1863 Ordnance Survey

The map shows a thatched cottage opposite the old Woodberry Down School Building, where the shops now stand.

Manor Road is being driven across to Green Lanes. The large houses at the ends are still standing but divided into flats. When they were built, they were for single families, sometimes with eight or ten children, several servants and a coachman. Two pairs of houses have mews behind them for stabling horses, with a short roadway leading to them. This became Allerton Rd.

The houses are massively built of yellow brick with red brick string­courses. During the 1860's, there was a strong distaste for smooth surfaces and especially of stucco. They thought that stucco was not `honest', often covering up shoddy brickwork.

Architects favoured coarser, more `natural' materials which would weat­her better. London air, full of sulphur

from the coal smoke, turned rain into dilute sulphuric acid. This attacked the plaster in the stucco walls, making them erupt in ugly, black scabs. Only perpetual painting kept out the acid but this was expensive. Nothing looks finer than a well painted Regency terrace: nothing costs more to maintain.

Instead, these houses were built by highly skilled men who made a feature of good bricklaying, with all joints exposed. The contrasting red and yel­low bricks form their own decoration.

Many houses of this sort were built in, Highbury but the Lordship Park de­velopment seems to have fizzled out. Smaller houses filled the gap later on.

A Brickfield with a moulders' bench, pug mill,
kiln, and brickstack,