Why is the Apex Corner roundabout called Apex Corner?

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Northway Circus is the notoriously busy roundabout in north London that you’ve got by no means heard of since you’ll realize it by its nickname, Apex Nook.

However why is Northway Circus higher often known as Apex Nook?

Fairly a couple of companies round it use the Apex identify, however they’re all named after the roundabout, not the opposite approach round. There’s nothing regionally known as Apex, and outdated maps present the realm as Gibbs Inexperienced, so there’s nothing to clarify how Northway Circus gained its nickname.

It’s all all the way down to a chap named John Mortimer Drysdale, who was born in 1886 and, when known as up throughout WWI, joined the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) – the precursor of the Royal Air Drive – rising to the rank of Main.

He was awarded the OBE in June 1918 for “providers with the British Expeditionary Drive in France”.

After the warfare, he stayed within the RAF, however as soon as he left army service, having evidently gained a style for the mechanical world and having some inheritance from the household, he regarded to arrange a automobile service station someplace round his residence in Golders Inexperienced.

That brings us to the newish Northway Circus, which had been constructed with outlets and housing round it.

Recognizing the enterprise alternative, John Drysdale secured an empty nook plot subsequent to the roundabout for a service station. It’s not solely clear whether or not he took over Daws Storage, which had been arrange simply down the street in 1924 and moved it to the brand new location, or whether or not they merged. Anyway, a brand new storage was constructed subsequent to the roundabout in 1931.

He known as it the Apex Storage & Filling Station – on this case, Apex means peak, as in one of the best regionally.

For motorists, unsurprisingly, in an space with little else of observe for motorists, the service station was the landmark they regarded for, so the street junction/roundabout rapidly turned much better often known as Apex Nook.

The nickname caught on rapidly — the earliest written reference I can discover is in The Instances on eighth April 1936 and likewise in native information from August 1936 — when the nonetheless empty plot of land subsequent to the storage was offered for improvement as housing.

You’ll be able to see the storage because the low flat constructing subsequent to the unique roundabout on this 1952 picture.

The storage was most likely rebuilt within the Nineteen Sixties when the roundabout was massively enlarged to its present dimension, and the sunken pedestrian underpass was added. Frustratingly, each picture I’ve discovered of the roundabout’s rebuilding – and there are lots of them – appears to have been taken from the storage roof, so we will’t see the storage itself.

Which is exceptionally annoying.

Sadly, John died in Barnet in 1970, and that may have been when the household determined to promote up. The final occupant of the positioning was the Esso Mill Hill Petrol Station.

You’ll be able to see the Esso petrol station because the flat roof constructing between the roundabout and the motorway on this picture Google Earth picture from 1999.

The petrol station closed in 2005 or 2006 and was rapidly demolished, leaving an empty plot of land that stood empty for a few years. An try and construct a lodge was blocked, and an preliminary utility for a self-storage constructing was rejected however accepted on enchantment.

So at present, the place there was as soon as the Apex Storage, there’s now The Self Storage Firm, and any vestige of the Drysdale household, who inadvertently gave this a part of London its nickname, has been wiped away.

However for those who ever surprise how Apex Nook obtained its identify, it’s as a result of a former WWI army pilot determined this was a great place for a automobile storage.

This text was revealed on ianVisits

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