Tottenham

“ This is Stamford Hill, where the rich City indigo and East and West India merchants live. Warm men, all of them. There, ahead of us, on the right, goes the river Lea: as pretty fishing there as you’d find even in the famous trout streams of Hampshire. What a quaint, quiet rural place this is at Tottenham! And Edmonton, with its tea-gardens; why, London might be fifty miles away! ”

“ Every one has heard the horrible story of Ardesolf of Tottenham, who, about forty years since, bring disappointed by a famous game-cock refusing to fight, was incited by his savage passion to roast the animal alive whilst entertaining his friends. ”

“ But would we recreate ourselves with some of the finest specimens of old brick, we must go yet further afield. Let us repair to Tottenham, that is, beyond the town, at the point where the road turns off to Enfield. There the country is charmingly old-fashioned, the air delicious, the route has the look of a coach road, with its great flourishing trees. Here are the fine Anne or Georgian houses, plum-coloured almost, untouched and sound as on the day they were built. The doorways are well carved. ”

“ Mr. Tottenham had ten days to spend with us. He knew the place well; it belonged to the province to whose service he was dedicated, and he claimed with impressive authority the privilege of showing it to Cecily by degrees—the Hall of Audience today, the Jessamine Tower tomorrow, the tomb of Akbar another, and the Deserted City yet another day. ”

“ CHAPTER VI MR. MAITLAND GOES SHOPPING ELDOR STREET, Tottenham, was one of thousands of drab and ugly thoroughfares that make up the central suburbs of London. Imagine two rows of houses set on either side of a straight street, lighted at economic intervals by yellow lamps. Each house has a protuberance, called a bay window; each house is separated from the road by iron railings pierced by an iron gate. There is a tiny forecourt in which the hardiest of shrubs battle desperately for existence ”

“ Amidst a storm of oaths, Coates flung down a crown piece, and the gate was thrown open.
Turpin took advantage of this delay to breathe his mare; and, striking into a by-lane at Duckett's Green, cantered [381] easily along in the direction of Tottenham. Little repose was allowed him. Yelling like a pack of hounds in full cry, his pursuers were again at his heels. He had now to run the gauntlet of the long straggling town of Tottenham, and various were the devices of the populace to entrap him. ”

“ If she had been pleased with Tottenham Court Road, and delighted with the essentially commonplace Oxford Street, she exulted in that alluring curve which will always make Regent Street a fascination for the visitor to London and even a satisfaction to the Londoner himself. ”

“ One day, after a scene with the publisher similar to that which I have described above, I found myself about noon at the bottom of Oxford Street, where it forms a right angle with the road which leads or did lead to Tottenham Court. Happening to cast my eyes around, it suddenly occurred to me that something uncommon was expected; people were standing in groups on the pavement—the upstair windows of the houses were thronged with faces, especially those of women, and many of the shops were partly, and not a few entirely closed. ”

“ TOTTENHAM, or Tottenham High Cross, a suburb of London, in the county of Middlesex, is situated on the old "Great Northern" road, about 41/2 miles north from Shoreditch. The cross at Tottenham is not a market-cross, and its origin is doubtful. ”

“ We have a vision of our own,
Ah! why should we undo it?
On the other side of Tottenham’s spacious Broadway, towards Hornsey, we might still find a remnant of green fields shrinking like the peau de chagrin in Balzac’s romance. A height between this road and the Green Lanes has of late been laid out as a pretty park, overlooking the meadows of the Muswell Brook—mocked with the alias of Moselle—where the London County Council proposes to plant a new town of working men’s dwellings. ”

“ Coming back to the High-road, where the offices of the Gas Company now stand was one of the many ponds for which Tottenham was noted; then a large house called “The Ferns.” My mother well remembered p. 65the mansion which stood next; for many years her father dined there, every other Sunday, with his friend William Salte. This was one of the most conspicuous residences in the parish. In 1730 Philip De La Haize lived there; he was a wealthy London merchant. At his death he bequeated the interest of £100 to the poor of the parish. Mr. ”

“ In the autumn of 1868 I was again in the locality, at Dunmore, on the opposite side of the Waterford Estuary. I went across to see the old place and what alterations Miss Tottenham had forced the proprietors to make in the tapestry chamber. I found that the closet into which the poor lady had always vanished was taken away, the room enlarged, and two additional windows put in: the old tapestry had gone and a billiard-table occupied the site of poor Anne's bed. I took the old housekeeper aside, and asked her to tell me how Miss Tottenham bore these changes in her apartment. ”

“ After his death, ‘his library being sold into Little Britain,’ Lilly, the astrologer, tells us, ‘I bought amongs them my choicest books of astronomy.’ Amidst these studies he found time to publish in 1631 ‘A Survey of Tottenham,’ in which the well-known burlesque poem, the ‘Turnament of Tottenham,’ was first published from a manuscript now in the university library at Cambridge. ”

“ In the succeeding century Tottenham Court Fair and the “Gooseberry Fair” doubtless brought many a customer to the Adam and Eve, and in the spring-time, as Gay expresses it, “Tottenham fields with roving beauty swarm.” The Adam and Eve then possessed a long room, with an organ, and in its spacious gardens in the rear and at the side of the house were fruit-trees and arbours for tea-drinking parties. There were grounds for skittles and Dutch-pins, and in the fore-court which was shadowed by large trees, tables and benches were placed for the visitors. ”

“ This was originally up to the year 1877 a Free Grammar School endowed by Sarah, Dowager Duchess of Somerset, who in 1686 bequeathed the sum of £250 for the enlargement of the school house, and a further sum of £1,100 for the purpose of extending its benefit to all children of such inhabitants of the parish of Tottenham as were not possessed of an estate, either freehold or copyhold, of the annual value of £20. ”

“ There are so many last houses, and they always begin again; so that little romantic mental picture does not exist in plain fact. The ending of London is a gradual and almost insensible process. You may note it when, leaving Stoke Newington's continuous streets behind, you rise Stamford Hill and perceive its detached and semi-detached residences; and, pressing on, see the streets begin again at Tottenham High Cross, continuing to Lower Edmonton. ”

“ At one time the churchyard was sufficient, not only for Tottenham, but for Wood Green as well, and one could wander over the grass and amongst the graves. There were not any very curious epitaphs; one I thought very beautiful was on a stone erected to the memory of a pupil at Bruce Castle. It commenced, “Far from his native home the little Sulliot came.” On another was written, “Charlotte, we shall meet p. 62again.” The stone was erected by a man who lost his wife. ”

“ Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur. To the latter all due credit must be given for winning the Cup, but the "Saints," as they are called, have done equally as good work as the 'Spurs. They were really the pioneers of professional football in the Southern League, and when one considers they were in the final in 1900, and again in 1902, when they were beaten by Sheffield United after a drawn game, it reflects great credit upon them. They do not receive the credit they deserve from their own supporters, and the severance of two of their best local players in 1906 was a severe handicap to the team. ”

“ What a hold the Cup final has on the football public as a spectacle cannot be better illustrated than by a mere mention of the fact that no less than 110,802 persons visited the Crystal Palace in 1901 to see Tottenham Hotspurs, the ultimate winners, and Sheffield United play a drawn game. ”

“ Katharine’s College was built the ground was used for allotment gardens; there is so little alteration in the cottages and houses that follow that no description is needed. Dr. Robinson, who wrote the History of Tottenham, in 1818, lived in the house now known as Trafalgar House. There was a large field opposite, the path through which formed a quick cut to the bend of the lane. On one side was a quick set p. 68hedge, and bank; in about the middle the path widened into what looked like a little room, and here, under the shelter of the hedge, poor old Blind Charlie lived for many years. ”

“ This inn was a favourite resort of Izaak Walton, the famous angler. He often came to Tottenham to enjoy fishing in the River Lea, and rested, as one may read in “The Compleat Angler,” “in the sweet shady arbour which Nature herself has woven with her own fingers; ’tis such a contexture of woodbines, sweet briar, jessamine and myrtle.”
Adjoining were a lot of small, old-fashioned houses; a narrow entrance called High Cross Court, with cottages in the rear. There was a large carriage factory next, with a yard and more cottages, and the builder’s house in the front ”

“ Rosemary-lane has many street-sellers, but in the lane itself and its many yards and blind alleys they find their domiciles. Westward in the metropolis one of the largest street-markets is in Tottenham-court-road; and in the courts between Fitzroy-market and Tottenham-court-road are the rooms of the women vending their street goods. Those occupying the Hampstead-road with their stalls—which is but a continuation of the Tottenham-court-road market—live in the same quarters. ”

“ Of the vast force which had entered England with the other invaders there remained but a handful. These, the Grand Duke Vodkakoff among them, were prisoners in the German lines at Tottenham.
The victory had not been gained bloodlessly. Not a fifth of the German army remained. It is estimated that quite two-thirds of each army must have perished in that last charge of the Germans up the Hampstead heights, which ended in the storming of Jack Straw's Castle and the capture of the Russian general.
Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig lay sleeping in his tent at Tottenham. He was worn out. ”

“ In the reign of Edward the Confessor the manor of Tottenham was possessed by Earl Waltheof. It was inherited by his daughter Maud, who was married first to Simon de St Liz and afterwards to David, son of Malcolm III., king of Scotland, who was created by Henry I. earl of Huntingdon, and received possession of all the lands formerly held by Earl Waltheof. The manor thus descended to William the Lion, king of Scotland, and was granted by him in 1184 to his brother David, earl of Angus and Galloway, the grant being confirmed in 1199 by King John, of England, who created him earl of Huntingdon. ”

“ A short distance further the substantial farmhouse “Broadwaters” occupied by John Phillips, a prominent member of the Society of Friends. This farm was part of the Downhills Estate, and was 220 acres in extent. Some distance further up the lane was a small farm, then an unbroken stretch of fields to the four cross roads. Passing Wood Green Common, where there were several good houses, one came to Tottenham Wood, an estate of 379 acres, the property of Thomas Rhodes, a relative of Cecil Rhodes, of South African fame; when he died it was sold to the Company who built the Alexandra Palace there. ”

“ The son of an architect living in a house that overlooks the Oval, he learned his game at a school at Clacton, and then resided at Chelmsford, where one day a director of the 'Spurs, happening to know that a match was being played in the County Cup Competition, thought he would have a look, and did so. He was struck with the skill of Vivian J. Woodward as a centre forward, and as the result of a chat he was got to play for Tottenham Hotspur. This was some six years ago. He at once made his mark, and no man was ever so loved by professionals. No fairer player ever stepped on to the field. ”

“ But those who wish to be impressed with the social advantages of a fairly-paid class of mechanics should attend a meeting of the Wood-carvers’ Society. On the first floor of a small private house in Tottenham-street, Tottenham-court-road, is, so to speak, the museum of the working-men belonging to this branch of the cabinet-makers. The walls of the back-room are hung round with plaster casts of some of the choicest specimens of the arts, and in the front room the table is strewn with volumes of valuable prints and drawings in connexion with the craft. ”

“ When Mr. Janson’s lease expired the hall was let to the Tottenham Constitutional Club. There used to be four houses next, with gardens in front. These were taken down and the sorting office and the London and Provincial Bank built. When this Bank was first opened the business was p. 53carried on in one of the shops in Commerce-terrace opposite.
Adjoining Bruce Grove House, where Dr. Vos now lives, is the carriage factory, the business of which was for so many years carried on by Messrs. Glover and Sons. One son had a most miraculous escape from death. ”

“ Tottenham Court Road!"
I started. "Of course," I said. "That never struck me. There's the Horse-shoe Hotel, with the sign outside, there's the large toy and fancy shop half-way up, where they have a captive balloon moored to the roof as an advertisement, and there's the tobacco and snuff shop on the left, toward the other end, where they have a life-size wooden Highlander at the door—an uncommon thing, indeed, nowadays." ”