The oldest maps of Hornsey show the church as part of a small village in open countryside. Its proximity to London and the attractions of its setting made Hornsey a popular place to escape to from dense and dirty London and a fine place to have one’s country seat, conveniently close to the metropolis. Later maps show these estates and large villas set in big gardens.
More modern maps show the incursion of denser, mostly terraced, housing covering the land previously occupied by the estates and large villas with, in many instances, their names living on in road and housing estate names. The more modern maps also show the main east coast railway line passing close by with its extensive marshalling yards and branch line towards the growing suburbs in the west.
A later extension to this branch line went up to Alexandra Palace. This has now become a footpath. The New River passes close to the churchyard, and a comparison between earlier and later maps shows the re-routing of this from its meandering course, twice crossing the High Street, to its present straighter route close to the main railway line.
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List of plans of churchyard and their locations |
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| 1 | Plan showing proposed south extension of the churchyard, 1829. Haringey Archives, Bruce Castle D/P4/201 13/15 |
| 2 | Plan showing detail of proposed west border extension, 1833. Haringey Archives, Bruce Castle D/P4/201 13/15 |
| 3 | Survey by John Henry Taylor, 1839. London Metropolitan Archives DRO/020/B3/2.This shows the churchyard without south and west extensions. Some tombs have names; there are no numbers. |
| 4 | Plan by Hornsey Borough Surveyor, J. Melville Richards, 1950. Made before the creation of the Garden of Remembrance and realignment of the path from the High Street. It shows only the old churchyard and not the 1840 extensions. The churchyard is divided into areas and the tombs are numbered, but no explanatory list has been found. A total of 326 tombs are indicated, of which c40 are on the site of the church demolished in 1927. Original with Borough of Haringey. Copy by Anthony Richardson & Partners Ltd 2056/CY/03, 5.96 amended to show realignment of south fence between churchyard and school as in 1996. Copy held by Anthony Richardson & Partners Ltd. |
| 5 | Plan by Borough of Hornsey Engineer and Surveyor. J.H. Melville Richards No. 5323/1. 1950. General plan showing the layout of the new Garden of Remembrance. Original with Borough of Haringey. |
| 6 | Plan by Borough of Hornsey Engineer and Surveyor “Detail of proposed reconstructed dais” (to the Church Tower) No. 5323/D. Aug 1950. |
| 7 | Plan attached to “the bill for Saint Mary, Hornsey Act 1969” showing the areas covered by the Disused Burial Grounds Act. |
| 8 | Plan by North Middlesex Family History Society, 1985, copyright 1987. This shows the whole churchyard, divided into areas, with numbered tombs. Areas and numbers bear no relationship to those on the 1950 plan. The accompanying list gives the inscriptions, where legible, for a total of 247 tombs: 172 of these in the old churchyard, 75 in the extensions. Typescript, copy held by Haringey Archives Bruce Castle and Hornsey Historical Society, The Old Schoolhouse, 131 Tottenham Lane N8 7EL. |
| 9 | Digital survey carried out by Randall Surveys in 1997 (and subsequently used by Land Use Consultants for their report), showing whole churchyard, with unnumbered tombs. Original with Anthony Richardson & Partners Ltd. |
| 10 | Randall Surveys plan revised 2011 by FoHCT for management plan, showing character zones of the churchyard and major trees. Original with FoHCT. |
| 11 | Randall Surveys plan revised by FoHCT 2012, showing show areas and tombs, using NMFHS numbering. Original with FoHCT.
Sections of Historic Maps in the possession of a private collection
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