_THE_ HIGHGATE ARCHWAY _FROM THE_ TURNPIKE GATE _AT_ HOLLOWAY. _Published Nov. 9, 1813 by_ James Whittle & Rich^d. Holmes Laurie, _53 Fleet Street, London_. Published, 20th March 1823, by RICH. HOLMES LAURIE 3 Fleet Street, London ] VII It is curious to look upon an old print like that of the Archway road and its toll-gate, reproduced here, and then, with a knowledge of that busy spot, with its thronging omnibuses and tramcars, to compare the old view with the present-day aspect of the place. An Archway Tavern is seen standing at the junction of the roads, but it is quite unlike the flaunting gin-palace of to-day. What, also, has become of the horse and cattle pond in front? The toll-gate, we know, finally disappeared in 1876, but long before then the ascending roadway had been lined with buildings on either side. Only recently the old and ugly archway has been removed, to make way for the new and handsome iron and steel viaduct, which bears the misleading date of 1897, although the structure was not opened until the summer of 1900. It, may be as well to put upon record that it is situated a hundred yards to the north of where the old Archway stood. Of late years, since the government of London has been taken over by the London County Council, the Archway has been more than ever a landmark, showing to where the frontier of London extended, for the London County Council’s boundary ran half-way through the structure, whose northern moiety lay within the territory of the Middlesex Council. [Illustration: THE NEW HIGHGATE ARCHWAY.] The new viaduct, wholly in Middlesex, cost £25,000. Its date, “1897,” prominent in cast iron on the southern approach, together with the fact that the work was not completed until midway through 1900, perpetuates the sinister memory of the great engineering strike in progress during that interval. Five authorities—the London County Council, the Middlesex County Council, the Islington Vestry, Hornsey District Council, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (who are administrators of the Bishop of London’s estates here)—contributed in varying proportions to the cost. They may look with satisfaction at the result: a light and handsome bridge, that, vaulting across the roadway with a clear flight of three times the span of the old arch, renders it possible to widen the road to any conceivable width, against that time which Mother Shipton foresaw, when “England shall be undone and Highgate Hill stand in the middle of London.”