HISTORY

As a native North Londoner, Holloway Road is for me, one of the most least interesting roads that I often travel along daily. Covered with bus lanes and cameras waiting to pounce and fine, I use it to get from the Archway Road to Upper Street, rarely pausing to give the shops or architecture a second glance. This is, of course, an omission on my part. The sex shops, bric a brac stalls and Georgian restaurants represent a cultural diversity and grittiness that is becoming increasingly absent in the gentrification of London. But what of its history?

In Elizabethan times, at the intersection between the Holloway Road and Seven Sisters Road archery contest were held opposite today's Odeon cinema in Bowman's Place. So the area was green and wooded and centuries later, Edward Lear lived in Bowman's Lodge.

Running north-west from Islington to Highgate, it already had hamlets in it known as Upper and Lower Holloway, in the 18^th century. Upper and Lower Holloway were not favoured by the well-to-do, and the many shabby terraces were occupied by a population of labourers, railwaymen, shopkeepers and clerks. Parts of Lower Holloway and in particular, Campbell Road, was centre of desperate poverty. It was known as ‘the worst street in North London’ with a reputation as a centre of overcrowding, disease, casual labour, street gambling and immorality . ‘This road is the king of all roads’ the local sanitary inspector wrote in 1908-1909…’thieves, prostitutes, cripples, blind people, hawkers of all sorts of wares from boot laces to watches and chains…pugilists, card sharper’s, counter jumpers, purse snatchers, street singers and gamblers of all kinds, and things they call men who live on the earnings of women.'

In the music world, 304 Holloway Road is an important site. In 1960 record producer and manager Joe Meek established his own studio. He recorded hundreds of singers and groups here, and mixed tracks for release on single, EP and albums on a number of different labels.Meek used a group called The Outlaws to back many of his sessions and Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple fame, joined the group in late 1962, and began recording at Meek's studio. Meek famously murdered his landlandy, before killing himself, also on this stretch of the Holloway Road. (Katherine Klinger)