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Stroud Green in 1945

markpackmarkpack
edited June 2009 in Local discussion
There's a clip of Stroud Green towards the end of this short newsreel report from 1945: <a href="http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=13244">http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=13244</a>.
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  • DonnaDonna
    edited 5:50PM
    That's shocking. Whereabouts is that now - I can't figure it out.
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  • BeekBeek
    edited 5:50PM
    I met an old dear on the bus once who told me about that, there was a line of them which fell over north london, she knew every location, and I think she said it was on SGR, but I can't place the buildings, and they are very distinctive.. someone will know it...
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  • wisteria53wisteria53
    edited 5:50PM
    Looking at the stills below the video on a every 1 sec interval, you can almost see the shops. I tried to interpolate the shapes of buildings in the distance to place the location but failed.... Taff Bach (who never posts!) tells me that a V2 took off the top of our house.
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  • BeekBeek
    edited June 2009
    Maybe those buildings no longer exist... perhaps they had to be pulled down? Wasn't there a school once where Tescos now is? Or was that years before WW2? It might have been there, I'm sure the huge bomb fell near the junction with Tollington Park / SGR..
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  • diondion
    edited June 2009
    <http://www.movethat.co.uk/London/My/Finsbury_Park/?p=4>; regina/hanley says someone on this site
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  • andyandy
    edited 5:50PM
    @mark - that's a great film.

    It looks like the junction of Regina Road and Hanley Road to me (where the Arthur Simpson library used to be).

    If you pause it at 50 seconds (where they are clearing the rubble) I think the building in the background might be the roof of the Old Dairy.

    <img src="http://www.andymartin.net/img/sgrbomb.png">
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  • krappyrubsnifkrappyrubsnif
    edited June 2009
    A V2 hit Granville Road (where the Granville Road open space is) and took out several houses. Quite a few people died. It's a pity there isn't a memorial there - it's as though it never happened.

    Apparently Stroud Green church just down Granville road was badly damaged and had to be demolished. Same rocket. (The church was moved into what used to be the church hall, the one there today, so the original must have been pretty huge).

    The newsreel could be the Tesco's one - almost everything on the Tollington Park crossroads except the Davies and Davies corner is post-war. But I agree with Andy, it does look like Hanley Road and the Old Dairy.

    I've got a map of bomb and V2 strikes in N4 somewhere. I'll scan it and post it. One of them took out the front windows and living room ceiling of my house and left a permanent crack in the porch.
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  • AliAli
    edited 5:50PM
    It the estate between Marquis and Lorne Rd a result of bomb damage ? Anyone know how old it is or its history
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  • andyandy
    edited 5:50PM
    Actually, this is pretty definitive if you compare the view from Google Street View. Look at the shape of the roof.

    <img src="http://www.andymartin.net/img/hanley.png">

    <img src="http://www.andymartin.net/img/sgrbomb.png">
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  • krappyrubsnifkrappyrubsnif
    edited 5:50PM
    @Ali: Yes, one fell towards the Stroud Green Road end of the gardens between Lorne and Marquis, flattened the houses there and took out everything along that side of SGR as well.

    The map I have filed away somewhere shows the exact locations of every bomb. Almost every estate and bit of post-war development in Stroud Green today corresponds exactly with a bomb strike. It might even have the dates.

    Now where did I put that thing? It came from Hornsey Historical Society I think.
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  • Busby1Busby1
    edited 5:50PM
    Our family moved into Florence Road in the summer of 1945. The estate which is now Ronaldshay was then a bombed site and served as a playground for us children although it was dangerous as most of the walls of the houses were still standing. At some time in '46 or '47 it was cleared completely but remained waste ground until about 1950. We liked to watch the walls being demolished - it was quite simple - a steel rope was put around the foot of the remains, hooked up to a tractor and the tractor simply drove off pulling the rope through the walls. The Marquis Road side's houses showed exposed rooms with furniture still in them. What I recall even today is how the site was covered in marigolds in summer, seeded by the wind from someone's once garden.

    A bomb fell on the corner of SGR/Tollington Park and in 1945 a water reservoir for the Civil Defence still stood there for a number of years. It was another playground of ours - on Saturday mornings we went to Saturday morning pictures down in the 'Rank' cinema at the foot of SGR and junction of Seven Sisters Road - (6d to get in and we always started off with a sing-song). On the way home we liked to climb over the wall of the resevoir and play near the remaining water.

    I can't remember a site in Granville Road but can remember us cubs using the church hall there in about 1947 - so I can't imagine there having been another church on the site as it seemed so old then.

    Nor can I recall there being a site on Hanley Road although there were bombed sites dotted all over the place, especially in Islington, sites which were often used afterwards to erect provisional pre-fabs - these pre-fabs were simple houses made of asbestos if I remember rightly and served until well into the 60s in some cases.

    My uncle lived in Woodstock Road but was in the army - he was billeted at home because he was one of those who manned the AA Guns in Finsbury Park just by that footbridge over the railway lines.
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  • andyandy
    edited June 2009
    I pick a blurred roof shape from a single background frame of smoking pathe footage, match it to an image taken sixty five years later and get nothing.

    This shit is Blade Runner, people.

    What does it take to impress you?
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  • poxypoxy
    edited June 2009
    Can you draw a picture of the London skyline? From memory?
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  • GlynGlyn
    edited 5:50PM
    Thanks Andy.

    Thandy.
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  • IanIan
    edited 5:50PM
    @Andy - we were very impressed.

    Although the word "geek" was also used.
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  • LucyLucy
    edited 5:50PM
    @Ian - he's used to "geek".
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  • andyandy
    edited 5:50PM
    @poxy - I can take it, but you daren't say a word against Stephen Wiltshire.
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  • markpackmarkpack
    edited 5:50PM
    Wow, what an impressive amount of information my posting has spawned. Thank you one and all.
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  • poxypoxy
    edited 5:50PM
    Andy - I have the utmost respect for the skills of Mr Wiltshire.
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  • phantom_userphantom_user
    edited 5:50PM
    <http://www.flickr.com/photos/yersinia/3061495862/sizes/o/>; ![map](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3213/3061495862_8cb9fa0a22_m.jpg)
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  • unaestheticunaesthetic
    edited 5:50PM
    bless you, andy

    blandy
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  • diondion
    edited June 2009
    If one of those bombs hadn't fallen on Wray Crescent, then there would be no open space for the Wray Crescent Open Space Festival this afternoon.
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  • DonnaDonna
    edited June 2009
    Andy... I'm so impressed. This thread has really opened my eyes and made me look differently at a very familiar sight! It's crazy, all this history lurking beneath the surface... and you'd never know really what happened. Were many people hurt/killed? What happened to them once they'd lost their homes? it's really interesting. Thanks very much Busby as well, I found your account fascinating - I walk past Ronaldshay every day and I'll try to picture what you've written the next time!
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  • phantom_userphantom_user
    edited 5:50PM
    <http://londonist.com/2009/01/london_v2_rocket_sitesmapped.php>; According to this map the V2 fell on Regina Road on 31 December 1944, killing 13 people. The newsreel footage is likely to be New Year's Day 1945.
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  • magicPmagicP
    edited 5:50PM
    Fascinating stuff, thanks for the links and to Busby for the information about the area.
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  • tosscattosscat
    edited 5:50PM
    cool andy candy
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  • DavidDavid
    edited 5:50PM
    ###This shit is Blade Runner, people. God damn moonbeams off the shoulders of Orion, ya'll.
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  • krappyrubsnifkrappyrubsnif
    edited 5:50PM
    @phantom_user: what is the first (flickr) map you uploaded? Islington ward, mapped circa 1939 or before - but what do the various colours represent? Bomb damage?
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  • Busby1Busby1
    edited 5:50PM
    I'd like to post more details about 1945 and onwards, but this 'blade runner' thing and shoulders of orion get in my way. What the hell are we/they/you talking about?
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  • poxypoxy
    edited 5:50PM
    Busby: Andy & David are being Sci-fi geeks. Ignore them, all these things will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

    Please post more details of c. 1945.
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