The Anonymous Widower

Putting Some Green Style Into Wood Green

My memories of Wood Green High Road go back a long way. My father’s print works was just around the corner in Station Road and I can still remember the trolley buses turning round just down from the tube station in front of the Nags Head pub. The pub is now called The Goose and it’s not the only name change in the area, as the hill up from the station to the north was called Jolly Butcher’s Hill. Look at picture 166 on this page, as it’s exactly how I remember the area.

Trolleybus Ascending Jolly Butchers Hill in Wood Green

Thanks to trolleybus.net for sending me a copy of the image.

I remember one story my father told about the pub now called The Goose. My father and his mother, at one time lived above the print works and one Sunday, their black dog returned home just before lunch with a large just-roasted joint of beef in his jaws. My grandmother retrieved it from the dog and put the less-impressive joint she was going to roast away for a later meal. My father always thought that the free meal had come from the Nags Head, where the cook had put the newly-roasted joint on a back window-sill to cool down before carving. He used to tell stories like this with a lot of gusto and actions.

I also remember several times going for lunch at the QS restaurant just about fifty metres down the High Road for lunch with my mother. That because something like a Wimpy bar around 1960 and I can still see Ally flipping burgers in the window. It was the height of sophistication to a teenager.

Further down, you went under the railway bridge, which took the Palace Gates Line over the top and my mother and I would often go past the old Alexandra pub to the Marks and Spencer. I went there recently and it still has a lot of the feel of those years. The Alexandra incidentally was demolished to make way for Wood Green’s first supermarket.

Because of this history, I was pleased to see that Haringey council are updating the High Road. This page described what will happen in detail, with wider pavements, new street furniture and quite a few trees.

As I had to get on the Piccadilly Line today and the weather wasn’t too bad, I’ picked the tube up at Wood Green, after taking a few photos on my way down the High Road.

I’d started walking from Turnpike Lane station and walked north.

I wonder how the walk will have changed when they’ve spruced up the High Road.

December 26, 2014 - Posted by AnonW | World | Shopping, Wood Green