Roundabouts are rarely things of beauty, but Muswell Hill's transport hub has played a central role in the area's history, according to KEN GAY, of the Hornsey Historical Society.

The big roundabout off Muswell Hill Broadway was once where the village pond was, and it later became known as The Plantation.

In the first picture above left, top, high tree foliage spreads across the roundabout.

For centuries it was the junction of two roads, one that came out of London up the hill and to the north, and other which went south towards Highgate (once known as Southwood Lane, a name it still retains at one end).

When James Edmonson turned the area into an Edwardian suburb of London, he added Queens Avenue and Dukes Avenue to the junction. Before long, horse-drawn buses were using the centre as a stand and terminus. Nearly a century has passed and buses still stand there, but now powered by diesel engines. The roundabout is the traffic hub.

A white wooden notice board is seen against the tree, in the first picture. A magnifying glass reveals the words War Memorial', for this view dates from about 1919.

The First World War, which had begun in 1914, had just ended, leaving sorrow and suffering in most families with its huge toll of dead and injured.

There was a national desire to display the names of those who had given their lives, and memorials appeared across the country in unprecedented numbers, becaming great cultural icons of 20th Century Britain. The borough of Hornsey, which was the local authority, was no exception, and the board was part of an appeal for funds.

This resulted in an extension to the Cottage Hospital, Park Road, Crouch End, which opened on November 11, 1921 the third anniversary of the end of the war. Over the door appeared the words Borough of Hornsey War Memorial'.

For the fatherless families and the others, it had to be life as usual. They shopped at Sainsbury's, which had opened in the Exchange Parade, built by Edmonson in 1902. A clock was above it, presumably to help the bus crews.

This is still true in the second picture above left, below, which was a postcard sent in 1938, coincidentally a year before another world war, with pacifism swept away by Hitler's threats.

It seems a peaceful scene in Muswell Hill, almost without traffic, although two buses are on the roundabout.

Parke's the chemists used an awning, a common feature at that time before air-conditioning and refrigeration were widespread, warding off the sun. Parke's is now Boots, and the shop has been a chemist for nearly a century.

On the right is a branch of the National Provincial Bank, later to be taken over by Westminster Bank, which formed NatWest. Today it is cooking rather than banking that takes place there, as it has been converted into a restaurant.

The gleaming white Barclays Bank stands on the corner of Queens Avenue on the left. It was built in 1898.

Sadly, the fine baroque-style corner entrance is no longer in use.

Left of Parke's was a shop called Mersby, later to become Northern House, remembered by some as a useful department store dealing in drapery.

When supermarkets began to expand, they looked for large premises like these, and it became a branch of Tesco. That was before the chain reached its giddy heights, and the need to have supermarkets with big car parks.

Perhaps we would have liked to live in the Muswell Hill of the 1930s to enjoy the tranquillity. Or would we?