Green Lanes, London, (N16, N4, N8, N13 and N21) is a main road in North London and forms part of the A105. At approximately 7.5 miles (12.07 km) from end to end, it is one of the longest streets in the capital.
Green Lanes is an ancient thoroughfare along which cattle were driven from Hertfordshire towards Smithfield Market in London. It runs from Newington Green in Islington north along the western edge of Stoke Newington, thereby forming the border between Hackney and Islington, until it reaches Manor House at the eastern edge of Finsbury Park. It then runs through Harringay and ends at the junction of Turnpike Lane. Some sections of its route carry other names: the late Victorian terraced mansion houses on the eastern side of the road through Harringay are called "Grand Parade", and through Wood Green Green Lanes has been renamed "High Road" but it becomes Green Lanes once again for another 2.15 miles through Palmers Green and Winchmore Hill in the London Borough of Enfield, until it reaches the junction with Ridge Avenue and Green Dragon Lane at Mason's Corner. (The northward continuation into Bush Hill at this point is now blocked – there is a bus-turning lane there.)
Amongst the sights along its route are Clissold Park, The Waterworks, Finsbury Park, the New River (which follows a roughly parallel course for some distance), Railway Fields Nature Reserve, Grand Parade (a quarter mile long row of terraced mansion houses and shops on the east side of Green Lanes in Harringay), the Salisbury Public House erected in 1897 with its crown to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and Turnpike Lane Underground Station. In Harringay, there are also the sites of the now demolished Harringay Stadium and Arena.
A diverse range communities are included in the areas through which it passes. Some sections are host to sizeable commercial or residential populations of Greeks, Turks, Cypriots, Kurds and Jamaicans. Due to the large Greek and Cypriot communities, Palmers Green is occasionally known as Palmers Greek.
Famous quotes containing the words green and/or lanes:
“I’ll dance above your green, green grave
Where you do lie beneath.””
—Unknown. The Brown Girl (l. 59–60)
“freeways fifty lanes wide
on a concrete continent
spaced with bland billboards
illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness”
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919)