Crouch End

Crouch End is an area of north London, in the London Borough of Haringey. Crouch End is in a valley between Haringay to the east, Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green to the north, Finsbury Park and Archway to the south and Highgate to the west.

Crouch End is an area of north London, in the London Borough of Haringey. Crouch End is in a valley between Haringay to the east, Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green to the north, Finsbury Park and Archway to the south and Highgate to the west.

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The Locale

Crouch End has a busy town centre with many shops and restaurants. A large number of open green spaces give the area a green aspect. To the immediate west, it is bounded by Highgate Woods, and the adjacent Queen's Wood, as well as a large expanse of playing fields. To the North is Alexandra Park and to the south Finsbury Park. 'The Parkland Walk', a former railway line, connects these two parks. Other parks in the area include Stationer's Park and Priory Park.

History

Crouch End grew up as a hamlet on the old medieval route from London to the north. At this time it was governed as part of Hornsey which became a parish in around 1300. This heavily wooded area contained farms and villas, one of which was Crouch Hall, probably built in 1681 at the crossroads of what came to be known as Crouch End.

Crouch End remained rural until around 1880, probably because of the lack of adequate sewerage. Large parts remained in private ownership, inhibiting development.

But the railway was to change the area significantly. By 1887 there were seven nearby railway stations. Crouch End became a prosperous middle class suburb due to an influx of mainly clerical workers who could easily commute to the city. The large old houses were replaced by comfortable middle class housing and public parks were opened and number of new roads and avenues, such as Elder Avenue and Weston Park were laid out.

It expanded greatly in the late Victorian period and most of its present-day streets were built up in the late 19th century.

By the mid-1930s Crouch End was a solid, middle-class Middlesex borough with a thriving and popular shopping centre that included an Opera House in the middle of Topsfield Parade.

Until 1965 it was administratively part of the Municipal Borough of Hornsey and that body's forerunners. In 1965, when local government in London was reorganised Hornsey merged with the Municipal Borough of Tottenham and Crouch End became part of London Borough of Haringey.

Notable Buildings

Hornsey Town Hall is in the centre of Crouch End

Among its more prominent buildings is the strikingly modernistic Hornsey Town Hall, built by the Municipal Borough of Hornsey as their seat of government in 1933-5.

The centre of Crouch End is dominated by a red-brick clock-tower, built as a memorial to Henry Reader Williams in 1895. The stone placard on its base reads:

ERECTION BY SUSBSCRIPTION

IN APPRECIATION AND RECOGNITION

OF THE PUBLIC SERVICES RENDERED BY

HENRY READER WILLIAMS ESQ SP

TO THE DISTRICT OF HORNSEY

DURING A PERIOD OF TWENTY FIVE YEARS

JUNE 1895

The oldest building in the area, and in Haringey, is the tower of the former Hornsey Parish Church, St. Mary's in the neighbouring district of Hornsey.

Crouch End Community College of Arts & Design, also known as CECCAD or Crouch End College, was set up with Social Enterprise funding in Spring 2007 - offering a range of short-courses including; web design, graphic design, video production, filmmaking & photography - venues include Highgate Library and Hornsey Town Hall.

Local Arts Scene

Music

There is a thriving local music scene. It is home to Crouch End Festival Chorus, a leading symphonic chorus which has recorded with Lesley Garrett, Bryn Terfel, Alfie Boe, EMI Classics and Classic FM as well as singing on the soundtrack for Doctor Who. They perform four concerts a year and also undertake scores of other professional engagements for concerts and recordings.

Crouch End Art School

In 1880 an Art School was established which in May 1968, as Hornsey College of Art, became the centre of national and even international headlines. As with similar radical protests including the Paris Sorbonne, students and lecturers occupied the building as a protest against the ideology of the teaching methods.

One of the lecturers and leaders of the occupation, Kim Howells, is now a Minister in the current British government.

Arts scene urban legends

In the 1990s Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics had a recording studio on Crouch Hill. According to legend, he invited Bob Dylan to drop in any time he felt like it. Bob took him up on his offer, but the taxi driver dropped him off on the adjacent Crouch End Hill. Bob knocked on the door of the supposed home of Dave Stewart and asked for Dave. By coincidence, the plumber who lived there was also called Dave. He was told that Dave was out, and would he like to wait and have some tea? Twenty minutes later the plumber returned and asked his wife whether there were any messages. "No", she said, "but Bob Dylan's in the living room having a cup of coffee".

Artist Richard Hamilton lived on the Highgate side of Crouch End and is said to have taken visitor Marcel Duchamp to the Queen's Pub on the corner of Elder Avenue and Topsfield Parade.

Horror writer Stephen King once stayed at a friend's (Peter Straub) house in Crouch End. The legend goes that after asking for a good place to go for a walk he was directed towards the old railway line, now called The Parkland Walk. While here he was inspired by the strange unsettling surroundings and the sculpture of a spriggan (a pan-like green man), which was pushing its way out of an old arched wall. King wrote the short story Crouch End, based on his visit to Crouch End, which was later adapted as an episode of Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, which included the spriggan in the introduction.

It is claimed that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy once performed at the music hall that is now Holmes Place/Virgin Gym and that they stayed at the Queen's Hotel.

The local comedy club, Downstairs At The King's Head, is London's oldest comedy room. Many greats of comedy have performed there, including Robin Williams, Al Murray, Eddie Izzard, Jack Dee, Robbie Coltrane, Rowan Atkinson, in fact virtually every British comedian has performed there at some stage in their career. The club is run by Peter Grahame and hosted by Dominic Frisby. There are also music nights and Peter recalls one occasion when Dave Stewart was playing that saw Bill Wyman on bass, Harry Dean Stanton on harmonica with Bob Dylan watching from the audience.

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Crouch End in Literature, on film & TV

Most of the movie Shaun of the Dead was shot here, with a fictional Crouch End Underground Station.
Stephen King's short story, Crouch End, where Crouch End is an interdimensional portal.
Nick Hornby's book, High Fidelity
The introduction sequence to the television programme Peep Show
Andrew Riddles's urban vampire novel The Papyrus Voice is set in Crouch End
Part of the first series of A Life of Grime (narrated by the late John Peel) was set in and around Crouch End, featuring the indefatigable Edmund Trebus.
Will Self's short story The North London book of the dead.
In Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road, bookseller Frank Doel lives in Crouch End.
In the Ally's World series of books, the title character lives in Crouch End.
Street scenes were shot for the TV series, The Professionals in the early 1980s.
An episode of the TV series, Poirot was filmed at the Town Hall in the early 1990s.
Actor Bob Hoskins made a TV commercial in Dunn's bakery in the early 1990s.
In the 2007 science fiction novel Black Man by Richard Morgan, the title character Carl Marsalis lives in Crouch End.
In Andrea Levy's 1999 novel Fruit of the Lemon, the main protagonist, Faith, lives and works in the areas of Crouch End.

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Notable residents

The following people have lived in Crouch End for some period of their lives:

Gillian Anderson
Gem Archer
Michael "Atters" Attree
Clive Barker
Andy Bell
Bernard Butler
Peter Capaldi
Alan Carr
Sonia Clarke (Sonique)
Michelle Collin
Samantha Fox
David Gray
Gary McKinnon (Solo)
Patrick Graham
Clare Grogan
Richard Hamilton
Nigel Harman
Ian Hart
Fran Healy
Gwyneth Herbert
Clare Higgins
Paul Hillier
Ho Chi Minh[citation needed]
Sean Hughes
Andy Kershaw
Stephen Lironi
Gideon Marshall
Frank Matcham
James McAvoy
Gina McKee
Neil Morrissey
Grant Nicholas
Ardal O'Hanlon
Tamzin Outhwaite
Simon Pegg
Nicholas Rowe
Dave Saunders
Andy Serkis
John Simm
Jean Simmons
Sowerby and Luff
Dan Stevens
Dave Stewart
Peter Straub
David Tennant
Edmund Trebus
John Turnbull
Kaye Umansky
Louise Wener
Matt Willis
Mari Wilson
Jeannie Fisher

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Transport & Local Area

Nearest tube stations

Nearest railway stations

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