I received this brilliant email from Barry Parker with information about the Stonebridge Brook around Culvert Road and Seven Sisters Road.
“As a child I lived in Greenfield Road,N 15.
The area where Culvert Road met Seven Sisters Road would flood when there was heavy rain in Hornsey. This flooded houses in Culvert Road, Durnford Street, Seven Sisters Road…..
It was a poor area and the Tottenham Council didn’t want to pay for new drainage. My father Robert (Bob) Parker and his friend Fred Boringer ( ex Mayor of Tottenham) mounted a campaign to make the council take action.
It included an article on the back page of the Daily Mirror, my father standing as an independent candidate in the local election, letters to the rich and famous. As a child I was a stamp collector and I had envelopes from Prince Philip, 10 Downing Street…….
In the end they were successful. Later I remember Culvert Road having large concrete pipes laid.
My aunt lived at 3 Culvert Road and Mygrandfather lived at 607 Seven Sisters Roadthe tobacconists(on the corner of Culvert Road.) When the excavations took place they found that the original culvert was made of wood.
This all happened in the 1950s. I was born in 1946 and the campaigning happened when I was in the Junior School. I think I was about 11 when the work took place.
I always thought that Stonebridge Brook ran into the railway land rather than on Stonebridge Road. The flooding of Culvert road ended along Seven Sisters Road.at the entrance to Elizabeth Road.
I hope you find this interesting. Feel free to use this in any way you wish. Unfortunately I no longer live in London but in York.
Yours Barry Parker”
Thanks John – did you get my email of a couple of weeks ago, following your very interesting talk in Leytonstone?
Great local knowledge,thank you for passing it on.