Place Name
Part of Fairview New Homes Edition Development, which has been built on the former British Newspaper Library site in Colindale which closed in 2012. The estate features several streets and buildings named after newspapers with Telegraph Avenue, Chronicle Avenue and Guardian Avenue and apartment blocks Gazette Court, Courier Court , Times Court, and Herald Court (no modern tabloids are featured). The Observer is the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper which was first published by WS Bourne on December 4, 1791. The paper was an immediate flop and Bourne found himself heavily in debt. This was only alleviated when the Government agreed to subsidy the paper in return for editorial influence. It also gave away free specimen copies. This continued for a number of years but slowly the paper’s editorial stance began to show an independent streak. The paper was bought and sold a number of times eventually becoming a trust-owned newspaper it the first national newspaper to oppose the government’s 1956 invasion of Suez, a move which cost it many readers. After an unhappy few years in the ownership ion the Lonrho plc which purchased it in 1981 it became part of the Guardian Media Group in June 1993.
