5 December 2017

North London Polytechnic, Holloway Road – compare and contrast

I was just tidying up my photo archive and rediscovered a folder called Holloway Road Then and Now from when I was taking comparison pics and writing about them here. In that folder I found a group of four pics I had put together of the London Metropolitan University buildings.
Looking at the collection now it's easy to get distracted doing a sort of spot-the-difference.

c1910 vs 2013
The North London Polytechnic was established in 1896, a period I refer to as the Heyday of Holloway.  This Victorian seat of learning was built "to promote the industrial skill, general knowledge, health and well-being of young men and women belonging to the poorer classes of Islington [and] to provide for the inhabitants of Islington and the neighbouring parts of north London, and especially for the Industrial Classes, the means of acquiring a sound General, Scientific, Technical and Commercial Education at small cost".
Only one of the buildings from that period now remains as The Rocket Complex echoing its past as The Great Hall (b1897) opened by the then Lord Mayor of London and used for social and academic events. It's sad to see how a lot of the architectural embellishments have been removed over the years, however, on the plus side, the clocks at the top are usually correct, which is handy.
The various university buildings feature for different reasons on a couple of my walking tours

Oh and by the way, the vintage clothing shop, now called Blue 17, by the bus stop (where the AA van is in the pic) is marvellous, one of the best around – do pop in and have a look – though be warned that it's hard to come out empty-handed.

13 comments:

  1. Dear Rio, this is not a space for your irrelevant personal ads. Your comment has been deleted

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  2. The vintage clothing shop used to be the CND vintage clothes charity shop 20 years ago, hence the CND logo painted there. UNL graduate.

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  3. CND's offices are upstairs, above Blue17. CND have been there since the 1970s I think – I will check http://www.cnduk.org/about/history

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  4. Correction photoman, the Blue17 vintage clothing shop was never owned or run by CND, and has been run independently at 162 Holloway road since Dec 1994.

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  5. I was a student at PNL in the eighties, compared to other unis and colleges there is virtually nothing about the place online. All the students from my era seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth!

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    1. Yes, it's strange how little history is noted down about fairly large places such as this. For instance, tho there are some pics online whowing yound men learning woodworking for instance, there aren't any shots of the Great Hall and other areas. We all just take places for granted until they are one and then frantically hunt around for info that doesn't exist.

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    2. There were a hell of a lot of stoners at PNL in the 80s

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  6. We were students at the School of Librarianship & Information studies, Essex Road, PNL, from 1975-78. We had the most fantastic three years of learning, parties, growing up & political awakening (inevitable at PNL). Sue F & Terri M.

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    1. Happy days! Have you returned to the building since then? (sorry to be so late responding – I haven't been getting the alerts until recently)

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  7. Well, from the lack of responses it doesn’t look as if the School of Librarianship is a very frequent subject for random Google searches ! Perhaps ex-students no longer find their 3 or 4 years memorable ?
    the Essex Road annexe was an isolated outpost of the Polytechnic, and thereby avoided the fall-out from the more severe left-wing politics which characterised Holloway Road buildings. Essex Road was a more homely environment which lead to a much closer community.
    Richard H (Student at Essex Rd, Sept 1975-June1979)

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    1. Where exactly was the Essex Road annexe?
      (sorry to be so late responding – the comments alerts were going to my junk mail folder, grrr!)

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  8. I was at PNL from 1972 to 1975 doing a three-year sandwich course in Institutional Management (hospitality management geared towards the industrial and state (NHS) sectors). I have fond memories of my fellow colleagues and the teaching staff, as well as the ‘old’ building (Holloway Road) that we were mostly located in.
    I lived in South London so didn’t stay in digs and hence, missed out on much of the social life centred at the Poly. However, memories that stand out for me:
    a) The snack bar on the top floor of the tower block where I learned to love sandwich spread rolls – LOL.
    b) The Student Union restaurant in the old building where the juke box almost constantly played ‘Layla’ (Derek and the Dominoes) and ‘Sylvia’ or ‘Hocus Pocus’ (Focus).
    c) The Union bar, also in the old building: cigarette-smoke filled and crowded but affordable. In fact, everywhere was smoke filled in those days!
    d) The training restaurant in the old building where students from our department daily ran the kitchen and provided silver service to customers at very reasonable cost.
    e) Terry Povey - Student Union President – smoking his pipe.
    f) Frequent calls for meetings, strikes and sit-ins, and a period of bomb hoaxes requiring building evacuation that always came around 11am – pub opening time!
    For me, uncomplicated, happy days of learning, opinion-forming and personal development, friendships and fun.

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    1. Great memories! Thanks for sharing. I never knew making sandwiches was a specific course! Ha Ha !

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Thanks, Jane