Claigmar Vineyard, Finchley (1921)
Remembered in a few local street names such as Vines Avenue, the Claigmar Vineyards were begun by the Kay family in 1874.
They not only produced 100 tons of grapes per year but also a quarter of a million cucumbers.
During the 1920s, the vineyard was finally built over.
Credit: Britain From Above/Historic England
Remembered in a few local street names such as Vines Avenue, the Claigmar Vineyards were begun by the Kay family in 1874.
They not only produced 100 tons of grapes per year but also a quarter of a million cucumbers.
During the 1920s, the vineyard was finally built over.
Credit: Britain From Above/Historic England
Remembered in a few local street names such as Vines Avenue, but otherwise long buried under suburbia, the Claigmar Vineyards was begun by the Kay family in 1874.
In 1845, Kay leased an acre in Ballards Lane for flowers and fruit. In 1878 it was owned by Peter and Susan Kay and a second nursery, called Claigmar, had been started in 1874 in Long Lane by Peter Edmund Kay.
During the 1890s the Ballards Lane nursery closed and Claigmar was extended until in 1899 Kay had 18½ acres.
Equally large nurseries were opened east of Squires Lane until at their greatest extent the Kay nurseries, between Long Lane and the High Barnet railway line, stretched from Duke Street eastward to Green Lane.
It not only produced 100 tons of grapes per year but also a quarter of a million cucumbers. Peak production was in the 1890s with 161 greenhouses involved.
The site continued as glasshouses into the 1920s before it was finally built over.