Curious London
  • About
  • Curious Crouch End
    • Extract: The Ghost Station
    • Curious Crouch End launch
  • Curious King's X
    • Extract: The Fairy Tale Estate
    • Extract: EGA Stays OK
  • Curious Camden
    • Extract: Revolution at the Roundhouse
  • Curious Kentish Town
    • Extract: Hey Ho, Cook and Rowe
  • Contact


Curious Crouch End

available post free from the publishers Five Leaves

REVIEWS

'By telling these stories Andrew has managed to capture
the spirit of Crouch End: the slightly incongruous,
the half-forgotten, the arty and the downright weird.
This little book will have nestled under the Christmas Tree 
of hundreds of local households and, unlike so many Christmas books,
will have been read by Boxing Day lunchtime.'

David Winskill in the Hornsey Historical Society annual Bulletin

'Andrew’s vibrant and playful retelling of local history artfully challenges those who prematurely dismiss Crouch End
​as a sleepy corner of north London'

read the full review in the Ham & High 

'Whether you know N8 or not, this illustrated book will be a great companion
​on a walk or two through the area'

says the London Society

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Seeded sourdough and oat milk flat white –
that's how Crouch End is often seen.
​This is leafy, liberal North London. There's a Waitrose, a fishmonger, several butchers and bakers, two cinemas almost side-by-side, and more bookshops, vinyl stores, florists and independent coffee shops per head of population than ... well, you get the picture.

There's a lot more to this proudly independent locality. In Curious Crouch End, historian Andrew Whitehead tells the stories hidden away amid the Victorian villas and Edwardian terraces of this fashionable corner of the capital: from a pioneering women’s football match organised by the wonderfully named Nettie Honeyball, to the high point of the 1968 student rebellion.
 
It's where Bob Dylan got lost (perhaps) on his way to a local recording studio and where Ray Davies found his ‘working man’s cafe’.

​Look out for the spectacular Art Deco in the square, the sparkling Art Nouveau in the pub.
And Crouch End has its own Cathedral too.
 
A detailed map designed by Nancy Edwards will help the truly curious navigate their way round historic N8 and there's a wealth of illustrations, both from the archive and photographs specially taken for Curious Crouch End.


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Read an extract: The Ghost Station 

​
and have a look at articles in the Ham & High based on the book
Jacob Walker, the 'faithful slave', buried in Hornsey churchyard 
also​ The Cathedral in Crouch End  
and The Six Saints of Womersley Road

plus truth and myth behind When Dylan came to Crouch End
... and the Londonist has published an excerpt
The Crouch End studios that gave us Captain Pugwash

And here's a selection of photos from the book launch

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CURIOUS CROUCH END
1  The Host Station
2  1 Avenue Road
3  Mr Hitler
4  Shepherds Cot
5  '68 in N8
6  The Express 'Sleep-in'
7  Transported to Truro
8  A Simple Twist of Fate
9  The Cathedral
​10 'Reclining Female Figure'

11 Stork in the Porch
12 Saints on the Porch
13 Windy Miller in Womersley Road
14 Maddy Prior + the miners' strike
15 AC/DC
16 Paul's Last Stand
17 Saturday Morning Revolution
18 Meet at the Clock Tower
19 "Jones for Hornsey"
20 Behind the Dress Rail
21 Charles Darwin's Tail? 

22 Workers' Cottages
23 Motors in a Mews
24 The 'Outstanding' Queens
25 Pulp Fiction
26 Silas K. Hocking
27 Working Man's 
Café
28 Lotus Blooms
29 The Tower
30 The Faithful Slave
31 St Paul's at the Priory
​32 Homage to Nettie Honeyball

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  • About
  • Curious Crouch End
    • Extract: The Ghost Station
    • Curious Crouch End launch
  • Curious King's X
    • Extract: The Fairy Tale Estate
    • Extract: EGA Stays OK
  • Curious Camden
    • Extract: Revolution at the Roundhouse
  • Curious Kentish Town
    • Extract: Hey Ho, Cook and Rowe
  • Contact