POET Coventry Patmore has been honoured with a blue plaque outside his former home in Fortis Green where he lived between 1858 and 1860.

The nineteenth century poet is best known for his work The Angel in the House, first published in 1854, which offers his take on the secret to a happy marriage — the woman playing a submissive, supporting role to her husband.

In later years, the poem was condemned by feminist writers including Virginia Woolf, although it had proved popular within Victorian society at the time for its celebration of the love between a man and his wife.

It was this sentiment that also led the poem to be embraced by members of the Catholic faith.

Resident Sue Vosper moved into Patmore's former house in 1985 where she has lived ever since.

The listed building would have been the birth home of two of his six children in 1858 and 1860, respectively, as noted on their birth certificates.

It would have also been the place where he wrote the second part of The Angel in the House entitled Faithful For Ever, published in 1860.

Ms Vosper said: "It's very interesting to live in a home with such a history.

"I'm afraid my husband couldn't have picked a wife more different than the angel in the house. I'm an atheist, a feminist and the rest. I am still a fan of Patmore's work. His poetry was brilliant and so sophisticated.

"But the more I learn about him, the more I fall in love with his first wife. She truly seemed like a wonderful person. Even on her death bed she gave him her wedding band and urged him to remarry so there would be someone to look after her children."

Patmore (1823 - 1896) was also involved with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood alongside contemporaries including William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

His Fortis Green home would have been the venue for many dinner parties where the elite of English poetry would have gathered, Ms Vosper said.

And the house was his base as he travelled to and from his job at the British Museum library in central London.

The family moved out after Patmore's wife, Emily, fell sick. She died shortly after in 1862. Patmore later converted to Catholicism and remarried twice fathering his last child with his third wife.

Patricia O'Connor, chairman of the Pre-Raphaelite Society, Haringey mayor Councillor Bernice Vanier and history enthusiast John Hajdu attended the unveiling of the plaque last Thursday.

It is the seventh in the borough to be erected under the scheme spearheaded by Mr Hajdu, chairman of the Muswell Hill and Fortis Green Residents Association, and funded by Haringey Council.

The list of notable residents to be celebrated includes crystallographer William Barlow, South African Oliver Tambo, former president of the African National Congress (ANC) who both lived in Muswell Hill.

The pair was closely followed by developer W J Collins, illustrator William Heath Robinson, philanthropist Priscilla Wakefield, of Tottenham, and Victorian naturalist William Tegetmeier who lived in St James Lane, Lane Muswell Hill.

Author Charlotte Ridell, of Green Lanes, Harringay, and writer, editor and photographer George Shadbolt, of Crouch Hill, are the next former residents of national or local significance to be honoured.