The location of Alsen Road was part of the local Long Lands estate. This was bought by the St Pancras, Marylebone and Paddington Freehold Land Society which sold off in plots in 1851.
The provisional street name for Alsen Road was Reform Road, the name approved in 1864 and reflecting the Society’s aim to create more voters. Other local street names were Franchise Road (Andover Road), Liberty Road (later Victor Road) and Freehold Road (which became Durham Road). The Franchise public house was about halfway along the street on the corner of Franchise Road/Andover Road.
About a decade later, the northern half of the street was still Reform Road and the southern half now called Alsen Road. In 1877, the whole street became Alsen Road.
Alsen is the German form of Als, an island the chief town of which is Sonderburg in German (hence Sonderburg Road) but Sønderborg in Danish. The First Schleswig War took place between 1848 and 1851, some of the action taking place around Als. In 1864 the Battle of Als took place. The following period saw the island under Prussian and German rule, although the island’s population was largely Danish. Following the Schleswig plebiscites of 1920, Als returned to Danish rule.
Road namers were evidently on the side of the Prussians!
Along the Alsen Road were Alsen Cottages (Smith’s Cottages until 1938).
The main site of Islington Workhouse
The St Mary’s workhouse of Islington originated because, like a number of other London parishes, Islington constituted its workhouse under a local Act of Parliament for the management of its poor relief. The status of it being a local act made Islington immune from most of the provisions of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act.
In 1776, the passing of this local act led to the erection a new workhouse for 120 inmates on land given to the parish by a Mrs Amy Hill. It was located at the junction of Liverpool Road and the western portion of Barnsbury Street.
The workhouse established a school and it is this that can be seen on the 1871 map at the end of Middlesex Street. Middlesex Street was renamed Alsen Place after 1938.
This school became a normal borough school and eventually closed. On the exact footprint of the school grounds were built in 1938 the first blocks of the Andover Estate: Andover House, Barmouth House, Chard House, Methley House, Rainford House and Yeovil House, arranged not only alphabetically east to west but all after notable railway junctions, inspired by the name of the first: Andover.
The 1972 register of electors listed only two houses (26 and 49) left before the street completely disappeared. The Andover Estate, simply the ‘railway’ blocks originally, expanded to cover the entire area flanked by Hornsey Road (west), Seven Sisters Road (south), Durham Road (east) and Birnam Road (north).
