...by which I mean the southernmost point in the borough of Haringey. Which is this pub on the Seven Sisters Road. Finsbury Park station is 50 metres away.
The southern tip of Haringey is a properly busy spot, a staggered crossroads between a mainline station and a massive park gate. It's also the meeting point of three boroughs, so the bus station's in Islington, the Happening Bagel Bakery is in Hackney and Rowans Tenpin Bowling is in Haringey. I had wondered if being called The Twelve Pins was a nod to the adjacent bowling mecca but it turns out to be the name of a mountain range in County Galway. The pub used to be called the Finsbury Park Tavern, which is appropriate because it is only a few steps from the entrance to park of that name, but the name changed when it went full-on Irish several years back. These day it's a pack'em-in multi-screen sports venue, the main attractions being every Arsenal match and all the Gaelic football, with a jealously-guarded patch of pavement screened off outside. I arrived before it opened which saved debating whether or not to peer inside and I just admired the hanging baskets instead.
This southern fringe of Haringey also used to include the main entrance to Pyke's Cinematograph, an Edwardian electric theatre, but that ornate portal was sadly demolished in 1999 and a vapid Lidl now squats on the site. So marginal is this spot that a lamppost in front of the pub supports notices by two different councils, Islington warning not to loiter on the pavement (which is theirs) and Haringey detailing rubbish collection times for adjacent properties (which are theirs). Also if you do choose to come down here tonight be warned that Fontaines DC are playing in Finsbury Park and one of their support acts is Kneecap, because this blog's psychogeographical travels are nothing if not totally in tune with the cultural zeitgeist.
Haringey East
...by which I mean the easternmost point in the borough of Haringey. Which is this footbridge over the River Lea. Meridian Water station is half a mile away.
The eastern edge of Haringey follows the River Lea, the reservoir-hugging section between Walthamstow Marshes and the North Circular. It bulges farthest on the Tottenham Marshes, not far from the big blue shed that used to be IKEA, conveniently adjacent to the sole footbridge that crosses the Navigation. This is the Chalk Bridge, a narrow crossing between parched grassland and the canal towpath, whose curving descent is the farthest east you can walk within the borough. Were it possible to leap the fence you could enter a more borderline structure which is the High Maynard Eel Transfer, or so it says on Thames Water's heavily fortified gate, behind which the real borough tip lurks in the middle of a flood relief channel.
From the top of the footbridge you can look south towards sylvan waterside in Haringey where a long chain of narrowboats is moored up - somewhat messily if you wander down and take a closer look. For total contrast the northerly panorama is of pylons, bus depots and post-industrial estate, this all in Enfield who are busy developing the hell out of it. I walk this fairly regularly and even I was surprised to now see diggers landscaping earthworks along the water's edge and a cluster of lift towers beyond as Meridian Water begins to truly erupt. For now more people live on the Haringey side, afloat and bobbing, but it won't be long before Enfield totally dominates.
Haringey North
...by which I mean the northernmost point in the borough of Haringey. Which is this traffic island on the North Circular. New Southgate station is 600 metres away.
What a contrast, from the peace of a riverside to the hurly burly of a mega-crossroads. There is a river here which is the Bounds Green Brook, a minor stream whose valley was exploited to force the A406 through towards Finchley. We're not at the really terrible junction where all the traffic on the North Circular has to turn off to go straight on, but we are just one jump away so the traffic is often really snarled. Worse still Thames Water were digging up the road when I visited, merely minor cone-age but enough to entirely hobble anyone trying to pass through quickly. Only Bounds Green Road is actually in Haringey, running as it does beside the long grassy stripe of Bounds Green which is all that remains of Bounds Green Farm, appropriately enough for the boundary of the borough.
Pedestrians feel very much of an afterthought round here, forced to wait at zigzagging crossings occasionally spanning broad swathes of tarmac, so if you're trying to get from say the Premier Inn to the M&S Food at the BP Garage it can take a long time. And for obscure heritage reasons Haringey's jurisdiction nudges no further than the centre of a small triangular traffic island, protected only by three brief sets of railings, two LOOK RIGHTs and one LOOK LEFT. Do not recommend.
Haringey West
...by which I mean the westernmost point in the borough of Haringey. Which is this playing field on Hampstead Lane. Kenwood House is 250 metres away.
We've journeyed to the top edge of Hampstead Heath, as in most highly elevated, not far from the constriction that is Spaniards Inn. The road along the Heath's perimeter is Hampstead Lane, here heavily walled with occasional gates through to Kenwood, and the other road bearing off here is The Bishop's Avenue. This is famously one of London's priciest streets lined by opulent mansions and sheikh's hideaways, also levelled plots where rich folk are planning to rebuild something even gaudier.
None of that is (quite) in Haringey, whose western protrusion hereabouts is a large sports ground called Far Field. It belongs to Highgate School and consists of a grassy rectangle with a small toilet block, the faint remnants of white stripes and several hockey goalposts pushed to one side. I wondered why it didn't look occupied and then noted that Highgate's school year ended on Thursday because the more you pay the shorter your terms are. What's more the school recently put in a planning application to replace the pitches here with astroturf, claiming they're often too waterlogged to use, and the local populace are up in arms. Synthetic turf is unsustainable, bad for wildlife, bad for biodiversity, bad for water management and made from evil fossil fuels, apparently, although peering through the railings it does feel like there ought to be far more important things to grumble about.
And while none of these four compass points is exceptionally interesting, as a quartet they showcase the sheer diversity of this outer London borough. From traffic-choked junctions to pylon-stalked marshland to highbrow suburbia, that's the full extent of Haringey.
