area around upper holloway/archway

[holloway]

just wondered what this is like to live in? any ideas?

[suzywong]

well
I lived in Highgate just opposite Waterlow park and behind Hornsey Lane for 10 years, the last 3 with small children.

It's OK. What is your situation, do you mean what's it like with kids, or in terms of housing prices or crime rate?

[bakedpotato]

Oy, Suzy, you deserter!
Lots of traffic. Lots of green space (Waterlow Park, Highgate Woods, Heath). Ace GPs. Nice Montessori on Hargrave Rd. Stacks of lovely Turkish greengrocers on Junction Rd. Lots of traffic. And, um, oddish people going in and out of Whit psychiatric unit. Did I mention lots of traffic.

[holloway]

Friend is thinking of moving there with a small child. She wants to know if it is a family friendly area and if the schools are reasonable.

[suzywong]

hello BP - have they finished Waterlow Park yet?

yes lots and lots of traffic, lots and lots and lots. God this thread is giving me photographic memory images of Highgate HIll. Arrrrrrgggghhhh! There's the post natal ward at the Whittington. Get me out of here!!!!

[suzywong]

yes it is very family friendly, not sure about the schools, there's the St Michael's route if you want to go to church every Sunday or Coleridge at the end of Hornsey Lane but last time I heard you had to live within 0.34 miles of it and that's a vey expensive enclave to live in (picture of the Crescent Cafe flashing up now for me and the scary chicken on top of the Ashmount primary gates)

[bakedpotato]

There are lots of young families round here, it's still far affordable than surrounding areas. We're not quite at the primary-school stage yet, will defer to Suzy on this.
(Waterlow is finished, very nice too. Baked avocados still on the menu at Lauderdale.)

[HappyMumof2]

Message withdrawn

[suzywong]

SPRAY@baked avocados! Is the post office still impossibley cluttered with buckets and ironing boards and I hear Europa is now a Tesco Express!

I love Waterlow park in High Summer. I do get frightfully homesick if I think about it, so I don't actually think about it vey often. Holloway, I should explain I moved to Australia last year.

We left before primary school stage but tbh I thank my lucky stars I didn't have to get in to that bun-fight/lottery for places. Most people I knew did St Michaels or private and we couldn't afford private and didn't fancy st michaels. I'm sure someone else will come on here and tell you all about it though.

[bundle]

suzy i mis-read your post then - thought you said you lived there with 3 small children (thought i'd miscounted)

[bundle]

(did anyone mention the traffic? finsbury park to highgate hill, 45 mins anyone? on the hottest day of the year with screaming girls in back of car? aircon on full, totally ineffective? )

[HappyMumof2]

Message withdrawn

[holloway]

Oh dear, does not sound too good. I think her closest schools are St John's Upper Holloway and St Mark's something or other. And Duncombe school. Yerbury might not too far either. Any other suggestions? It looks like a lovely area, if you don't mind the traffick.

[donnie]

Holloway is pretty rough to be honest. Lots of crime and a pal got robbed at gunpoint at a petrol station there about 18 months ago. It's a great place for contraband fags though - about £1.50 a packet! some of my family still live there and sad to say their view of it is basically that it's a pretty grim area. Last tiem I visited there was a dumped car in their street which had been torched - it happens regularly.
The Indian Ocean restaurant has been there for years though, and is excellent if you like Indian nosh.
I was born at the Whittington!

[suzywong]

Seven Sisters/Nags head area = rough as @£$%
Teenagers in particular are terrifying on the buses.

[holloway]

Isn't there quite a big difference between the lower bit of holloway (which i agree seems very rough)and the upper bit, i think she is moving to marlbourough road - quite far from the Nag's Head I would say. I thought the Whittington was good, I had my ds at the Homerton, and yes, that is a slaughterhouse, haha.

[donnie]

sorry to say happy mum of 2 that all htose schools you mentioned are ROUGH ROUGH ROUGH - especially Holloway Boys. The Girls school , Mt Carmel, isnt much better, a friend taught there for a while and nearly went mad. I did a stint at Highbury Grove Boys and was advised never to walk around the school alone but always with another teacher, preferably a male one. Great huh? really sorry if this isn't what you want to hear, Holloway!

[holloway]

What about Yerbery school?

[bundle]

we're in N4, between Finsbury Park and Highbury and apart from the crack sellers around the park gates it's pretty quiet, believe it or not.

[bakedpotato]

More on crime... We've been burgled twice in last 3 yrs. Brick through window in early hours, item grabbed before we could make it downstairs. Last time was large TV which was carried away by 3 teenagers (in hoodies, naturally) on bikes, fgs.
On the upside, about 6 of our neighbours rang police instantly.
On the downside, the neighbour who had actually heard them chatting beforehand (inc, 'Make sure you get the remote') and got good physical description chose to retire to his bed without communicating any of this to the police. He told me quite casually about it 24 hrs later when we met at the swings.
Ar*e!

[suzywong]

marlborough road is the start of the gentrification area isnt' it?, basically it's the railway line that is the divide.

Isn't it funny how all us non-born and bread North Londoners have been mincing around and alluding and it takes a born and bread local to say "It's ROUGH!"

[bakedpotato]

Yerbery good, I hear. Tricky catchment though. Friends in our street only got child in through freak events.

[suzywong]

where's Yerbery?

[bundle]

deffo arse, bp.

people in our road are notorious curtain twitchers, it's brill. there was the fascinating sight (people took photos ffs) the other night of a numbe 4 bus heading down our road (it's blocked off at both ends...so god knows how the driver of the double decker & his passengers got down there, or out)

i'm on first name terms with our community police officer, darren

[bakedpotato]

You are lucky to have a Darren.
I have never met thicker individuals than the policemen who came round after the telly went.
DD told her nursery school teacher about 'the burglers who took our telly without saying please or thankyou.'

[bundle]

is that what rehabilitation of offenders is then bp?