St Pancras & Highgate
Last Updated on Sunday, 17 August 2008 09:26 Saturday, 16 August 2008 14:34
St Pancras Parish church of St Pancras (1660)| Other churches: | All Saints, Camden
Town All Saints, Gordon Street Christ Church, Charlton Street, Somers Town Fitzroy Chapel, London Street Percy Chapel, Charlotte Street St Andrew, Haverstock Hill St Bartholomew, Gray's Inn Road St James, Hampstead Road St John the Baptist, Highgate Road, Kentish Town St John the Evangelist, Charlotte Street St Jude, Gray's Inn Road St mark, Prince Albert Road, Regents Park |
St Martin, Vicars
Road, Kentish Town St Mary Magdalen, Munster Square, Osnaburgh Street St Mary the Virgin, Eversholt Street, Somers Town St Matthew, Oakley Square St Michael, South Grove, Highgate St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road St Peter, Regent Square St Saviour, Maple Street St Stephen, Camden Street St Thomas, Agar Town Somerstown Chapel |
Highgate
Parish church of St Michael
A suburban village on
the Great North Road, four and half miles from King's Cross by the
great North railway, Highgate and Edgware line. Inns include Gate
House, opposite the Grammar School; Wrestlers and Red
Lion at the north end of the town; Fox and Crown, West
Hill. Highgate occupies the summit of Hampstead's "sister
hill," at the junction of the old two main northern roads, -
from Oxford Street by way of Tottenham Court Road, and Islington
through Holloway, - the summit being reached by the steep
acclivities of Highgate Rise and Highgate Hill. The two roads meet
in the High Street, where begins the North Town, a broad highway
lined with private dwellings, shops, and inns, and having at the
commencement the Grammar School on one side, the Gate House tavern
on the other, and terminating in the slope of North Hill. The
Green, bordered by groves of ancient elms, seems to have been the
centre of the origin village, and the place where the villages met
for rural games and holidays diversions. Thus the Whitsun
Morris-dancers, in "Jack Drum's Entertainment," 1601
sing - "Let us be seene on Hygate Green, To dance for the
honour of Holloway".
Highgate church, St
Michael, stands some little distance south of the old chapel
and the school, facing the entrance to the Grove. It is of white
brick and stone, well-built, spacious, and lofty; comprises nave
and aisles with clerestorey, butresses, crocketed pinnacles, and
pierced parapet, chancel with large five-light east window, and at
the west end a tower and octagonal stone spire. the stye is an
impure perpendicular, it was consecrated in November 1832. The
architect was Mr Lewis Vulliamy. Occupying nearly the highest
point of Highgate Hill, its tall spire is conspicuous for miles
around. The interior of the church is convenient, and well-kept,
but in no way remarkable,