting to wonder why the body was not taken to the Three Crowns rather than the pub that was a distance along Stoke Newington Church Street.

I have no firm evidence that the Red Lion was the Green Dragon (one of the problems of the time available for a weekly post), but it is an interesting story of life in the area in the 18th century, and the story of a rather inept Highwayman.

One of the pleasures of walking London’s streets is finding unique shops such as Bridgewood & Neitzert, Violin Dealers, Makers & Repairers:

These two houses are interesting for a number of reasons:

They are set back from the street, there are no shops projecting from the ground floor towards the pavement, and there is a plaque about an earlier building on the site:

They are Grade II listed, and according to the listing information, were built in 1717 (so were on Rocque’s 1746 map earlier in the post – they must have looked out on a very different view of Stoke Newington when built), and if you look at the photo of the two houses, the listing states that they were each served by a “ two-storey wing housing coach house, kitchens and servants’ quarters”. These two kitchens and servants wings are the two storey buildings on each side of the main house, now with shops on the ground floor running up to the pavement.

These two houses did have shops on the ground floor, part of 19th century additions to houses that lined the busy street, and these two shops were removed in 1993, revealing the houses we see today, and as they would have been (along with many others on the street), when first built.

The story of these houses is one of the transformation of London’s streets as the city expanded. When they were built, Stoke Newington Church Street was a single street, houses along the street, with gardens to the rear, then fields.

As the area was built up during the 19th century, these once grand country houses changed to houses of multiple occupancy, and had shops built in the space between the ground floor and the street. This has always been a busy street, so the added footfall of having a shop in a rapidly expanding part of London, made the benefit of building a shop considerable.

Many of these shops survive across London, and indeed are interesting 19th century survivors, but it is good to see these two houses, with their shops removed to see what the street would have looked like for much of the 18th and early 19th century.

The two storey house next to the two large houses, again Grade II listed and 18th century, but with the addition of a 19th century shop:

John’s Garden Centre closed in 2017, and the site has remained empty since. If you look at the first floor, the windows have metal shutters, and there is a heavy metal support for the upper floor wall, so it looks as if there are some structural problems, which probably explains why it has been empty for so long.

Hopefully its listing should help ensure the building is preserved, although sometimes listed building are left to decay until the point of no, financially viable, repair.

Another closed store is the Haikksun Chinese Resturant:

You would not realise to look at the building today, but it is Grade II listed, along with the building on the left and the terrace to the right.

The building is mid 18th century, and again the ground floor shop was added in the 19th century. At least the old house looks in better condition to that behind John’s Garden Centre.

We then come to Stoke Newington Town Hall & Assembly Hall:

There is far more to be written about the evolution of the street, residents, Abney Park Cemetery, Hackney Brook and the surrounding area, but now I want to introduce a new feature to the blog, a first Sunday of the month feature on resources.

As I mentioned at the start of the post, I frequently get asked for recommendations to research many different aspects of London’s history, so this feature will cover societies, websites, books, mapping etc. etc. and I will eventually bring them together in a single Resources page.

For the first of this series, can I introduce you to the London Topographical Society:

Resources: The London Topographical Society

I will point out that for anything I feature, there is no commercial aspect or benefit for me. It is my choice of what is featured, and I get no benefit of any kind (this is important to me so readers know that whatever I feature and write about is my choice, and there is no external influence or financial benefit for anything across the blog). The only commercial element are my walks, and the money from these is used to fund the costs of the blog.

I have been a member of the London Topographical Society for several years, and they are a wonderful source of publications and information regarding the history and development of London.

Their 1900 prospectus included the following statement:

And that is what they basically still do today. There is an annual society publication for members – an incredibly well researched and comprehensive hardback book on an aspect of London’s history, as well as two newsletters a year, and this is why I am somewhat biased in featuring the society first, as I have just started writing for them, and I have an article in the May newsletter (again, no commercial benefit for me in any form):

The London Topographical Society have a comprehensive set of publications available to purchase (members get a 25% discount), as well as information on their website to help with researching London’s history.

The annual subscription is currently £20 a year, and I have no idea how they publish an annual book of such a depth of research and quality of publication, free to members, at this subscription level.

If you are interested in London’s history, joining the London Topographical Society is probably one of the best £20 you can spend.

Their website with details of the society and how to join is here:

https://londontopsoc.org/

The next resources addition to a post will be in the first post in July.

alondoniniheritance.com