Doors 265 – Doors from Highgate, London, November 2023 (Part V)
Forgive me if I appear a little distracted this morning, but I am still processing yesterday’s announcement by Rishi Sunak our Prime Minister, that we will be having a general election on 4 July (a special day on both sides of the pond), which is a little earlier than most were expecting. I’ll say no more about it, as Thursday Doors is a refuge from such matters, and instead focus on the final set of doors from a trip to Highgate in North London in November 2023, where I had lived for the majority of my teenage years.
I have also included a picture of the urinals in the public gents loo in Pond Square, simply because in spite of their function, they are elegant – they don’t make them like that any more (the old man in me says).
Most of these doors are from the Pond Square area, which is at the heart of Highgate ‘village’. When I was growing up, it was a place where teenagers would congregate to chat and make plans for which pubs they would try to get served in. It was also the focal point for the Pond Square Punks – it was the punk era, after all. I hope you enjoy the doors.
Blue doors of the Highgate URC Church, Highgate, London, November 2023Pond Square public convenience and green door, Highgate, London, November 2023Black and white doors with flat-roofed awnings, Highgate, London, November 2023Yellow door with flat-roofed awning, Highgate, London, November 2023Cream and blue doors with flat-roofed awnings, Highgate, London, November 2023Had there once been a wider door to Burlington Court? Highgate, London, November 2023Unpainted door and an autumn feel, Highgate, London, November 2023
So that rounds things off nicely for this trip down memory lane, which I have really enjoyed sharing on Thursday doors. I have a great many folders of doors waiting in the wings but will keep my plans for next time as a surprise (mainly because I haven’t decided yet).
Have a great weekend, and if you live in the UK, batten down the hatches for six weeks of relentless electioneering.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.
Doors 264 – Doors from Highgate, London, November 2023 (Part IV)
This week I am incredibly pressed for time, so this will be a very short entry. My late afternoon doorscursion back in November 2023 through my old ‘manor’, Highgate village, continues in this penultimate collection from North London.
I really wanted to talk about all the pubs in Highgate, because when I was a teenager, all the talk was that Highgate had more pubs on the main street than anywhere else in the country. I have no idea if this was true, but the following is a list of them (all within a few hundred yards), starting halfway down Highgate Hill:
Brendan the Navigator, used to be called The Old Crown Inn – it has obviously gone up-market.
The Duke’s Head
The Angel
The Prince of Wales
The Crown
The Gatehouse (featured below)
The Flask (featured below)
The Red Lion and Sun
The Wrestlers
The Bull
I hope you enjoy this week’s selection:
The Gatehouse entrance door and lamp, Highgate , London, November 2023The Flask entrance (please use other door), Highgate , London, November 2023Blue door with fine columns and portico, Highgate, London, November 2023Triple panelled black door, Highgate, London, November 2023Chesterfield door and fine scalloped awning, Highgate, London, November 2023The Old Hall gate and door, Highgate, London, November 2023
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.
Doors 264 – Doors from Highgate, London, November 2023 (Part III)
I went to a private (public) school in London, Highgate School, which was regarded in those days as a ‘second division’ public school for boys. In fairness, it has changed immeasurably since I was there. Then, it was a hotbed of white male privilege, and an anachronistic hangover from our colonialist days as a nation.
I received a very good education there and made a select few lifelong friends, but I frequently reflect on my time with some regret, that I was, and by inference am, a product of a system that has resulted in so many things that are bad about our country today. Misogyny, arrogance, inflated confidence, entitlement, racism, hierarchy and many other aspects of a social and financial elitism were nurtured in the public school environments of the 1970s.
We see in the current (and previous) Conservative Government the outcome of a dysfunctional and utterly unfair and unbalanced educational (and class) system. So many of our decision makers have enormous ‘blind spots’ where their position and status have been forged by their privileged experiences and selfish desires, without even a cursory glance at the wider society they serve.
Make no mistake, the private educational system in our country perpetuates the class and social divides and in my view should be abolished. A good education and educational assets should be the right of every child in the country, without exception, irrespective of background or ability to pay. Raise the bar for everyone, and if we have to pay more taxes to get it, then so be it. Those paying £30,000 per year (or term in some places) would be able to divert their savings into the public purse and feel the warm glow of helping the nation rather than themselves.
It is clear from the last 14 years, that our Eton-educated leaders have absolutely ruined our country, not because of the quality of their education, but because of their prejudices and ideology nurtured on the playing fields of British public schools.
OK, so I have got that off my chest. There are some parts of my school days that I do look upon fondly. My friends, some of the teachers (the Zoological Society – see last week’s post), the access to sport and the buildings were positive aspects, and through the years I had something of a love/hate relationship with the school. I worked hard, was never particularly academic, and was generally well-behaved. My reward eventually was to be made a school Prefect and head of my house (Eastgate), I say this to put into context the final photograph in this week’s selection where I am sitting to the left of the Housemaster (right as you look at it).
As you might have gathered, this week’s doors are all from the buildings of Highgate School, photographed on my visit there last November. Definitely mixed feelings when I saw the old place. I hope you enjoy the doors.
Doors in the entrance to the ‘modern’ Dyne House, Highgate School, Highgate, London, November 2023Austere door that was never used as I recall, Highgate School, Highgate, London, November 2023Fancy glass door on a building that wasn’t there in my day, Highgate School, Highgate, London, November 2023The main entrance gate and doorway, Highgate School, Highgate, London, November 2023Doors and steps to the school chapel, Highgate School, Highgate, London, November 2023Gate to the quadrangle (I think that is what it was called), Highgate School, Highgate, London, November 2023Door and stairs to the main school hall, Highgate School, Highgate, London, November 2023Eastgate house photograph circa. 1980/81 in front of the school hall door, Highgate School, Highgate, London, November 2023
I am sure that is it the same for many of us that our school days contribute immeasurably to who we become. I have spend many of my adult years gently unpicking and scrutinising my time at Highgate School, and think I now have a much healthier relationship with the place and circumstance I found myself in, and have challenged the attitudes and prejudices that surrounded me. I am content with it.
More of an essay than a Thursday doors – I promise to revert back to concentrating on doors next week, when I will feature some more Highgate doors.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.
Doors 263 – Doors from Highgate, London, November 2023 (Part II)
The trip to my old stomping ground of Highgate Village in November last year, where I spent my teenage years, was both surprising and nostalgic. Naturally in my youth one door seemed to be much the same as another, and I never looked beyond their functionality, so ‘discovering’ these Highgate doors as an older and wiser person was more than a passing pleasure.
This second selection of doors hints at the time of day, early afternoon, as the low autumn sun was casting shadows, and the light was fading. There is no theme to the doors this week, just another eclectic display captured during an hour-long walk. I sound the whole thing a slightly ‘out of body’ experience, struggling to get to grips with the fact that I walked these streets most days of my life to and from school.
I hope you enjoy this week’s doors as much as I did.
There is a bonus story about the Highgate Pantry, which used to be Wylies Bakers Shop, when I lived there. A school friend and I used to run the school Zoological Society, which was a very grand name for a brick out building where we used to house small pets, such as rabbits, mice, gerbils, rats and an Axolotl called Wobert. We looked after school pupil’s pets during the holidays too sometimes.
Feeding the animals was always a bit difficult and supplies would run low, so we hatched the idea of asking Wylies bakery if they had any leftover food which we could use to feed the pets. To our utter surprise, they were more than happy to give us ‘stale’ bread, buns, pastries and the like at the end of the day in a large brown paper sack. So roughly twice a week we’d collect our sack to feed the animals. Naturally, being teenage boys with a creative streak, we’d select out the best buns for ourselves, which we’d eat and share with school friends, the rest went to the small mammals. For a couple of years, the Zoological Society became very popular indeed.
Pink doors of the Highgate Pantry (formerly Wylies Bakery), Highgate, London, November 2023Prince of Wales pub and doors, Highgate, London, November 2023Woolaston and Pauncefort Almshouses doors, Highgate, London, November 2023Yellow door, black door, green door, Highgate, London, November 2023Two black doors, Highgate, London, November 2023Red panelled door and fanlight, Highgate, London, November 2023Fine blue door, fanlight and portico, Highgate, London, November 2023Modern door, Highgate, London, November 2023
Another week draws to an end. More to come from Highgate next time.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.
Doors 262 – Doors from Highgate, London, November 2023 (Part I)
Last November I went to London to visit one of my uncles who has been rather unwell. He lives in Highgate in North London, where I lived for much of the first eighteen years of my life. After paying my uncle a visit, I thought I’d nip up to Highgate Village which was once so familiar to me when I was growing up, and where I went to secondary school.
Of course when I lived there I never really took in the special place, the architecture and of course the doors – I think appreciation of doors is something that comes with age. This post is the first of several selections of doors that I managed to snap in the space of an hour, before a rapid retreat back to Bristol. My uncle, in case you are wondering, is recovering well albeit quite slowly. I hope you enjoy this week’s selection:
This is Highgate! – door and glass-panelled shopfront, Highgate, London, November 2023
The gates to Waterlow Park where I spent many happy moments, Highgate, London, November 2023
High security door? Highgate, London, November 2023
Park View blue door, Highgate, London, November 2023
Yellow door with fancy crest, Highgate, London, November 2023
Red door and steps, Highgate, London, November 2023
Green door with large flat awning and worn steps, Highgate, London, November 2023
Grey doors of the Angel Inn where many happy hours were spent, Highgate, London, November 2023
Spending time in Highgate and writing this post now fills me with nostalgia. There will be plenty more doors to come from Highgate in the next few weeks. May I wish you a very happy weekend.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.
Natural adventures 