We are visiting England in six weeks, doing a genealogy trip. When my grandmother was a small child, her family lived at 151 Rathcoole Gardens, Hornsey, Middlesex .
Is this area safe? a slum? I note the proximity of a freight train yard nearby, which is often not a good sign. I will have my 72-year-old mother with me (and Lord knows she’s not much protection! 
) Any information regarding this area would be most welcome.
I tend to drive past that very road quite often, maybe once a week or so. Yes it’s perfectly safe. Some nice big old houses around there actually.
In fact, if you go a bit further along the main road past Rathcoole and up the hill a bit and then look down one of the side roads (I think it’s Montague) you get some pretty dramatic views over London. I think the road I’m thinking of is Montague but I could be remembering wrong. Anyway it’s just a couple of hundred yards further than Rathcoole, on the left.
Also if you keep driving down that main road, over the mini roundabout and onwards for another 5 minutes or so then you come to Crouch End, which is quite posh.
But the absolute BEST dramatic view over London is from Alexandra Palace (Ally Pally, to us locals) which is near Rathcoole. If you have time, GO THERE, I promise you, you will not be disappointed. I think it may be one of the best views in the world (in terms of cityscapes). You will be blown away.
Thank you, Jojo - this is both very helpful and good news.
Don’t know the Hornsey area, but i’ve never heard anything bad about it. I will wholeheartedly agree with JoJo that the view from Alexandra Palace rules though. I used to live in Wood Green just down the road from there, and we’d go up on the bus (W3?) occasionally just to see it off the top deck.
I live in Wood Green at the moment, which is right next to Hornsey and shares many good and bad points.
Good:
It’s a cultural melting pot.
The shops are cheap and open 24hrs.
Bad:
It’s the Met’s busiest gun crime area.
It’s the Met’s busiest drug crime area.
There are very few decent pubs.
I’ve lived here for 4 years and have never witnessed any crime. It does all seem to be gang or race related. You have Abu Hamza the hook-handed muslim at Finsbury Park preaching “kill the white men”, you have the Turks and the Greeks fighting with each other, you have the Albanian and Romanian refugees trying to set up crime syndicates, you have the gangs of white/black/asian youths trying to outcool each other.
However, none of these really impact on street crime since they all seem to treat Harringay (the Borough) as almost neutral turf. The kind of “don’t sh*t on your own doorstep” idea.
I’m in the Metropolitan Police myself, but as it’s usually a bad idea to work in the the area you live, I work elsewhere. All I hear from Harringay (Hornsey/Wood Green/Tottenham) is gun, drug and gang related crime. Ironically your 72 year old mum may help prevent any crime since mugging little old ladies doesn’t seem to be a local problem.
As far as things to do in the Hornsey area go, there’s Alexandra Palace and Wood Green Shopping City, but that’s it. It’s not really a tourist trap.
And don’t forget the Cineworld in the Shopping City, the worst cinema in the world.
I agree. I lived there (wood green) for 18 months, uptil just over a year ago on Lordship Lane, near the tube station, and never saw any bother. Some poor kid got stabbed coming out of one of the cinemas a while back, which I think was the worst, but I used to walk up from my ex’s flat in green lanes at all hours of the night drunk and no-one ever bothered me.
We had fun watching the Turks and Greeks beat the living shit out of each other with pool cues/baseball bats out of her window one time though. that was nice. :rolleyes:
aside from that, hey. its not that bad.
The bustle of Wood Green is quite far away from Rathcoole and Hornsey though. Travelling from Turnpike Lane towards Crouch End, it gets posher the nearer you get to Crouch End.
It’s perfectly ok around Rathcoole, there’s lots of people there and lots of shops. In fact, there’s a big police station directly opposite Rathcoole Gardens.
I thought Brixton (Lambeth) was the leading gun crime area?
For any foreigners reading this, when we talk about gun crime it’s not like Dodge. Gun crime in London is almost all gang related (ie they shoot each other) and it all happens in certain well defined areas. In general, no one owns a gun and no one would even know what to do with one if they had one (even the criminals). Even in Brixton, you will never see a gun (except on the police).
You could walk around Brixton all night drunk (and I have) and the chances of you meeting any trouble is still very small.
Great stuff, folks. I’ll be sure to tell my mother that she is in fact providing additional protection 
.
We’re staying near the Kensington High Street tube station. I’m thinking of taking the tube to the Turnpike station. Are there cabs around that station at all? (I expect not, since it’s not very touristy)…
Thanks again - you folks are wonderful.
Been a while, but Turnpike Lane station has a bus station right by it, and in there or just by it i’m fairly sure theres a Taxi place. Most tube stations do have private hire cabs right by them. If there’s not one by the bus station, ask a tube attendant guy, there’ll probably be a board up with taxi phone numbers on it they can point out to you.
If not that, theres a newsagents across the road that will do.
good enough?
walk down to South Kensington station (5 minutes from high st Ken) and the Piccadilly line will take on a straight shoot to Turnpike Lane. Bamm!
If you (or your mum!) are Kinks’ fans, Konk Studio is right there in Tottenham Lane, which leads off from Turnpike lane (about a 15-20 minute walk)…it’s not open to the public, though…
Make sure when you buy your Tube tickets you get the right ones – Turnpike Lane is way out in Zone 4 – I’ve just got back from a 4 week visit, and I noticed there was a lot more checking to see if people had valid tickets than I’ve ever seen before…
Argh! Having read over what I wrote, I didn’t mean to make it sound as if people try to cheat…
Was thinking in a grumbly way to myself about one day when I went to buy an All-Day pass, and the guy sold me a single ticket :rolleyes:
Mistakes happen, and it was sorted out, though.
Do have a lovely trip! I wish I were going back – wish I had been in White Hart Lane on Sunday, actually!
Thank you for the posting. At the risk of showing my ignorance, I’ll bite on the “White Hart Lane” reference… I’m guessing football?
(pardon me while I now duck and run for cover…)
Ah, I always wondered what that place was. I thought it was some kind of nightclub. They’ve got a neon sign outside but the style of writing is hard to read. I always thought it said Bonk.
Mutter, grumble
(United fan here)
Congratulations, Arsenal have been unbeatable this season - literally. They haven’t lost a game yet, which is quite something.
tpayne,
I think I’ll be going past Rathcoole either tomorrow or Wednesday. I’ll scope it out for you. A pre-visit recon trip - make sure everything is in order.
tpayne – Hallo! Arsenal Football Club won the Premiership at White Hart Lane on Sunday, drawing against Tottenham – wee tiny bit of a rivalry there. No need to duck and run for cover! As JoJo says, Arsenal haven’t lost a Premiership game this season, and I believe Liverpool was the last to complete a season with no losses (although that goes back to something like 1884 and the season was only 28 games there…guessing from memory; someone will surely have the stats and do please correct me if I’m wrong!)
Friends gave me tickets to see them play Bolton back in March…and do you know, right before the man, this poor old man dropped dead of a heart attack, about 6 rows ahead of me…
JoJo – I think the Konk sign is some sort of faux 20s art deco thing going there…I think I have the only photos ever taken of it with no graffiti on the outside! I used to wonder what colour the sign was (it’s blue) cos it’s never lit…a friend who lived in Crouch End at the time was determined to find out, and he was up there night after night, and it was never on…well, Mr R Davies is a bit frugal, they say…
But for a Kinks tour of London, there is this site:
http://kinks.freeservers.com/route/
which hasn’t been updated since 1999, though
or
http://www.cguweb.com/bigblacksmoke/
I haven’t followed them, since I have friends who grew up with the Davies’, etc, so I can’t vouch for their accuracy!
tpayne – Crikey - so sorry to have hijacked your thread! 
Folks, I’ve never crossed the Atlantic before, so I’m being pretty anal in my planning. I appreciate all of your insights.
I can only hope that the people I meet there in person are half as kindhearted as you are. Thank you.
Using www.streetmap.co.uk, it looks like your nearest transport link is a short walk away, at Hornsey station - not an Underground line, but a regular rail link. Timetables are at http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ - it looks like a frequent service into the centre of London (Moorgate or Kings Cross, which connect with the underground) during the day, and the last train back is at 11.41pm.
OK, I took a cruise down Rathcoole today. All seemed calm. A typical north London suburban street with big old houses.
The road leading off the main road is Rathcoole Avenue, Rathcoole Gardens is the square bit further down. It took me a while to locate number 151, it’s kind of round the corner from 149. Quite an interesting shaped house actually, stuck in a corner. It’s possible that it’s now been converted into flats - a lot of these big old London houses have several floors and lots of them are sectioned off into apartments now. But the actual external structure of the house looks old enough to be the same as when your grandmother lived there.
The road is on a bit of a hill though (it’s quite hilly round there) so I’d keep the taxi waiting so you don’t have to walk back up to the main road with your mother. There’s not a whole lot to see anyway, just a house. Unless you plan to knock on the door and introduce yourself.
Maybe have a look at the house and then get the same taxi to take you over to Alexandra Palace Park? That would probably cost about £10-£15 in a Black Cab, cheaper if you get a private hire cab. There’s private hire taxi firms near Turnpike Lane underground.
As mentioned earlier, Hornsey train station is just round the corner but it would still be a ten minute walk and involve a couple of fairly steep hills. If you were on your own I would say go to the station but since you’ve got your mother with you, I think I’d just get a taxi (assuming you can afford the expense) - less hassle.
But anyway, no doubt you have your own plans. I hope you enjoy your stay whatever you do.
Wow! Jojo, thank you. This is terrific information and advice. I had planned on it being a visit/take a photo/keep the cab waiting kind of stop, with the Palace being the real destination. This confirms it.
Make sure when you buy your Tube tickets you get the right ones – Turnpike Lane is way out in Zone 4 – I’ve just got back from a 4 week visit, and I noticed there was a lot more checking to see if people had valid tickets than I’ve ever seen before…
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much as I hate to correct my mate Ms Boods, Turnpike Lane is in Zone 3, not 4. Hornsey overground station may well be though. Just ask for a 1 day travelcard zones 1-4. this will allow you to travel on the buses too.