Park of the week

142. Hartington Park

This is in a very residential area of north Tottenham. We visited because we were in the area, and I was glad that we did because it had plenty of green open space to walk around in with benches to sit and relax on. I found it well-maintained, which isn’t always the case when we visit places that I know nothing about. It has a newly installed outside gym, children’s play area and a basketball/mini football area.

The park is in Harringay, which (confusingly to me) is in the London Borough of Haringey, created in the nineteen sixties from a merger between Hornsey, Wood Green and Tottenham. Nobody seems to know why the 'one r, e instead of a' spelling of the name was chosen but apparently at the time local school children were taught that the new borough's name should be pronounced with the same ending as Finchley, Hackney and Hornsey. I’m afraid that, on the few occasions I’ve had to say the name, I don’t. But then, I'm a tourist.

I saw this road sign, at the southern end of the park.

This refers to a pedestrianised fly-tipped passageway, running west to east providing rear access to the houses on either side. It covers a lost 15th Century river, originally called Garbell Ditch, later Carbuncle Ditch, which was created to alleviate flooding by the River Moselle, and the Ditch is a continuation of the Moselle. The name Moselle comes from ‘Mosse-Hill’ (Muswell Hill), the location of one of its sources. 

I can’t find an explanation for the origins of the name Carbuncle, but since a carbuncle is caused by bacterial infection, perhaps the ditch was associated with disease, especially as around this period the population of the area grew, and the once pure Moselle became heavily polluted.

Judith Field

Hartington Park, 1 Stirling Road, London N17 9UN