Thanks Simon, that's a great photo.

That's a photo that brings back memories.

I lived, as a lad, in Florence Road, (backing onto the railway embankment) from 1945 until 1953 so Stroud Green Station was a frequented spot in my young life. As it happens I was a keen trainspotter (as were many boys in those days), so when we had some money we would jump on the train and go to either to Finsbury park or to Kings Cross with the 'Ally-Pally Pull and Push' as the two-carriaged trains were called.

If I remember rightly the engines were N2 class and pushed and pulled the carriages facing the train. During the summer of 1947, a hot dry summer, the locomotives and their sparks were the cause of a number of fires on both sided of the embankment, resulting in the fire brigade having to turn out. This wasn't so easy as it sounds because there was very little water available that summer - in fact there were times when water had to be delivered to the doors in a cistern lorry and we collected it with buckets and tin baths.

The photo also shows the little sweet and tobacco shop just at the side of the bridge. This little shop did a roaring business for the time, serving not only the local residents but also those railway travellers. The line was used a lot by people going to work and was a good way to get to the tube at Finsbury Park.

Difficult to understand why it was disbanded and more difficult to understand why it isn't a light railway today instead of a scruffy walkway.

Don't knock the scruffy walkway ... it's great .... until it rains of course.

If you click on the links under the photo you can read the history of the line ... and why it closed down.

Would I like it to be a working train line today instead of a walk - hard to say. It certainly would be a useful link to the Northern Line without having to go south to Kings Cross and then changing to come back north ... but I love the walk!

OMG - Busby!

David has been after your crown you know.

Here's something else that you probably don't know.

If you go to the end of Dagmar Road you'll come to a wall separating the railway from the road. To the left there is, or was, a door or a bricked-up gateway. (I haven't been there for donkey's years). This gateway was an entrance to a footpath that ran parellel to the railway, over a bridge (the old Crouch End - Southend railway line) and right up to Quernmore Road, exiting to the left of the railway bridge at Harringay station.

I don't know if this line is still in use (to Southend) but it was an easy excursion on those days in summer when dad had a couple of shillings to spare.

We spent hours there, collecting train numbers. At that time the great express locomotives were in use. Mallard (the fastest steam locomotive in the world) I've seen many times, plus all the other beautiful locos pulling famous trains which often were only starting to slow on their way into Kings Cross. No mother had to worry about her child then, we had the freedom of the streets and simply had to be back home for meals.

There is book by Hunter Davies ( A Walk Along the Tracks) where he walks and describes along old railway lines. He has an interesting chapter on Parkland Walk which he describes what it was like in 1980 or so just after the council was defeated in its plans to build what was know as the “Two Miles of Opportunity” which was the plan to build a long stretch of housing along it in 1978. It is quite entertaining as he describes what he find looking into peoples back gardens etc. Apparently someone in Florence Rd has swimming pool in their back garden

I also once got told that Ruth Rendell based a Ghost story on Parkland but have never found actually found it !

you can get quite a lot of A History of Hornsey on the internet - probably through google somehow. haven't done it for ages though.


and alangodfreymaps have good old maps too, for only a couple of quid.