Nineteenth Century Fortis Green

The road from East Finchley to Muswell Hill has always run along Fortis Green and Fortis Green Road, on the ridge of glacial debris left by the last Ice Age. Milnes's map shows that in 1800 it was still a track through a wide expanse of 'Waste', the common land where local people had the right to graze their animals. Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill Road, St James's Lane and Tetherdown are also old roads, but almost all the rest are newcomers, at the best about a hundred years old. Fortis Green, high up and quickly drained, had wide prospects to north and south, now largely obscured by houses, but from the top of each road one can still imagine what it was like towards the end of the nineteenth century.

The Milne Land Utilization Map of 1800 showing Fortis Green
as a track through a wide belt of unclaimed Waste.41SURERSCRIPT

REPLACE WITH A COLOURED VERSION

The 1894 Ordnance Survey

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41 London Topographical Society reprint