We’re on The Suffragette line
All Overground lines will be renamed this autumn and our local one will become the Suffragette Line. This useful transport connection runs for 13 miles between Gospel Oak on the edge of Hampstead Heath and the brand new station at Barking Riverside, by the River Thames, which was opened in July 2022. The station was opened back in 1880 and the original ticket office still exists but is used for other purposes.
Our stop, Harringay Green Lanes Station has step free access and is less than five minutes walk from my teaching practise. Trains usually run approximately every 15 minutes during the daytime.. The newly named Suffragette Line will be shown with double green lines on the train maps.
Harringay Green Lanes Station is not to be confused with nearby Harringay Station which is on the Great Northern Line route and was opened in 1885. This station lies between Hornsey and Finsbury Park, and serves trains on the East Coast Main Line, linking Harringay to places like Alexandra Palace, Highbury and Islington and Moorgate.
The Suffragette Line
The Overground Suffragette Line, was so called in order to celebrate the women of the working-class community in the East End of London, who fought tirelessly for women’s rights during the early 20th Century. In particular, the longest-lived suffragette Annie Huggett lived in Barking and she died at the great age of 103.
It is thanks to women like Annie Huggett that women are now able to vote and to enjoy almost equal status with men in this country (a bit of a way to go there…) So I am delighted that our local train line’s name will be celebrating those pioneering women. The renaming will also make the line more visible on the train maps and make it easier for people to find our corner of Harringay.