The area was then largely covered with forest until the Middle Ages when it was developed as agricultural land. From 1750 to 1880 Harringay experienced the pressures of the burgeoning population in London. Gradually inroads into the pastoral landscape were made, first for the leisure and then for the settlement of Londoners. By 1900 Harringay had become a respectable outer London suburb with all the land built over and only Finsbury Park remaining as a hint of its former character. It remained part of Middlesex and was not within the jurisdiction of the County of London until 1965. Identified as a single unified urban area from 1900, Harringay was originally split between the old boroughs of Hornsey and Tottenham with the boundary between the two running slightly to the west of Green Lanes The unification of the two boroughs in 1965, as the London Borough of Haringey, brought all Harringay under the control of a single unit of local governance for the first time in more than a thousand years. On many of the roads in West Harringay, it is still possible to see the old Tottenham – Hornsey boundary where the paving stones give way to tarmacked pavement. The old parish / borough boundary markers are also still in place on some roads (see picture, right).

More Interesting facts about Harringay