finsbury park was a famous duelling site. i will try and find a reference to it.

According to wikipedia the balloons and pistols in Finsbury Park station have nothing to do with Finsbury Park at all...

"There has been some confusion with Finsbury Fields, an area just north of the old City of London, roughly where Finsbury Square is situated today. Finsbury Fields was used by Londoners in medieval times for archery and sports. It was built over in the early nineteenth century and its closure almost certainly helped create the pressure on successive governments to create an alternative open space in North London. When the Victoria Line was built in the 1960s, mosaics of hot air balloons and duelling pistols were part of the design at Finsbury Park. However, it was Finsbury Fields that held one of the first hot air balloon flights and also duels in the eighteenth century, not Finsbury Park".

TfL thinks the balloons were in Finsbury park

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/company/history/architecture.asp

I think balloon flights were probably from Finsbury Park as well as Finsbury Fields but was duelling a common practice in Victorian London when FP was built? This would seem more fitting to the 1700's in Finsbury Fields which Wiki suggests?

Also, thinking about it, the balloon mosaics are from much older days when Finsbury Park was the terminus on the Piccadilly Line. This makes me think more that the balloons are right but the guns are wrong?

I've done some research this afternoon and if anyone is vaguely interested, the guns on the Victoria line Finsbury Park tiling are indeed dueling pistols, dedicated to the time when the site of Finsbury Park was notorious for duels. This was before the park was built however and used to happen in a place called Hog's Lane which ran from Crouch Hill through the site of the present park.

Today's discoveries prove that Wikipedia does not know everything as I previously thought. Oh, and Andy you were right...

I like the Drum jam idea...

yeah, the reality probably isn't as nice, especially if you live nearby. But I like the idea of hitting things being social.

The bridge is still there Busby, it runs off the end of Oxford Road, joins the end of Parkland Walk then over the railway into the park.

But those guns look older no? They look more "duel" than WW2.

I didn't take enough care when reading the first part of this thread, that's why I talked about what I now know to be the wrong guns. Never mind, we've added a little bit to the history of Finsbury Park.

So here's something else. In about 1947/8 the long straight road in the park running from Manor House to the Finsbury Park end was used to park hundreds of army tanks. They were all lined up facing the kerb and at a slight diagonal, we as children used to climb on them and pretend to be soldiers.

Here's something else. The café that existed in FP at that time was famous for its Walls ice-cream. The choice was a wafer or a cornet and I can still taste them today. They cost 3d!

Another fact which may be of interest. FP was used on Saturdays about three times a year for cycle races. (1953-til about 1958 I'd say) There were always plenty of onlookers and each race took about 20 laps. The winning line was at the top of the hill close to the Endymion Road entrance and that long straight road (where the tanks were once parked) allowed a fair turn of speed.