Lismore Circus, NW5

Road in/near Gospel Oak, existing between 1855 and now

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(51.5528 -0.1547, 51.552 -0.154) 
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Road · Gospel Oak · NW5 ·
MAY
17
2021

Lismore Circus was a former Victorian circus with six streets radiating from it.

Lord Mansfield, Lord Southampton and Lord Lisburne were the local landowners and plans were drawn up for six streets radiating from Lismore Circus. Houses here were built by 1853.

From 1868 the Midland Railway ran trains from Bedford to its own terminus at St. Pancras with the railway tunnel running underneath the southern half of the Circus. And also in 1868, Haverstock Hill station opened and was situated in the southwest of the circus (partially closing in 1916 but only finally decomissioned in 1983).

In 1870 St Pancras Vestry took over the central area following a memorial that it should be laid out as a garden. It opened to the public in 1871, a circular garden surrounded by privet hedge with grass, shrubs and trees.

The area was devestated by bombing during the Second World War. On 15 October 1940, a bomb demolished the Lismore Circus bridge over the railway, blocking it.

The housing estate surrounding Lismore Circus was built in the 1960s and 70s. Frederick MacManus and Partners designed the estate. These two long parallel grey brick buildings were built between 1969 and 1972.

Local residents rallied around the idea of maintaining an area of the open space in Lismore Circus in the late 1990s. In June 1998 Michael Palin ceremonially planted a ‘Gospel Oak’ in the vicinity of what is now Lismore Circus Community Woods.




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CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LOCALITY

Lived here
Julie   
Added: 22 Sep 2022 18:30 GMT   

Well Walk, NW3 (1817 - 1818)
The home of Benthy, the Postman, with whom poet John Keats and his brother Tom lodged from early 1817 to Dec., 1818. They occupied the first floor up. Here Tom died Dec. 1, 1818. It was next door to the Welles Tavern then called ’The Green Man’."

From collected papers and photos re: No. 1 Well Walk at the library of Harvard University.

Source: No. 1, Well Walk, Hampstead. | HOLLIS for

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James Preston   
Added: 28 Apr 2021 09:06 GMT   

School
Was this the location of Rosslyn House prep school? I have a photograph of the Rosslyn House cricket team dated 1910 which features my grandfather (Alan Westbury Preston). He would have been 12 years old at the time. All the boys on the photo have been named. If this is the location of the school then it appears that the date of demolition is incorrect.

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Comment
Alison   
Added: 26 Jun 2022 18:20 GMT   

On the dole in north London
When I worked at the dole office in Medina Road in the 1980s, "Archway" meant the social security offices which were in Archway Tower at the top of the Holloway Road. By all accounts it was a nightmare location for staff and claimants alike. This was when Margaret Thatcher’s government forced unemployment to rise to over 3 million (to keep wages down) and computerised records where still a thing of the future. Our job went from ensuring that unemployed people got the right sort and amount of benefits at the right time, to stopping as many people as possible from getting any sort of benefit at all. Britain changed irrevocably during this period and has never really recovered. We lost the "all in it together" frame of mind that had been born during the second world war and became the dog-eat-dog society where 1% have 95% of the wealth and many people can’t afford to feed their children. For me, the word Archway symbolises the land of lost content.

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Christine D Elliott   
Added: 20 Mar 2023 15:52 GMT   

The Blute Family
My grandparents, Frederick William Blute & Alice Elizabeth Blute nee: Warnham lived at 89 Blockhouse Street Deptford from around 1917.They had six children. 1. Alice Maragret Blute (my mother) 2. Frederick William Blute 3. Charles Adrian Blute 4. Violet Lillian Blute 5. Donald Blute 6. Stanley Vincent Blute (Lived 15 months). I lived there with my family from 1954 (Birth) until 1965 when we were re-housed for regeneration to the area.
I attended Ilderton Road School.
Very happy memories of that time.

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Pearl Foster   
Added: 20 Mar 2023 12:22 GMT   

Dukes Place, EC3A
Until his death in 1767, Daniel Nunes de Lara worked from his home in Dukes Street as a Pastry Cook. It was not until much later the street was renamed Dukes Place. Daniel and his family attended the nearby Bevis Marks synagogue for Sephardic Jews. The Ashkenazi Great Synagogue was established in Duke Street, which meant Daniel’s business perfectly situated for his occupation as it allowed him to cater for both congregations.

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Dr Paul Flewers   
Added: 9 Mar 2023 18:12 GMT   

Some Brief Notes on Hawthorne Close / Hawthorne Street
My great-grandparents lived in the last house on the south side of Hawthorne Street, no 13, and my grandmother Alice Knopp and her brothers and sisters grew up there. Alice Knopp married Charles Flewers, from nearby Hayling Road, and moved to Richmond, Surrey, where I was born. Leonard Knopp married Esther Gutenberg and lived there until the street was demolished in the mid-1960s, moving on to Tottenham. Uncle Len worked in the fur trade, then ran a pet shop in, I think, the Kingsland Road.

From the back garden, one could see the almshouses in the Balls Pond Road. There was an ink factory at the end of the street, which I recall as rather malodorous.

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KJH   
Added: 7 Mar 2023 17:14 GMT   

Andover Road, N7 (1939 - 1957)
My aunt, Doris nee Curtis (aka Jo) and her husband John Hawkins (aka Jack) ran a small general stores at 92 Andover Road (N7). I have found details in the 1939 register but don’t know how long before that it was opened.He died in 1957. In the 1939 register he is noted as being an ARP warden for Islington warden

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Added: 2 Mar 2023 13:50 GMT   

The Queens Head
Queens Head demolished and a NISA supermarket and flats built in its place.

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Mike   
Added: 28 Feb 2023 18:09 GMT   

6 Elia Street
When I was young I lived in 6 Elia Street. At the end of the garden there was a garage owned by Initial Laundries which ran from an access in Quick Street all the way up to the back of our garden. The fire exit to the garage was a window leading into our garden. 6 Elia Street was owned by Initial Laundry.

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Fumblina   
Added: 21 Feb 2023 11:39 GMT   

Error on 1800 map numbering for John Street
The 1800 map of Whitfield Street (17 zoom) has an error in the numbering shown on the map. The houses are numbered up the right hand side of John Street and Upper John Street to #47 and then are numbered down the left hand side until #81 BUT then continue from 52-61 instead of 82-91.

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P Cash   
Added: 19 Feb 2023 08:03 GMT   

Occupants of 19-29 Woburn Place
The Industrial Tribunals (later changed to Employment Tribunals) moved (from its former location on Ebury Bridge Road to 19-29 Woburn Place sometime in the late 1980s (I believe).

19-29 Woburn Place had nine floors in total (one in the basement and two in its mansard roof and most of the building was occupied by the Tribunals

The ’Head Office’ of the tribunals, occupied space on the 7th, 6th and 2nd floors, whilst one of the largest of the regional offices (London North but later called London Central) occupied space in the basement, ground and first floor.

The expansive ground floor entrance had white marble flooring and a security desk. Behind (on evey floor) lay a square (& uncluttered) lobby space, which was flanked on either side by lifts. On the rear side was an elegant staircase, with white marble steps, brass inlays and a shiny brass handrail which spiralled around an open well. Both staircase, stairwell and lifts ran the full height of the building. On all floors from 1st upwards, staff toilets were tucked on either side of the staircase (behind the lifts).

Basement Floor - Tribunal hearing rooms, dormant files store and secure basement space for Head Office. Public toilets.

Geound Floor - The ’post’ roon sat next to the entrance in the northern side, the rest of which was occupied by the private offices of the full time Tribunal judiciary. Thw largest office belonged to the Regional Chair and was situated on the far corner (overlooking Tavistock Square) The secretary to the Regional Chair occupied a small office next door.
The south side of this floor was occupied by the large open plan General Office for the administration, a staff kitchen & rest room and the private offices of the Regional Secretary (office manager) and their deputy.

First Dloor - Tribunal hearing rooms; separate public waiting rooms for Applicants & Respondents; two small rooms used by Counsel (on a ’whoever arrives first’ bases) and a small private rest room for use by tribunal lay members.

Second Floor - Tribunal Hearing Rooms; Tribunal Head Office - HR & Estate Depts & other tennants.

Third Floor - other tennants

Fourth Floor - other tennants

Fifth Floor - Other Tennants except for a large non-smoking room for staff, (which overlooked Tavistock Sqaure). It was seldom used, as a result of lacking any facities aside from a meagre collection of unwanted’ tatty seating. Next to it, (overlooking Tavistock Place) was a staff canteen.

Sixth Floor - Other tennants mostly except for a few offices on the northern side occupied by tribunal Head Office - IT Dept.

Seventh Floor - Other tenants in the northern side. The southern (front) side held the private offices of several senior managers (Secretariat, IT & Finance), private office of the Chief Accuntant; an office for two private secretaries and a stationary cupboard. On the rear side was a small kitchen; the private office of the Chief Executive and the private office of the President of the Tribunals for England & Wales. (From 1995 onwards, this became a conference room as the President was based elsewhere. The far end of this side contained an open plan office for Head Office staff - Secretariat, Finance & HR (staff training team) depts.

Eighth Floor - other tennants.


The Employment Tribunals (Regional & Head Offices) relocated to Vitory House, Kingsway in April 2005.






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V:5

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Gospel Oak

Gospel Oak is an inner suburb of north London below Hampstead Heath.

The name derives from an oak tree, under which parishioners gathered to hear an annual gospel reading when the area was still rural. Lords Mansfield, Southampton and Lisburne were the local landowners when development began in the mid-19th century. Plans were drawn up for elegant streets radiating from Lismore Circus but after two railway lines were extended across the area the first buildings were two- and three-storey cottages for "navvies and quarrelsome shoemakers." Later the neighbourhood became more respectable and solidly residential.

All Hallows Church by James Brooks is a notable late Victorian church. After World War II much of the original housing around Lismore Circus was demolished and a series of estates built for Camden Council. Today Gospel Oak is a socially mixed area with its share of inner-city problems but a very strong community spirit. Famous residents include Tony Blair?s former head of communications Alastair Campbell and his partner journalist Fiona Millar, ex-Python Michael Palin, and Britain’s top networker Carole Stone and her husband broadcaster Richard Lindley.


LOCAL PHOTOS
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In the neighbourhood...

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Agincourt Road (2007) An Archway-bound C11 stops to collect a passenger. View taken from the junction with Cressy Road
Credit: Geograph/Martin Addison
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Sainsbury’s Allcroft Road depot This was built in what is now NW5 in the 1880s
Credit: J. Sainsbury
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Two women walking past the graffiti ’No Evictions!’ on a railway bridge on Grafton Road, NW5. Much of the area was bulldozed and redeveloped in the 1960s and early 1970s.
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'The Benevolent Institution for the Relief of Aged and Infirm Journeymen' was founded in Kentish Town on 10 February 1837. The asylum consisted of the chapel and ten houses; the dwelling at the south end being appropriated for the chaplain. Each house consisted of eight rooms, two being allotted to each pensioner. As reported in 1843, there were thirty-six male pensioners and their wives in the asylum. In addition to the apartments, each pensioner received 8 shillings a week plus coal.
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Spotted playing games with London Borough of Camden traffic wardens. Probably not recommended.
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Many of the roads around NW3 and NW5 were built with a particular lack of naming imagination. Many an x Mews North matches a near-identical x Mews South
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Sainsbury’s opened its first depot in Langford Mews, Kentish Town around 1880. This was where Sainsbury’s smoked bacon and had stabling and warehouses to supply the growing chain of Sainsbury stores until the Company’s headquarters moved to Blackfriars in 1891.
Credit: https://www.locallocalhistory.co.uk/
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Hetty Scott at her greengrocer stall outside 159 Queen’s Crescent, Kentish Town (1914)
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View of a House and its Estate in Belsize, Middlesex (1696) London and its smoke is visible on the left horizon
Credit: Jan Siberechts/Tate Britain
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