As a heads-up, this is the trajectory of today's post. a) Ooh, a street with an interesting name. b) Hmmm, I suspect it's also an interesting street. c) Ah, now I've walked it I see it's not interesting after all. d) But this gives me an idea about similarly-named streets. e) Ah, this similarly-named street isn't interesting either. f) Damn, I missed something interesting in that first street. g) Ooh, I have actually blogged about that first street before. h) Damn, despite that I have no photos of the interesting thing. i) Ah, it turns out my second idea wasn't very interesting either. j) Sigh.
a) Ooh, a street with an interesting name
This, as you can see, is Polygon Road. It has a streetsign from Camden's golden era. What an unusual name.
b) Hmmm, I suspect it's also an interesting street.
I'm in Somers Town, the historic but beleaguered neighbourhood sandwiched between Euston and St Pancras stations. Several of the streets hereabouts have several old buildings, so I bet Polygon Road does too.
c) Ah, now I've walked it I see it's not interesting after all.
Polygon Road has all the hallmarks of a street that's been repeatedly redeveloped by the council and the Luftwaffe. It crosses a grid of multiple other streets, and many of the blocks are now occupied by hulking lowrise flats of the postwar variety. One block past Ossulston Street is likely prewar instead but that doesn't make it interesting either. Two city blocks have been taken over by large primary schools, one of which (Edith Neville) resembles a hypermodern Mediterranean villa and is only three years old. It's coupled to a bold redbrick play centre with a crown-shaped roof called Plot 10, although that's technically on Chalton Street so doesn't count.
A broad strip alongside Polygon Road has been turned over to recreational provision, very much a rarity in these parts before regeneration. Adults get a clustered urban gym while children have Polygon Road Open Space, which perversely is all fenced off. There is perhaps too much tarmac, an excess of bollards and far too many pigeons. Further up the street is a mysterious mural high above a school playground, plus a Victorian pub called The Jubilee that closed in 2003 and is now three flats, plus a small sushi delivery hub called Dojobox. Polygon Road then dissipates underneath a block of flats on Eversholt Street, and now I've walked it I see it's not particularly interesting after all.
d) But this gives me an idea about similarly-named streets.
I wonder which other London streets are named after polygons?
e) Ah, this similarly-named street isn't interesting either.
This is Triangle Road in Hackney. It's sandwiched between London Fields and a railway viaduct, fairly close to Broadway Market. It's quite short. It looked promising when I found it on the map but now I'm here I'm not so sure.
The only building on the left is The Ann Tayler Children's Centre, one of Hackney council's family hubs. It no longer looks as bright and lively as it did when it opened in 2007. The right hand side is all poky-looking flats and because it's of a similar post-millennial vintage has had serious cladding issues, hence they remain half-covered with scaffolding. I don't normally describe newbuilds as the slums of the future but in this case that might be right. The first bend is bollarded so only bikes and pedestrians can pass through, and beyond that I found a long line of GenZs queuing for falafel pittas dispensed from a tiny railway arch, but by that point the road had morphed silently into a different-named street. Triangle Road, it turns out isn't especially interesting either.
f) Damn, I missed something interesting in that first street.
Once I'd given up and gone home I googled Polygon Road and discovered it was named after something really quite interesting, namely The Polygon. This was an aspirational housing development built at the end of the 18th century comprising 32 houses arranged in the form of a sixteen-sided figure with central gardens. It would have been too much of a mouthful to call this residential citadel The Hexadecagon so they called it The Polygon instead. The Napoleonic Wars and Railway Age then intervened, dampening investment, and the surrounding area eventually became filled by denser less desirable housing. The Polygon, now slummier, was replaced in 1894 by flats of more standard shape, and then replaced again in 1972 by the Oakshott Court council estate.
What I missed was a plaque to one of the Polygon's most famous former residents. Not Charles Dickens, who moved into number 17 for two years shortly after his father was released from debtors' prison, but the doubly whammy of two Mary Wollstonecrafts. Mother Mary, the pioneering writer and feminist philosopher, was one of the Polygon's earliest residents and lived at number 29. And here she gave birth to daughter Mary, later better known as Mary Shelley the author of Frankenstein. Interestingly it's mother not daughter who's commemorated here on a heritage plaque, but because that's slightly round the corner on Werrington Street I never saw it.
g) Ooh, I have actually blogged about that first street before.
In 2015 I went on a two hour walking tour of Camden's social housing organised by the Camden Tour Guides Association to celebrate the borough's 50th birthday. They led us from the old town hall through Somers Town to Camley Street and one of the highlights was Oakshott Court.
I'd even mentioned in my subsequent post that it was built on the site of The Polygon and hosted a plaque to Mary Wollstonecraft, but alas when I turned up nine years later I'd forgotten all of that. I can't be expected to remember everything I've blogged.
h) Damn, despite that I have no photos of the interesting thing.
I definitely took a photo of Mary's plaque on that tour, which I could have reproduced here except I don't seem to have a copy of it. I'd just bought a new laptop at the time, and for some reason none of the photos I took at the end of July 2015 have ended up on it. So here's a link to someone else's photo of the plaque instead.
What I have got is a photo of the mysterious mural I mentioned earlier, which it turns out contains depictions of The Polygon, the River Fleet, Charles Dickens, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley and 'the Head of Frankenstein'. The GLC commissioned the mural in 1980 and it didn't start out here, it's been moved twice following redevelopment, but it is all I have.
i) Ah, it turns out my second idea wasn't very interesting either.
3-sided polygons: London has only two Triangle streets - Triangle Road in E8 and Triangle Place in Clapham - plus some insignificant Triangle passageways and alleys. 4-sided polygons: By contrast London has a ridiculously high number of Squares, so many as to make referencing them all impractical. But there are no Rectangle streets or Oblong streets. There are definitely no Trapezium streets, Rhombus streets or Parallelogram streets. I went to Kite Place in Bethnal Green because a map told me it existed but I couldn't find it. Four sided polygons are an abject disappointment. 5-sided polygons: There are no Pentagon streets. 6-sided polygons: There are no Hexagon streets. 7-sided polygons: There are no Heptagon streets. 8-sided polygons: I thought there might be an Octagon street but there isn't. 9-sided polygons: There are no Nonagon streets. 10-sided polygons: There's a Decapod Street but not a Decagon. And beyond 10 sides lies madness.
j) Sigh.
London's only interesting polygonal street is Polygon Road, and I messed that one up.
