I greatly enjoyed this video of old Muswell Hill. More than fifty years ago, my grandmother lived in Cranley Gardens, and we used to visit her regularly every Saturday.
Wonderful collection ~ finely presented. Excellent to see that a good proportion of the buildings have survived~thanks to the MH 'Conservation Area' status
All those lovely Victorian houses were spread wide over North London. I believe they were better times in many ways. I remember being taken to the area with my father on a sunday morning in the fifties to visit relatives and it was so clean and tranquil with few cars. It must have been delightful in the days of horsedrawn traffic and trams. Now those streets are crammed with cars.
Easy to be romantic about the past. Working conditions for most of the population would have been horrendous, literally back-breaking in some cases. Looks lovely with some classical music, but bear in mind that the tranquility you see here is only possible because we outsourced the 'ugly' and 'dirty' sights to working-class areas and the empire. It's nice to day-dream about life back then, but unless you were one of the lucky few, your life would have been hard and pretty short, and that's if you weren't being sent around the world to kill natives for the Royal Family and the magnates. Lol, why am I always lowering the tone! Sorry!
@@wodenravens People were different then and would probably be horrified at the future a hundred odd years on if they could have envisaged it. People had respect and crime and murder were a lot less even the miners had culture with male choirs, brass bands, painting, pigeon racing in their "ugly" and "dirty" areas. They were grateful to be proud working men supporting their families and those people lucky enough to own a beautiful Victorian house were grateful for the coal to put on their fireplaces. Britain led the world with it's empire bringing education, government, law and infrastructure to some places that still use it now. Unfortunate that some colonies wasted independence by resorting to corruption and greed at the top Zimbabwe is a prime example. People in those lovely north London houses probably knew most of their neighbours and now there is burglaries, knifings, drugs and people struggling to pay exorbitant rent in houses of multiple occupation. I believe times were better and I'm old enough to have spoken to people of that time listened to their experiences.
@@barry5111 Very rose-tinted view. Of course, community cohesion was much higher and local identity was much stronger. It was not all bad by any means. But just think about what life was like for working-class people in this time. Healthcare was terrible and life expectancy was around 25 years younger than today. You sound about my age, maybe a tad younger. We would very likely have died, especially if stuck in a working-class profession. Not only that, we would have brothers and sisters who died as babies and young children. We would also know of mothers who had died in childbirth, which was far higher than today. Not only that, the women you see in these images weren't even allowed to vote!! What a lovely simple life, eh?? While in hindsight people may lament what has been lost, at the time labour unions were continually fighting tooth and nail against oppression against working-class people because conditions were so poor. And they were the lucky ones. Most working-class were expendable, especially in the inner city. The tenements were full of disease and lacked even basic sanitation. When you see this image of Muswell Hill and think 'Oh, what a lovely life!" it is like someone from 2120 seeing an image of a leafy Surrey village in the Billionaire Belt in 2020 and thinking about how simple life must have been a hundred years ago. And I haven't even mentioned the elephant in the room -- war and empire! The men and women of these images had experience of, or were about to experience, the following: First Boer War 1880-1881 Third Anglo-Burmese War 1885 Mahdist War 1891-1899 Fourth Ashanti War 1894 Six-Day War 1899 Boxer Rebellion 1899-1901 Second Boer War 1899-1902 Boxer Rebellion ended 1901 Anglo-Aro War 1901-1902 Second Boer War ended 1902 World War I 1914-1918 Easter Rising 1916 Third Anglo Marri War 1917 Third Afghan War 1919 Irish War of Independence 1919-1921 This is relevant because the tranquility you see in these images was dependant upon British exploitation of its empire. When these images were being taken, we were brutally exploiting Ireland! We were doing even worse in India, South Africa, etc. That is not incidental. We were exporting violence all over the world when these 'tranquil' images were taken. Not only were working-class people suffering with poor health, terrible working conditions, low life expectancy, high child and maternal mortality, but they were doing so to prop up a criminal enterprise that was murdering and conquering around the world. You want this simpler time when you would likely have died young down a coal mine, sent on a ship to fight in China, or sent to fight Zulus who merely want to protect their land? Be more realistic. Sure, life seems better in those days. But any cold, objective look at the facts shows that a working-class child born in those days faced terrible chances and would have probably been made to kill or be killed in the name of empire. I am a fifth-generation working-class Haringey man (probably goes further back, can't find records). I love these images. They make me nostalgic and I wish we could have preserved more of this way of life. But life was tough, people died young, women couldn't vote, we would soon enter the worst European conflicts ever seen with hundreds of thousands dead. Take off those rose-tinted specs, son.
@@wodenravens Rose tinted eh and you're a Haringey person. My grandmother died at thirty eight of pneumonia the other grandmother died from German bombing. My mother grew up in a beautiful Victorian house in Tottenham till her parents split and she ended up in rented rooms helped by a kindly bachelor uncle. Times were hard, but they coped because they didn't know any different. Recently my ninety two year old aunt said she used to walk from Mansion house to Kings Cross after a dance hall shut in the early hours on her own. Imagine trying that now. That's my basic point materially we are better off, but at what cost.
@@barry5111 This is nostalgia. Poverty brings people together. So does trauma. People reminisce about the tenements too. They had community spirit. War veterans often look back on service as the best time of their lives because of that togetherness and meaning. But the reality of early twentieth century London was workhouses, mental asylums, terrible sanitation, poor education, back-breaking labour, lack of democracy, empire and war. Lovely for some, I hear you say. But the biggest irony is claiming that a working class Tottenham woman from the early twentieth century would want that back. Sure, we'd all love the community spirit back and that togetherness. But the vast majority of that woman's descendants now live in the suburbs like Muswell Hill and the home counties in conditions she couldn't even fathom. She'd never wish for them to experience what she went through.
Great pictures! Muswell Hill looks so much better without cars.
summerrr1 indeed more picturesque
I greatly enjoyed this video of old Muswell Hill. More than fifty years ago, my grandmother lived in Cranley Gardens, and we used to visit her regularly every Saturday.
Wonderful collection ~ finely presented. Excellent to see that a good proportion of the buildings have survived~thanks to the MH 'Conservation Area' status
Lovely to see how it May have looked in the old days not much changed really it’s still recognisable and very pretty back then much more than now
Thanks for posting this, nice to see the history of this area.
All those lovely Victorian houses were spread wide over North London. I believe they were better times in many ways. I remember being taken to the area with my father on a sunday morning in the fifties to visit relatives and it was so clean and tranquil with few cars. It must have been delightful in the days of horsedrawn traffic and trams. Now those streets are crammed with cars.
Easy to be romantic about the past. Working conditions for most of the population would have been horrendous, literally back-breaking in some cases. Looks lovely with some classical music, but bear in mind that the tranquility you see here is only possible because we outsourced the 'ugly' and 'dirty' sights to working-class areas and the empire. It's nice to day-dream about life back then, but unless you were one of the lucky few, your life would have been hard and pretty short, and that's if you weren't being sent around the world to kill natives for the Royal Family and the magnates.
Lol, why am I always lowering the tone! Sorry!
@@wodenravens People were different then and would probably be horrified at the future a hundred odd years on if they could have envisaged it. People had respect and crime and murder were a lot less even the miners had culture with male choirs, brass bands, painting, pigeon racing in their "ugly" and "dirty" areas. They were grateful to be proud working men supporting their families and those people lucky enough to own a beautiful Victorian house were grateful for the coal to put on their fireplaces. Britain led the world with it's empire bringing education, government, law and infrastructure to some places that still use it now. Unfortunate that some colonies wasted independence by resorting to corruption and greed at the top Zimbabwe is a prime example. People in those lovely north London houses probably knew most of their neighbours and now there is burglaries, knifings, drugs and people struggling to pay exorbitant rent in houses of multiple occupation. I believe times were better and I'm old enough to have spoken to people of that time listened to their experiences.
@@barry5111 Very rose-tinted view. Of course, community cohesion was much higher and local identity was much stronger. It was not all bad by any means. But just think about what life was like for working-class people in this time. Healthcare was terrible and life expectancy was around 25 years younger than today. You sound about my age, maybe a tad younger. We would very likely have died, especially if stuck in a working-class profession. Not only that, we would have brothers and sisters who died as babies and young children. We would also know of mothers who had died in childbirth, which was far higher than today. Not only that, the women you see in these images weren't even allowed to vote!! What a lovely simple life, eh?? While in hindsight people may lament what has been lost, at the time labour unions were continually fighting tooth and nail against oppression against working-class people because conditions were so poor. And they were the lucky ones. Most working-class were expendable, especially in the inner city. The tenements were full of disease and lacked even basic sanitation. When you see this image of Muswell Hill and think 'Oh, what a lovely life!" it is like someone from 2120 seeing an image of a leafy Surrey village in the Billionaire Belt in 2020 and thinking about how simple life must have been a hundred years ago.
And I haven't even mentioned the elephant in the room -- war and empire! The men and women of these images had experience of, or were about to experience, the following:
First Boer War 1880-1881
Third Anglo-Burmese War 1885
Mahdist War 1891-1899
Fourth Ashanti War 1894
Six-Day War 1899
Boxer Rebellion 1899-1901
Second Boer War 1899-1902
Boxer Rebellion ended 1901
Anglo-Aro War 1901-1902
Second Boer War ended 1902
World War I 1914-1918
Easter Rising 1916
Third Anglo Marri War 1917
Third Afghan War 1919
Irish War of Independence 1919-1921
This is relevant because the tranquility you see in these images was dependant upon British exploitation of its empire. When these images were being taken, we were brutally exploiting Ireland! We were doing even worse in India, South Africa, etc. That is not incidental. We were exporting violence all over the world when these 'tranquil' images were taken. Not only were working-class people suffering with poor health, terrible working conditions, low life expectancy, high child and maternal mortality, but they were doing so to prop up a criminal enterprise that was murdering and conquering around the world. You want this simpler time when you would likely have died young down a coal mine, sent on a ship to fight in China, or sent to fight Zulus who merely want to protect their land? Be more realistic.
Sure, life seems better in those days. But any cold, objective look at the facts shows that a working-class child born in those days faced terrible chances and would have probably been made to kill or be killed in the name of empire. I am a fifth-generation working-class Haringey man (probably goes further back, can't find records). I love these images. They make me nostalgic and I wish we could have preserved more of this way of life. But life was tough, people died young, women couldn't vote, we would soon enter the worst European conflicts ever seen with hundreds of thousands dead. Take off those rose-tinted specs, son.
@@wodenravens Rose tinted eh and you're a Haringey person. My grandmother died at thirty eight of pneumonia the other grandmother died from German bombing. My mother grew up in a beautiful Victorian house in Tottenham till her parents split and she ended up in rented rooms helped by a kindly bachelor uncle. Times were hard, but they coped because they didn't know any different. Recently my ninety two year old aunt said she used to walk from Mansion house to Kings Cross after a dance hall shut in the early hours on her own. Imagine trying that now. That's my basic point materially we are better off, but at what cost.
@@barry5111 This is nostalgia. Poverty brings people together. So does trauma. People reminisce about the tenements too. They had community spirit. War veterans often look back on service as the best time of their lives because of that togetherness and meaning. But the reality of early twentieth century London was workhouses, mental asylums, terrible sanitation, poor education, back-breaking labour, lack of democracy, empire and war. Lovely for some, I hear you say. But the biggest irony is claiming that a working class Tottenham woman from the early twentieth century would want that back. Sure, we'd all love the community spirit back and that togetherness. But the vast majority of that woman's descendants now live in the suburbs like Muswell Hill and the home counties in conditions she couldn't even fathom. She'd never wish for them to experience what she went through.
Thank you Felix, fascinating!
I've just moved to Muswell Hill, in Church Crescent. What an interesting journey into its past, thank you.
I used to live 1 Fortis Green Road. I miss London.
My home