Look at the neighbourhood differently on Friday 25 April

Tours of Thornhill Square

In the annual Open House Festival this year there will be free tours of Thornhill Square, Thornhill Crescent and Saint Andrew’s Church. They will start at 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 14:00, 15:00 and 16:00 on Saturday 17 September, and at 14:00, 15:00 and 16:00 on Sunday 18 September, and last 30-40 minutes (with refreshments afterwards in the church). Either an architect (James Dunnett) or a resident (Philip Rutnam) will lead them.

The Thornhill Estate is a remarkable example of Georgian town planning, with the gardens of Thornhill Square and Thornhill Crescent as a central feature. It was designed by Joseph Kay, who worked also on the Foundling Estate and in Greenwich and Hastings. However, it was built in the early Victorian era, and later incorporated the unusually eclectic West Library. This was due to Beresford Pite, who was responsible also for another nearby building that is unusual (at least inside), the Paget Centre in Randells Road.. 

The programme of the Open House Festival has many more details here. Booking is not needed but would help the leaders know how many to expect.

The area in 1885, with later street name changes

This is an excerpt from Report of the Boundary Commissioners for England and Wales, 1885. It is available with other maps at London Ancestor. Click it to see it more clearly.

Posts such as that by taxi driver Michael Rose use different street names. In particular:

• John Street became Lofting Road in 1898 to commemorate John Lofting (1659-1742), who was a merchant, a miller, a manufacturer of fire engines, and a manufacturer of thimbles, and who had at one stage a horse-powered thimble factory in Islington.
• The western part of Lofting Road became Bridgeman Road in 1974 to commemorate Reverend Hon. John Robert Orlando Bridgeman (1831–1897), who was the vicar of St Andrew’s Church from 1872 to 1893.
• Albion Grove became Ripplevale Grove in 1922 to commemorate Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French, First Earl of Ypres (1852-1925), who lived in Ripple Vale, Ripple, Kent.
• Clayton Street became Tilloch Street in 1937 to commemorate Alexander Tilloch (1759-1825), who was the founder of the Philosophical Magazine, the founder of the Mechanics Oracle, the editor of the Star evening newspaper, and an inventor (especially in printing), and who lived at one stage in Islington.
• Grace Street became Shirley Street in 1937 to commemorate John Shirley (1648-1679), who was an author and who lived at one stage in Islington.
• Richmond Street became the northern part of Matilda Street in 1937.
• Freeling Street was named after Sir Francis Freeling (1764-1836), who was a Secretary of the General Post Office, a postal reformer and an improver of the mail coach service.
• Luard Street disappeared by 1966.
• Carnoustie Drive appeared in 1973.
• Shirley Street disappeared by 1974.

The information comes from Streets with a story: the book of Islington and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Both are online. For the latter you need a public library membership number.

Celebrate the life of Edith Garrud on Saturday 30 June

One of the people’s plaques chosen in the vote in 2011 was for Edith Garrud (1872-1971), the suffragette and jujutsu teacher who lived at 60 Thornhill Square. Wikipedia has an account of her life.

The plaque is to be unveiled outside 60 Thornhill Square at 1:00 pm on Saturday 30 June. After the unveiling there will be a reception at St Andrew’s Church, a short walk from the house.

The house was later occupied by Lisa Pontecorvo (1944-2008), who is commemorated here.

Thornhill Square in the 1950s and 1960s, by Michael Rose

Hi,

As a London taxi driver I recently dropped a young lady off at Thornhill Crescent and she suggested I visit this website. It was a nostalgic fare for me as I was christened in St. Andrew’s Church. I also attended Sunday School there; I think the vicar’s name was Mr. Curley.

I lived in the area – Shirley Street (now gone), just off Matilda Street – and attended St Thomas’ School in Everilda Street (now also gone). I was born in 1948 so my ‘active’ time around the square would have been from the mid-fifties until the early sixties. The square was always a favourite place with the local children as it was the nearest open area of grass – plus trees and a playground.

What struck me most when I drove around the square was that nothing really had changed! The swing park is how I remember it; the big Plane Tree by the swing park is just as majestic, and I remember a pair of Crows always nested high up in its branches. The best bit, for us kids, was the small hill just to the north of the Plane Tree because it had plenty of bushes to hide in and to have a crafty cigarette (I was about fourteen by then – 50 years ago). Also, at the southern end in Matilda Street was the Buffalo Club. Not a disco, but a working men’s club where adults went for a drink and a jolly-up.

Those of you around at that time may also remember we had a milkman in Matilda Street. He had a small dairy and a cobbled yard where he kept his horse! His name was Bill Morgan. You may also recall a lady known as Beetroot Annie who sold her beetroots on the corner of Tilloch Street and Caledonian Road. And, of course, the Home & Colonial store in Caledonian Road.

Probably my earliest memory was at the age of four or five attending a party in Matilda Street to celebrate the queen’s coronation.

Just across the ‘Cally’ was Tilloch Street where my cousins lived and I remember vividly the gaps in the rows of terraced houses where a bomb had landed during the war. These ruins were our playgrounds. In fact my cousin, who is ten years older than me, says he remembers barrage balloons above the area during the war years.

Thornhill is a beautiful London square well worth preserving. I just hope it stays that way.

All the best,

Michael Rose

The WW2 bombing of 55-57 Huntingdon Street, by a descendant of the survivors

I was just pointed in the direction of this web site, as I was wondering if there had ever been anything ever written about the WW2 bombing of Huntingdon Street Islington. My mother is a survivor of that bombing. She lived at 57 Huntingdon Street, in (she thinks) the upstairs of the house.

She always told us this story. She was a little girl at the time and doesn’t remember much about it, but the bomb had come through her house landing in the house next door and blew up the whole block. Her family, consisting of my grandmother, grandfather, aunt and mother, and a little baby girl living next door were the only ones to survive. My aunt can remember coming down the stairs in the house when there were no walls. My mom can only remember walking up and down the street afterwards.

Melanie Mackenzie.

The WW2 bombing of 55-57 Huntingdon Street, by a descendant of the casualties

I came across your website about Thornhill Square and saw a little mention about the Huntingdon Street bombs in 1940. My great great grandmother, great grand aunt & either my great great or great great great great grandfather (we're still working on that part of the family tree) as well as various other members of my family/family friends also died. I'm working on the whole list – but I have heard stories of the bombing from my granddad who heard them from my great grandmother. I can definitely say one of the houses was 55 Huntingdon Street and that my great great Grandmother Annie Hislop did survive only to die later that day (the story goes that the ambulance people nearly dropped her and she died of shock – not too sure if that's true but that's how the family story goes). And unfortunately for my Hislop family members – they had been moved from Lyon Street (in the only house left standing!) to Huntingdon Street – persuaded by my great grand Aunt Emily McEllhatton (nee Hislop)! The family left stayed in Islington (and merged with the Busbys on the marriage of my great grandmother) and the Barnsbury area in general until fairly recently. I could probably ask a bit more about the Huntingdon street bomb when I next see my granddad and uncle (who has the death certificates of some of those who perished).

I know residents of 55 & 56 were on the Islington Civilian Roll of Honour, and I think someone in 57 was on the list too but I don't remember seeing it when I was searching it. And I know for definite that 7 members of the Graham family, Nellie and Frank Howell, Annie M R Davies plus my great great grandparents Annie & Cornelius Hislop & great grandaunts Violet Hislop & Emily McEllhatton were the members of 55 who didn't survive – so if anyone recognises the story or names – they can check the commonwealth war graves commission. I don't mind if you put these up now, I have the general gist of the story and if I get anything extra from my grandfather or uncle when I go down to see them tomorrow, I will most definitely email you back with any extra details!

Lisa Connell.

George Sydney Smith Williams, who was a builder of Thornhill Square, by his great great granddaughter

Hello. I am so excited, having just today found your web site. I am the great great granddaughter of Mr George Sydney Smith Williams (GSSW), who built parts of the square and dozens of other streets, and his wife Mary nee Fallover. Please can I see the document in which you found him?

Sadly, Mary died in 1850 aged just 30. GSSW subsequently ‘married’ Mary’s sister Catherine. (See the Deceased Wife’s Sisters’ Act.)

GSSW moved to live in the square after building parts. Most of his second set of children were born there. He later retired to Hove with his second wife Catherine and his younger daughter Frances. There they brought up their grandson/my grandfather Henry, whose mother Annie had died when Henry was aged just one. At the age of nine, Henry boarded at ‘first’ school in Hove with Winston Churchill. Henry’s first wife was distantly related to Churchill, so I think that they must have met at Churchill’s family home or some such. So you can see that GSSW was a very successful Victorian businessman: his children and grandchildren continued to prosper. Sadly, my father, who, like Henry, attended public school and Oxford, turned against all that! While I was still a toddler, he threw away everything that the family had worked for over several hundred years!

I have further information on my family that you might like to know re the building company. For now: number 32 was the company headquarters and my family’s home also. My great great grandfather built it as it is so that his clients and employees could turn right into the office (now 32a) and the family could turn left into their home (32). The clients’ servants, horses and carriages could use the mews behind (now off Matilda Street).

I have sent one letter to 32 and 32a Thornhill Square, asking for further information on the house. I hope they pass it to each other and respond to me. Please will you also?

I am not clear from where the information about GSSW reached you. Do you have some documents that I could see please?