South of Stroud Green ...?

Jamber · July 2010

We're really needing to buy a bigger flat and everything around Stroud Green is either not great or out of our price range and there are more reasonabily priced properties around Queens Drive, Gloucester Drive etc and despite it being so close I have no feel for these roads and area at all - does anybody have opinion? Blackstock Road/ Sevensisters / Green Lanes just is no Stroud Green is it!

Siolae · July 2010

No No No NO!!!!! Don't do it! it's cheaper for a reason.... Sorry I know this is no help...

Colette · July 2010

I'm surprised it's cheaper. My experience is that the south side is generally way more expensive - we've been looking recently and have found that the equivalent the other side of FP tube is about 100k more. I had friends who lived on Digby Crescent for a while, they liked it although claimed to have problems with prostitutes hanging around, and they once had a nutter stick their head through the open front room window in the middle of the night (someone was sleeping there at the time) and filch a pair of trousers. I've always thought it was ok round there though - I grew up on Chatterton rd and never had any problems, although I guess Chatterton is the "other" side of Blackstock rd.

N4_bandit · July 2010

Those roads seem quite good but I would not go any further than that.

My General theory is the closer you go towards Tottenham and Up the Seven Sisters Road the worse things are going to get. No one has ever convinced me Green Lanes is nice. It feels like a compromise.

Prices around Stroud Green are ridiculous for what you get! We are moving the Finchley at least you get a bit more for your money around there.

dion · July 2010

The reason the roads around queens drive and finsbury park road are all blocked off at strange places to traffic is to stop the kerb crawling. It has been a bit of a red light district since the area was built, apparently. Though the houses are generally bigger and so you can get more generously sized flat conversions. I had always thought it was more expensive than up here as it is nearer Highbury.

ben · July 2010

Hi Jamber,

I live on Adolphus Rd, which runs off Queens Drive/Gloucester Drive, and have been here for five years. I like it a lot - it's much nicer and more interesting than most people think, and it is slowly getting nicer. Lots of character, and the properties tend to be quite large, with high Victorian ceilings. I could go on for a long time, but it may be easier to speak by phone. Why don't you whisper me your number and I'll give you a call sometime in the next few days.

Ben

becky · July 2010

We vaguely looked at moving to that area south of the park, but it wasn't cheaper than here (west side of Stroud Green) so we didn't. The roads close to Arsenal are far more expensive. The cheaper areas nearby are out towards Holloway Road and the ladder...

Jamber · August 2010

Thank you everybody - quite interesting everybody's views and shall go for a walk around the area and got one viewing lined up so it will be good to see a property anyhow. Anymore feedback welcome!

missisclack · August 2010

I rented a place right at the bottom end of Finsbury Park Road 20 years ago (eek) and we never witnessed any kerb crawling or prostitutes (the road blocks were long up by then).

It has got more interesting around there since, especially along towards Highbury Barn (I worked along there until recently), quite a few nice cafes and 2 second hand book shops. But then I suppose it gets more expensive the closer you get to Arsenal/Highbury.

The Woodbine is a nice pub, although the Irish guy who owns it is seriously miserable. Free Juke Box on Mondays tho'! Shame they no longer have Hoegaarden on tap...

jandb · August 2010

I also used to live in the area about 20yrs ago (eek), and it wasn't unusual to see the odd bit of kerb crawling. The Brownswood Road chicane was the usual spot, as cars naturally slowed down there.

Is the accordian shop still there?

Fin · August 2010

I lived on Gloucester Drive until 5 years ago. The roadblocks were put up in the 80s and killed off the kurb crawling pretty quickly so I'm told, now they're just in place to prevent the residential streets being used as through roads by local traffic.

I liked the area, very convenient for the tube and park and that bit closer to Stoke Newington too. Also slightly easier to get to Upper St.

It's not so well serviced for good local pubs and restaurants though. Didn't bother me back in my 20s as I was happy socialising elsewhere, now I have a wife and baby in tow though I appreciate the likes of Cats, The Dairy etc within a very short stroll. I still own the flat and it does seem to rent to sharers in their early-mid 20s even now.

bennyfromtheblok · August 2010

I live on Gloucester Drive and have done for over 2 years and really like it. I've not felt intimidated at any point and feel that is as safe as SGR or Highbury. I agree that it does lack decent pubs and restaurants, but it's a 10 min walk to SGR and there are decent places opening up on Blackstock Road such as Garufa, Juniper Dining and Good for Food is now open on some evenings. You are also a great deal closer to Clissold Park which is much nicer than FP and also all the restaurants and bars on Chruch St. I take the 141 bus to work that passed Stone Newington, Old St and on to London Bridge - that coupled with 5 min walk to either FP or Manor house makes it very well connected. The roads are also very quiet around here and it's used by many driving schools as a place to bring new drivers as there is so little traffic on the roads. Whist not as nice as some of the areas/roads this site covers, the area is developing and as mentioned above, you get a bit more for your money whilst still staying in the neighbourhood.

Don't Look Now · August 2010

I used to live at the bottom of Finsbury Park Road in 1983, and can confirm that there was an awful lot of curb crawling before the roadblocks went up. A lot of the local prostitutes used to live opposite, and always gathered for a party on the corner of Finsbury Park Road & Brownswood Road on a saturday night. They'd all gather round a little radio and pass round a bottle of vodka, disappearing every now and then to do a bit of business. Oh Happy Memories :)

ADGS · August 2010

Not that bad for pubs, surely? The Woodbine is OK and the Bank of Friendship is a good old man pub with a great garden so long as you steer clear of match days. Or at least, this was the case when I had friends living along there a year or two back. A shame the T Bird has gone wanky, admittedly.

Emma · August 2010

Ah man, the TBird used to be brills didn't it.

Arkady · August 2010

T-Bird finally died this year when Lester stopped running the open mic night there. Nothing to attract me there any more.

ADGS · August 2010

It was the introduction of stuff like open mic nights and, worse, DJs which ruined the TBird (it was when they installed a dedicated DJ booth that I stopped even attempting to go there). I used to love how it looked like an American bar - without giving the impression of having *tried* to look that way - but was in practice just a quiet little pub. Free credits on the jukebox was all the entertainment offering it ever needed.

Arkady · August 2010

Problem being that it was and is completely dead on the nights when there's no DJ or open mic night.

ADGS · August 2010

That was what we liked about it! We did wonder how they survived, but assumed it was just from match-day traffic, or else that it was a front for some kind of criminal enterprise. We weren't fussed either way, so long as it was nice and quiet when we were in.

Emma · August 2010

And when there was a DJ, certainly, most of the space was taken up by the decks and the DJ's stupid wavey arms.

Arkady · August 2010

That’s fair enough! The one time I went in when it wasn’t the open mic I was accosted by a mentally ill woman who absolutely *stank*. Cruel but true. So bad I had to leave. The open mic night has very special memories for me. My comrades and I went pretty much every Thursday for about two years, and played as often as not. It had a real vibe about it and some very talented performers (and some not so – I was in the latter category). Some special memories. But it lost its freshness, declined and died as these things do. I hope a similar scene might be emerging at the Silver Bullet.

ADGS · August 2010

I tend to steer clear of open mic nights, but we did accidentally catch the N19 one a few months back and...well, 'it's all gone a bit N19' has since become shorthand, and let's leave it at that.

You did get some nutters in the TBird sometimes, it's true. Like the time we got befriended by a bankrobber, whose son kept on singing 'Daddy was a bankrobber' and couldn't remember the next line.

Arkady · August 2010

I waxed lyrical about my horrendous N19 open mic night in another thread. We had assurances in this forum from the landlord that things have improved, but I try not enter the Hornsey Rd area these days.

ADGS · August 2010

Yeah, I remember reading that account from behind my hand, terrified that it would turn out to be the same night my lot had been on...

Arkady · August 2010

Ah yes I recall. Did your friends behave badly?

ADGS · August 2010

That depends whether your definition of 'bad behaviour' includes extended renditions of David Devant's 'One Thing After Another' (in spite of nobody remembering the verses, so basically just the chorus for ten minutes) and Keith Top of the Pops' 'I Hate Your Band'.

ADGS · August 2010

Went in the T Bird last night for the first time in ages, and it's good again! The DJ booth is gone, the music was the good old jukebox (and MGMT were playing when I went in), it was only three quid a pint, and we were served by a lovely proper old landlord type. Admittedly, in an ideal world I could have done without two pictures of Bob Marley, one of John Lennon and one of Audrey Hepburn with a crudely superimposed spliff, but then it was never *perfect*, was it? That was part of the appeal.

Emma · August 2010

Hooray! Hooray! Was it the landlord who looks like Timothy Spall?

ADGS · August 2010

Yeah, I suppose he did a bit!

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