The 1828 Cruchley map

There have been so many changes in the area that this map merits close examination

Woodberry Down Cottages had been built on what was later to become the site of Woodberry Down School. The house where The Manor House public house now stands was called The Lodge and opposite was Field's House. There was a turnpike gate in Green Lanes, which was a turnpike road, while Seven Sisters Road had yet to be built.

The New River was still above ground, running from top to bottom of the map.

There are hardly any houses in Lordship Road (not Lane). Clissold Park is thickly wooded. Clissold House was probably lost under the letter E. The only new roads are Lordship Road north of Church Street and part of our modern Albion Road south of it. Albion Road, had only a few houses and those were at the Church Street end where they would have been easier to sell. The southern end of Albion Road had been laid out to join Newington Green and building was starting. The main route from Newington Green was still Church Path, called here 'footpath', which had led through the fields to St Mary's Church for centuries.

In 1821, a sixty acre farm along Albion Road was divided into building lots of one or two acres and sold by auction. Thomas Cubitt, then thirty-three years old, bought a total of twelve acres. Six lots spread down what is now Albion Road and one separate lot on the New River. An interesting choice. Some were in his own name and some in the name of his brother William.

The 1835, Cruchley map shows a few houses at the top of Albion Road. By 1846, they had extended down the curve and the Post Office Directory Map of 1858 shows houses from Church Street to Newington Green.

(Click on the map for a bigger version of the Cruchley map)

These kilns were in fields east of Manor House. Later the sites were
dug out and became the reservoirs so that the clay that made the
bricks was the same clay which sealed the reservoirs.

Bricks could be made and burnt in simple clamps without the need for elaborate kilns, but tile-making required higher temperatures and better temperature control. This could only be achieved by building chimneys which could draw in more air and so make the fire more intense. Of course brick kilns also had chimneys, but much later. The chimney in the picture above shows, at this early period, that this was a tile kiln, not a brick one.

Paradise Row