History in the making (From Haringey Independent)

History in the making

7:29pm Wednesday 4th October 2006 in

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Who designed Muswell Hill Broadway? Why is Hornsey Town Hall in Crouch End? What was Ho Chi Minh doing in Haringey? Hornsey Historical Society knows all the answers. PETER STEBBINGS finds out how, 25 years on, the society is continuing to thrive

The next time you are in Muswell Hill Broadway, take the time to look around.

See past the coffee shops, garish mobile phone stores and estate agents, and note the handsome architecture of the buildings above, all now offices or swanky flats.

Also note the regal street names of Queens Avenue, Princes Avenue and Grand Avenue.

The Hornsey Historical Society (HHS), based in a former infant school in Tottenham Lane, Hornsey, boasts a wealth of information about the west of Haringey, and could tell you that much of the development of swanky Muswell Hill was down to a man named James Edmondson at the end of the 19th Century.

The society could also tell you that the area has always been home to writers and free-thinkers.

Former residents include the poet and opium addict Samuel Taylor Coleridge; the inventor of the computer Charles Babbage; the scientist Michael Faraday (see the back of a £20 note); and the science-fiction author Arthur C Clarke.

Others who have links include Charles Dickens and Peter Sellers. Rock group The Kinks spent their formative days in Muswell Hill, while Freddie Mercury and his band Queen played their first gig at Hornsey Town Hall.

North Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh stayed in the area while recruiting like-minded people for his cause, while serial killer Dennis Nilsen was arrested after trying to flush body parts down the toilet at his address in Cranley Gardens.

The HHS chairman is Keith Fawkes, 65, who now lives in Hampstead, but grew up in Muswell Hill and has his own links to the past - he is a distant relative of Guy Fawkes.

He said: "Membership is very much on the increase and we seem to be gaining people. Recently we have been attracting some younger members as well.

"We are actively trying to encourage them to the society."

HHS's web site, www.hornseyhistorical.org.

uk, is further proof the society is determined not to be left in the past.

Ken Gay, of Alexandra Park Road, Muswell Hill, as well as being HHS president, is the society's publications officer and has written a dozen books, his latest being Muswell Hill Revisited.

Mr Gay, 83, should know his stuff - Mr Fawkes describes him as Mr Muswell Hill'.

Mr Gay, said; "We get a steady stream of inquiries.

"Family history has grown so much. We also get inquiries about this road or that house.

"The archive is thriving; the society is thriving."