Oral History 

As we compile memories of Archway from local residents we are posting the material here.

Originally Archway grew up round a crossroads, with some ancient buildings including large houses and pubs, notably the Mother Red Cap. But most construction took place in the 19th century. 

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By the 1950s there was a move to improve the quality of housing, much of which still had no bathroom and some only a single cold water tap. The 1970s housing estates were a late attempt to address that, although by that stage most of the existing homes had been improved anyway.

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In the 1950s Archway had ample shops though interestingly not very many clothes shops. For clothing people tended to shop around Nags Head. At that stage there were still horses making deliveries - stables for those used by the Co-op for its milk round can still be seen in Flowers Mews on the Archway roundabout.  

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Click here to find out more in Mrs Muchamore’s account of Archway since the ‘50s.

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And for an earlier period see www.londonborn.co.uk, the account of growing up between the wars in Highgate Newtown, going to Brookfield School, running wild on the Heath, helping on the Junction Road stalls - and dodging the cinema charges by slipping in via the exit.