Hornsey (parish) facts for kids
Hornsey used to be an old area, like a town or district, in the county of Middlesex. It had two main jobs: one for local government (called a civil parish) and another for church matters (called an ecclesiastical parish) of the Church of England.
Hornsey's Civil Parish
The Hornsey area probably started around the 1200s. This was when a church was built in the village of Hornsey. It was part of a larger region called the Ossulstone Hundred in Middlesex. Later, it became part of the Finsbury division of that Hundred.
The boundaries of Hornsey were quite spread out. They went from Stoke Newington in the south, through Stroud Green to Highgate in the west. In the north, the boundary was near Colney Hatch, going past Muswell Hill. It also included a small piece of Clerkenwell Parish. Then it went east to the Tottenham Parish border and followed Green Lanes back to Stoke Newington. There were also a few small pieces of Hornsey that were separate from the main area.
From the 1600s, a group called the vestry helped run the local government of the parish. What was unusual was that Hornsey was split into two parts: the Highgate (upper) side and the Hornsey (lower) side. Each side had its own vestry officers.
After 1837, the way local government worked began to change. In 1851, the Hornsey vestry set up a committee for public health. This committee didn't last long. In 1854, a Highways Board took its place. Then, in 1867, a full Local Board was created to manage the area.
This Local Board was later replaced by the Urban District Council in 1894/5. This council governed Hornsey until 1903. At that time, Hornsey became a Borough, which meant it had more power to govern itself. By then, South Hornsey had become its own separate local authority. Hornsey itself had become part of the Poor Law Union of Edmonton.
In 1865, the southern part of Hornsey parish, including the Brownswood Park area, decided to form its own local board. This became the South Hornsey Local Board.
A new law in 1894, the Local Government Act 1894, changed these local board areas into urban districts. This also split the original Hornsey parish into two civil parishes: Hornsey and South Hornsey.
In 1899, the South Hornsey urban district and civil parish became part of the Stoke Newington and Islington boroughs in the County of London. At the same time, a separate part of the Clerkenwell parish was added to Hornsey.
The Hornsey urban district and civil parish stayed in Middlesex. It officially became the Municipal Borough of Hornsey in 1903. The civil parish of Hornsey stopped existing in 1965. This was when the borough became part of the larger London Borough of Haringey.
Hornsey's Church Parish
The old church parish of Hornsey was dedicated to St Mary. It was part of the Diocese of London. As more people moved to Hornsey from 1862 onwards, several new church parishes were created:
- Hornsey, Christ Church, Crouch End in 1862
- Hornsey, Holy Innocents in 1877
- Hornsey, St Peter in 1898
- Hornsey, St Luke in 1903
- Hornsey St George in 1910
The church parishes of Hornsey Rise and Hornsey Road were formed in 1865 and 1866. These two parishes were made from a part of the old Islington parish.
Also, as nearby areas grew, parts of Hornsey's church parish were included in new parishes:
- Highgate in 1834
- Muswell Hill, St James in 1843
- Stoke Newington, St Matthias in 1849
- Highgate, All Saints in 1874
- Brownswood Park in 1875 (formed from the southern part of Hornsey parish)
- Stroud Green in 1881
- Harringay in 1892
Sources
- Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol.1, Frederic Youngs, London, 1979
