The advance of late Victorian urbanisation during the last twenty years of the 19th century swept away the 18th and early 19th-century houses, their grounds and the farmland. By 1900 Harringay was completely urbanised.

Urbanisation & change From 1894, Harringay was spread across the borders of the former urban districts, later municipal boroughs, of Hornsey and Tottenham in Middlesex.

Following the Second World War, Harringay began to change as immigration began to impact the nature of the town. In 1965 it was unified under one local authority with the creation of the London Borough of Haringey.

1880 to 1940

The development of West Harringay

The earliest development in West Harringay followed the development of Finsbury Park and the construction of Endymion Road, which was started in about 1875 by the Metropolitan Board of Works. A small area of land between the Tottenham & Hampstead Junction Railway, Finsbury Park and Endymion Road was laid out as streets and fully developed by 1885.

Before this development was complete, the British Land Company purchased most of the Harringay Park Estate in June 1881. It was bought from successful builder William HodsonHarringay Station, The London Railway Record, No. 58, July 2008, Connor & Butler who had acquired the land in 1880 from the executors of Edward Chapman, the last owner of Harringay House and grounds. Also in 1881 the Great Northern Railway Company purchased a large slice of land, about half a mile long by 800 feet wide, at its broadest. The land, which ran along the western boundary of the estate, was used to construct a large railway sidings.

Having acquired the land, the British Land Company was responsible for most of the development of West Harringay. Originally established as part of the land reform movement, by the time the company was involved in Harringay's development it was operating as a purely commercial land company. Its role in Harringay was with the preliminaries of estate development—laying out the estate, building the roads and supplying major services. Once this was complete it auctioned off the land to builders.

For development purposes, the area was divided into two-halves: the 'Hornsey Station Estate' and the 'Harringay Park Estate'. The former estate was located close to Hornsey Station and included around a half of the total area of the Harringay Park Estate; it ran from Sydney Road to Effingham Road. To the south, the Harringay Park Estate included all the roads from Beresford Road to Atterbury Road.

The development of the railways in the area was critical to the development of housing. By 1880 the area was already well served with Hornsey, Harringay Green Lanes and Finsbury Park Stations. With the opening of Harringay station by the Great Northern Railway on 2 May 1885, the area was amongst the best served in London.

The pattern of housing development started closest to the railway stations. In the case of the 'Hornsey Station Estate' the first roads to be laid out were those nearest to Hornsey Station. Similarly, on the 'Harringay Park Estate', the earliest roads to be built were those nearest to Finsbury Park and Harringay Green Lanes stations. The pattern of subsequent development was for the Hornsey Station Estate to spread gradually southwards, whilst the Harringay Park Estate, likewise, was extended northwards until the two met.

The first mention of development on the estate was made in a report of the Plans Committee of the Hornsey Local Board in October later in the same year, when plans for the 'Hornsey Station Estate' were submitted by the British Land Company. In March 1881 plans were submitted for the 'Harringay Park Estate'.

Most of the auctions for both estates took place in the Auction room adjoining the Queen's Head Tavern, Green Lanes. On 7 July 1881 a local press advertisement appeared announcing the auction of the first portion of the Station estate.Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal, 7 July 1881. More than a year later, in September 1882, an advertisement announcing the auction of the first portion of the Harringay Park Estate appeared.Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal, 9 September 1882. This delay in the development of the Harringay Park portion was due to problems associated with providing adequate drainage facilities in the more difficult hilly terrain of the Harringay Park part of the estate. There was also the problem of finding a satisfactory way to divert the course of the New River in order to facilitate the provision of more building land. Because of the total size of the estates, it was some time before they were both fully laid out and the individual plots sold.

The first roads to be laid out were the Wightman Road, (as far as present day Beresford Road) set out by the Great Northern Railway Company, and what is now Effingham Road, by the British Land Company.

The British Land Company took great care to ensure that the type and value of the buildings were of a good quality. With development taking place in successive stages the type of development in one section would naturally affect the saleable value of areas that were yet to be developed and had not yet been put up for auction. Their concern is shown in a plan which was issued in connection with an auction of 119 lots on the Harringay Park Estate on 17 November 1884. Incorporated in the plan are stipulations. The following is an extract:

Once building work started, many builders were at work on both estates. Most of the applicants requesting permission to build were from local addresses, certainly not more than 5 miles away from either estate - some applicants even lived on either one of the estates. In the majority of cases the scale of operations of each builder was not unusually large. The Hornsey Local Board minutes show that the biggest single development seems to have been one of 32 dwellings in Mattison Road, for which planning permission was granted in 1895.Hornsey Urban District Council Minutes, p. 154, Vol 28, 22 April 1895. However, this seems to have been exceptional since most applications were for a dozen houses or less; in some cases for only one or two houses. The evidence of this can be still be seen today. At first glance most of the houses look the same, but a second look will reveal a considerable range of styles. With some care, it is possible to discern each small row or pair of houses. The table below shows how each estate developed.

Number of Houses Built and Occupied1878 188218861889189218951899 Hornsey Station Estate 0 0 180 323 679 755 1,016Harringay Park Estate 1* 1* 14 153 451 928 1,400 Total 1* 1* 194 476 1,130 1,683 2,416

* Harringay House

All the roads on both parts of the estate had been fully laid out and all houses built by 1899.Kelly's Hornsey Directory, 1899/1900.

Although some local residents regarded the changing scene of Hornsey with dismay, it is clear from the local press that the changes were welcomed by the majority. This attitude, no doubt, reflected the Victorian obsession with the magic of size. The excitement with the scale and speed of the area's development can be discerned from comments made by the Chairman of the Hornsey School Board in 1883 during a visit to assess developments in the light of the possible need to provide a new school:-

Harringay House itself and three acres of ground around it was put up for auction on 29 October 1883.Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal, 12 October 1883. The British Land Company had hoped to sell the house as a viable building. The advertisement announcing its auction described it as being suitable for occupation by a large family or a charitable institution. However, with all the development going on in the immediate area and the whole character of the district changing rapidly, there was no interest in the building itself. In April 1885 an advertisement appeared in the local press announcing the auction of the first portion of the building materials and fittings of the house;Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal, 18 April 1885. obviously the house had been demolished. At intervals of approximately two months there were three further auctions selling off the remaining building materials and fittings of the house. In September of the following year even the trees were put up for auction for sale to timber merchants.Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal, 11 September 1886.

A community establishes itself

By the turn of the century a strong sense of civic pride had been created and many local residents looked with a sense of achievement at the size which Harringay had reached in such a short period of time. Most of the occupants of both the estates were from the middle or lower-middle classes, the area being especially popular with clerks commuting to the city.'Hornsey, including Highgate: Growth from the mid 19th century', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 6: Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey with Highgate (1980), pp. 111-122. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22518 Date accessed: 4 June 2010. >

Any suggestion, however remote, that the lower orders were about to assault the bastion of social exclusiveness produced a quite remarkable reaction. An example of this came when the Hornsey School Board were considering a proposal to erect a Board school either on the Hornsey Station Estate or at nearby Stroud Green. The furore caused by this proposal in both Harringay and Stroud Green was extreme.

In Harringay protest meetings were held,Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal, "Report of a Recent School Board Meeting", 22 February 1890. letters were sent to the Hornsey and Finsbury Park Journal, deputations bearing memorials of protest were sent to the Board; all of this in an effort to keep the school out of Harringay. At a meeting in Hermitage Road about the issue, a Mr. Cummings mentioned that the neighbourhood of Walthamstow had been utterly ruined by the erection of small houses and Board schools and that if a school were erected on the site proposed he, for one, would leave the district.Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal, Report of Protest of Harringay Ratepayers, 22 February 1890.

Faced with opposition from both Stroud Green and Harringay the School Board was caught between two opposing factions. Throughout 1890 and into 1891, numerous resolutions to build a school at either Stroud Green or Harringay were passed and reversed. In September 1891, they resolved once and for all to build a school in the Hornsey Station Estate purchased in 1883.Hornsey School Board Minutes, p. 475, Vol 6, 22 September 1891. Tenders were put out, work begun and the school opened to the junior boys and girls on 11 April 1893 and to the infants on 17 April 1893.Hornsey School Board Minutes, p. 93, Vol 7, 11 April 1893. Not long afterward, another Board school was erected in Duckett Road, and incidentally in Stroud Green.

Catering for religious needs there were, five churches on the combined estates. The first of these was the temporary St. Paul's Church of England (Iron Church) on the corner of Green Lanes and Burgoyne Road which opened on 23 December 1883.Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal, 7 April 1888. A permanent church at the other end of Burgoyne Road on the junction with Wightman Road opened in the early 1890s. St. Peter's, situated at the corner of Lausanne and Wightman Roads was opened in October 1884.Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal, 3 October 1884. At some time around 1888/1889 a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel opened in Hampden Road and early in 1891 the Primitive Methodists opened a Chapel in Mattison Road.Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal, 10 January 1891. The Emmanuel Union Chapel was built in Duckett Road at about the same time.Kelly's Hornsey Directory, 1892/1893.