It was brought to my attention via the Upper Holloway I’m in Yr Area thread on ILx (back and proud) that Foxtons Estate Agent don’t like to talk about Holloway, and instead appear to want to talk about Hillmarton Conservation Area. Now I have lived in this area for ten years and have never heard the name Hilmarton Conservation Area. Indeed as someone who is occasionally interested in local history it surprised me that such a run down part of London was in an active conservation area, and that i had never heard of ot. Not just me it appears, Nicky Leaper too as quoted in this Independent Article (property puff-piece):
A native north-Londoner who had been living nearby, Nicky Leaper was unaware of the conservation area until she started flathunting: “I had been renting in Tufnell Park and wanted a flat in a similar area as near to central London as I could afford. I’d never heard of the Hillmarton Conservation Area, and only learned about it from the estate agent.”
Hmm. Only learned about it from the estate agent. Still Conservation Areas are usually set up by government or councils, and will have some quango or authority overseeing the conservation right? So to Google:
Hilmarton Conservation Area
Solely estate agent links. Indeed nothing at all which suggests there is any strategic thinking about conservation. Which considering the amount of stuff knocked down in the area recently to build four hundred odd new properties seems to belie much of the point of conservation. Do you really think that Estate Agents would be so duplicitous to invent a part of London. Are they afraid of the word Holloway (it was Victorian slang for a ladies nethers but that no longer has much currency except round my house). Perhaps it is the prison that puts people off (a small, one bed studio in Holloway is an adequate way of describing much new build as well as Myra Hindley’s old cell). If so could they not have though of a better name than Hilmarton (a minor road). Since the area fits between the men’s prison of Pentonville and the women’s in Holloway couldn’t they call it Convict’s Sexual Tension Triangle? That would raise the prices no end.