Highgate, an extract from the 1868 Gazetteer
HIGHGATE, a chapelry and suburban village in the parishes of St. Pancras and Hornsey, Holborn and Finsbury divisions of the hundred of Ossulstone, county Middlesex, 5 miles N.W. of the General Post-Office, and 4¼ N. of Charing Cross.
It is situated on the summit and slopes of one of the highest hills in the county of Middlesex, rising to the height of the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Its immediate neighbourhood is particularly charming, abounding in walks and drives, and commanding views of the metropolis and Surrey hills on the S., of the undulating grounds of Essex and the course of the Thames as far as Gravesend on the E., and of the well-wooded country of Hendon, Finchley, and Barnet, as far as the hills of Hertfordshire, on the N. The village of Highgate lies to the N. and E., and contains many good shops, a literary institution, and savings-bank.
It is partially paved, lighted with gas, and well, supplied with water by the New River Company, which has a spacious reservoir on the very summit of the hill.
There are omnibuses to the City and West End, both from the Holloway and Kentish Town sides of the hill; and two railway stations-one the Kentish Town station, at the S. foot of the hill, on the Blackwall, Kew, and Kingston line, and another in the Archway-road, on the N.E. side of the hill, on the new line from Edgeware to King’s Cross. “In ancient times,” says Tanner, “upon the top of this hill was a hermitage, one of the hermits whereof caused to be made the causeway between Highgate and Islington,” which afterwards was extended with great public advantage as far as Clerkenwell, and at the beginning of the present century was continued northwards under the name of the New North Road, along which upwards of eighty four-horsed stage-coaches carrying the mail-bags passed daily before the introduction of railways.
In order to avoid the steep acclivity of the hill, which rises 1 in 7 at some parts, in 1809 a plan was devised by Vazie of cutting a tunnel through it; but in 1812, when the work had reached to a considerable state of advancement, the earth fell in, and the original plan was abandoned, and an open road formed on the line of the tunnel, with a lofty arch thrown over it to connect Highgate with Hornsey and the country E. of it. Read more of this here
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