There had to be a Christmas Street somewhere in London, and there was, but alas it's disappeared. So I've been to where it used to be, which is alongside the Bricklayers Arms roundabout. Don't get your festive hopes high.
The Bricklayers Arms was once a coaching inn on the Old Kent Road, conveniently located at a key junction linking to the West End and the City. If you'd headed up Bermondsey High Road at the end of the 19th century, the street we're looking for would have been the second on the left. It was brief, no more than sixty yards long, but still long enough to crowd in dozens of families in what we'd recognise as slum conditions. On the left were Clifton Buildings, a four-storey wall of tenements accessed via open stairwells. On the right was Haddon Hall, a newly-opened Baptist chapel with seats for 700, because hope was high on the agenda hereabouts. Oh, and it wasn't called Christmas Street at the time, it was called Noel Street. [1895 map]
I haven't been able to pin down precisely when the change from Noel to Christmas occurred, only that it was before WW2, but it is possible to imagine circumstances in which a festive upgrade might have taken place. In 1946 Picture Post turned up to pen an article entitled The Story Of Christmas Street, its black and white photographs showing grimy brickwork, streetlamps on cobbles and small children playing in the street. Wrapped in dark coats they chatter, play-fight or carry baskets, and without a pair of long trousers between them. The photographer was good - he captured the sign saying Christmas St formerly Noel St perfectly between the railings. [1951 map]
In the 1960s the Bricklayers Arms squareabout was shoehorned across the road former junction, kickstarting major redevelopment on three sides. One of the areas to be swept away was the northern wedge containing Christmas Street, which became the Haddonhall Estate, a lowrise labyrinth of apartment blocks shielded from the gyratory by a barely adequate brick wall. Today various notices advise that cyclists, dogs and ball games are particularly discouraged, although what looks to be the caretaker's flat has a stone hound squatting on guard outside the back door. The line of Christmas Street is entirely unrecognisable, running approximately in front of numbers 52 to 64, which do at least look far more habitable than what was here before. [2019 map]
The Baptist chapel wasn't lost completely, it was rebuilt across Tower Bridge Road in boxy modern style, and as Haddon Hall still welcomes a sizeable congregation. Looming over the northern end of the former street is the former Hartley's jam factory, and in particular the penthouse flats plonked on top of it. As I walked past the original gates a pair of residents emerged clutching party-bound treats wrapped in aluminium foil and waited for their Uber. This soon arrived up Green Walk, the closest street untouched by redevelopment, proving that some Georgian terraces were well worth saving. But not Christmas Street, very much no great loss, except in name.
Yuletide Close NW10
Yuletide Close is a genuine London street name, and better than that it once replaced Yuletide Road. Alas both have vanished, indeed we're off to part of London where the street pattern has been entirely changed twice in the last fifty years. Shame they didn't get it right first time, otherwise I'd be able to bring you a better street sign shot than this.
This is Church End, Willesden, for centuries the focal point of this part of Middlesex, now somewhat overlooked. St Mary's is originally 12th century, and for 200 years attracted pilgrims hoping to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Willesden. Don't come to see it now, Henry VIII had it burnt. We're interested in a patch of land to the southwest between Church Road and the railway, where the first street to be built was innocuously called Holly Lane. When the time came to extend it two additional thematic roads were added, one sensibly called Berry Street, the other somehow Yuletide Road. At this time of year residents of its maisonettes must have glowed with pride. [1955 map]
Fifty years ago Brent council engaged in redevelopment number one, clearing away most of the houses to either side of Taylors Lane. In their place arose an estate using the 'Resiform' building system, a proprietary technique based on assemblage of panels, which sounded modern but was actually just cheap. Units were fitted together into long irregular blocks, which necessitated cul-de-sacs rather than streets, hence Yuletide Road twisted into Yuletide Close (on an approximately perpendicular alignment). Its neighbours were similarly commemorated in Holly Close and Berry Close, and life in Church End continued anew.
By the 2000s it became clear that Resiform construction had been a mistake, the entire estate suffering from damp and lousy insulation, so the government stepped in and invested cash on total rebuild. The replacement homes were mostly yellowbrick houses with gardens, bookended by a few flats, and are undoubtedly a much more pleasant place to live. Alas no attempt was made to recreate the previous layout, so Yuletide, Holly and Berry are no more, and London's best festive streetname vanished overnight. [2019 map]
The resulting estate is worthy but dull, which isn't necessarily a bad thing unless you have a blog to write. The two most interesting things I found were a discarded radiator cover up an alleyway and an official sign on some railings saying No Car Repairs. As for where I think Yuletide Close used to be, that'd be one end of Crome Road, a nondescript stretch that's half wooden fence and half suburban normality. Santa will still be calling tonight, but not with so broad a smile.
