Tottenham

Tottenham is believed to have been named after Tota, a farmer, whose hamlet was mentioned in the Domesday Book. 'Tota's hamlet', it is thought, developed into 'Tottenham'. The settlement was recorded in the Domesday Book as Toteham.[5] It is not related to Tottenham Court Road in Central London, though the two names share a similar-sounding root.[6]

Dorset Map of Tottenham, 1619

There has been a settlement at Tottenham for over a thousand years. It grew up along the old Roman road, Ermine Street (some of which is part of the present A10 road), and between High Cross and Tottenham Hale, the present Monument Way.

When the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, about 70 families lived within the area of the manor, mostly labourers working for the Lord of the Manor. A humorous poem entitled the Tournament of Tottenham, written around 1400, describes a mock-battle between peasants vying for the reeve's daughter.

In 1894, Tottenham was made an urban district and on 27 September 1934 it became a municipal borough. As from 1 April 1965, the municipal borough formed part of the London Borough of Haringey together with Hornsey and Wood Green.

The River Lea (or Lee) was the eastern boundary between the Municipal Boroughs of Tottenham and Walthamstow. It is the ancient boundary between Middlesex and Essex and also formed the western boundary of the Viking controlled Danelaw. Today it is the boundary between the London Boroughs of Haringey and Waltham Forest. A major tributary of the Lea, the River Moselle, also crosses the borough from west to east, and often caused serious flooding until it was mostly covered in the 19th century.

From the Tudor period onwards, Tottenham became a popular recreation and leisure destination for wealthy Londoners. Henry VIII is known to have visited Bruce Castle[7] and also hunted in Tottenham Wood. A rural Tottenham also featured in Izaak Walton's book The Compleat Angler, published in 1653.[8] The area became noted for its large Quaker population[9] and its schools (including Rowland Hill[10] at Bruce Castle.[11]) Tottenham remained a semi-rural and upper middle class area until the 1870s.

In late 1870s, the Great Eastern Railway introduced special workman's trains and fares on its newly opened Enfield and Walthamstow branch lines. Tottenham's low-lying fields and market gardens were then rapidly transformed into cheap housing for the lower middle and working classes, who were able to commute cheaply to inner London. The workman's fare policy stimulated the relatively early development of the area into a London suburb.

An incident occurred on 23 January 1909, which was at the time known as the Tottenham Outrage.[12] Two armed robbers, Latvian Jews of Russian extraction, held up the wages clerk of rubber works in Chesnut Road. They made their getaway via Tottenham Marshes and fled across the Lea. On the opposite bank of the river, they hijacked a Walthamstow Corporation tramcar, hotly pursued by the police on another tram. The hijacked tram was stopped but the robbers continued their flight on foot. After firing their weapons and killing two people, Ralph Joscelyne, aged 10, and PC William Tyler, they were eventually cornered by the police and shot themselves rather than be captured. Fourteen other people were wounded during the chase. The incident later became the subject of a silent film.[13]

During the Second World War Tottenham was one of the many targets of the German air offensive against Britain. Bombs fell in the borough (Elmar Road) during the first air raid on London on 24 August 1940. The borough also received V-1 (four incidents) and V-2 hits, the last of which occurred on 15 March 1945. Wartime shortages led to the creation of Tottenham Pudding, a mixture of household waste food which was converted into feeding stuff for pigs and poultry.[14] The "pudding" was named by Queen Mary on a visit to Tottenham Refuse Works. Production continued into the post-war period, its demise coinciding with the merging of the borough into the new London Borough of Haringey.

Broadwater Farm, the scene of rioting in 1985

• The Broadwater Farm riot occurred around the Broadwater Farm Estate on 6 October 1985 following the death of Cynthia Jarrett. Jarrett was a resident of Tottenham who lived about a mile from the estate, who died of heart failure during a police search of her home. The tension between local black youths and the largely white Metropolitan Police had been high due to a combination of local issues and the aftermath of riots in Brixton which had occurred in the previous week. The response of some of the black community in Tottenham and surrounding areas culminated in a riot beginning on Tottenham High Road and ending in Broadwater Farm Estate. One police officer, Keith Blakelock, was murdered; 58 policemen and 24 other people were injured in the fighting. Two of the policemen were injured by gunshots during the riot, the first time that firearms had been used in that type of confrontation.[15]

The former Bruce Grove Post Office was destroyed during the 2011 Tottenham riots

• The 2011 Tottenham riots were a series of riots precipitated by the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old man in Tottenham, by officers of the Metropolitan Police Service on 4 August 2011.[16][17][18] Attacks were carried out on two police cars, a bus, a Post Office and several local shops from 8:00 pm onwards on 6 August 2011. Riot police vans attended the scene of disturbances on Tottenham High Road. Later in the evening, the riot spread, with an Aldi supermarket and a branch of Allied Carpets also destroyed by fire, and widespread looting in nearby Wood Green shopping centre and the retail park at Tottenham Hale. Several flats above shops on Tottenham High Road collapsed due to the fires. 26 shared ownership flats in the Union Point development above the Carpetright store – built in the landmark Cooperative department store building – were also destroyed by fire. The triggering event was when a group of over one hundred local Tottenham residents set out to undertake a protest march against the killing of Mark Duggan, who was shot by police officers assigned to Operation Trident earlier in the week. The crowd made up of Duggan's family and local community leaders, gathered outside Tottenham police station on 6 August 2011 to protest the failure of the police to provide family members with a formal notice of the killing.[19] The circumstances surrounding Duggan's death were not entirely clear at the time of the riot. On 17 August 2011, the Prince of Wales and his wife Duchess of Cornwall visited an emergency centre to meet victims of the riots.[20]

South Tottenham railway station (November 2005)

• The Northern and Eastern Railway – running from Stratford to Broxbourne – was opened on 15 September 1840 with two stations in the district: Tottenham and Marsh Lane.
• The Tottenham & Hampstead Junction Railway was opened on 21 July 1868. South Tottenham station was opened in 1871. St Ann's Road opened in 1882 but closed after service on 8 August 1942.
• The Stoke Newington & Edmonton Railway – The section between Stoke Newington and Lower Edmonton opened on 22 July 1872 with stations in Tottenham at Stamford Hill (half of the station lies in the borough), Seven Sisters, Bruce Grove and White Hart Lane.
• The Palace Gates Line opened in Tottenham on 1 January 1878 with stations at Seven Sisters and West Green. Passenger services ceased in 1963 with the line finally closing on 7 February 1965.
• The Tottenham & Forest Gate Railway opened on 9 July 1894.
• The first section of the London Underground's Victoria line opened on 1 September 1968.

Tottenham is the biggest part of the parliamentary constituency of Tottenham. The constituency was created in 1885 when the first MP was Joseph Howard of the Conservative Party. The boundaries were redrawn in 1918, and Tottenham was divided into two separate constituencies: Tottenham North and Tottenham South. Since being reinstated in 1950, it has been predominantly represented by MPs from the Labour Party, with the exception of Alan Brown who defected to the Conservatives due to disagreement with the Labour Party's defence policy at the time. The current MP is David Lammy who won a by-election in 2000 following the death of Bernie Grant.

Tottenham was at the centre of a local administrative area from the medieval period until 1965. The administrative area developed from a parish in Middlesex into an Urban sanitary district in 1875, after a local board of health had been established in 1850. It was then divided in 1888 and Wood Green became a separate authority.[21] In 1894, Tottenham was reconstituted first as an urban district then as a municipal borough in 1934.[22] Under the Local Government Act 1963, it became part of the larger London Borough of Haringey. The Tottenham neighbourhood is now one of twenty neighbourhoods in Haringey.

Because of Tottenham's long history as borough, the Tottenham name is used by some to this day to describe the whole of the area formerly covered by the old borough, incorporating the N17 postcode area and part of N15.[23] However, there are differing views as to what constitutes the Tottenham neighbourhood in the present day. Many think of Tottenham today as most of the area covered by the N17 post code, sometimes using the phrase 'Tottenham Proper' to describe it and to distinguish it from the other parts of the old borough.[24]

• North: This area stretches along Tottenham High Road from the Edmonton border in the north to Lordship Lane in the south: districts include Little Russia and Northumberland Park.
• Central: Continuing along the high road, the central area includes Bruce Grove, Tottenham Green and Tottenham Hale wards, as well as Tottenham Hale station and retail park.
• West: To the west of the area are Broadwater Farm and the Tower Gardens Estate.
• South: Further along the A10 road until St Ann's Road, including South Tottenham and Seven Sisters.

• Edmonton
• Harringay
• Noel Park
• Palmers Green
• St Ann's
• Tottenham Hale
• Walthamstow
• West Green
• Wood Green

Tottenham has a multicultural population, with many ethnic groups inhabiting the area. It contains one of the largest and most significant populations of Afro-Caribbean people. These were among the earliest groups of immigrants to settle in the area, starting from the UK's Windrush era. Soon afterwards, West African communities – notably the many Ghanaians – began to move into the area. Between 1980 and the present day, there has been a slow immigration of Colombian, Congolese, Albanian, Kurdish, Turkish and Greek-Cypriot, Turkish, Greek, Somali, Irish, Portuguese, Polish, Vietnamese, Filipino and Zimbabwean populations. The Seven Sisters ward has the largest proportion of Jewish residents among Haringey wards, at 18.1%.[26]

There have been major tensions between the African-Caribbean community and the police since (and before) the 1985 Broadwater Farm riot.

In the 2011 UK Census, the ethnic composition of the Tottenham constituency, of which Tottenham is a large part, was as follows:[27]

• 27.7% Other White
• 26.7% Black
• 22.3% White British
• 10.7% Asian
• 12.6% Other/Mixed

The Victoria line passes through Tottenham, calling at Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale. This connects Tottenham directly to Walthamstow, the West End and Brixton.[33]

The line has its operating depot in the area at Northumberland Park.[33]

There are several railway stations in the area, served by London Overground, Greater Anglia and Stansted Express trains.

The Lea Valley lines link Tottenham to Enfield Town, Cheshunt, Hackney Downs and Liverpool Street in the City of London. London Overground trains call at:

• Seven Sisters
• Bruce Grove
• White Hart Lane

Greater Anglia trains also operate a limited service to Seven Sisters.[34]

The West Anglia Main Line links the area to Liverpool Street and Stratford in the East End. Northbound, Greater Anglia trains link Tottenham to destinations across East Anglia, including Hertford East, Bishop's Stortford and Cambridge. In Tottenham, Greater Anglia trains call at:

• Tottenham Hale
• Northumberland Park

Stansted Express services also call at Tottenham Hale, linking the area to London Stansted Airport.

South Tottenham is on the Gospel Oak to Barking Line, on the London Overground network.[34][35]

Tottenham is well served by many bus routes. They include Routes 41, 76, 123, 149, 192, 230, 243, 259, 279, 318, 341, 349, 476 and W4[36]

The area is connected to both London and National cycle networks, with provisions for recreational and commuter cycling across Tottenham.

• National Cycle Route 1 (NCR 1) - through Tottenham, NCR 1 runs along a north–south axis, following the River Lea towpath. To the south, NCR 1 passes through Hackney Marshes and Victoria Park. The route terminates in Dover, Kent. To the north, NCR 1 follows the towpath through Enfield Lock towards Roydon, Essex. The route terminates in the Shetland Islands, Scotland.[37][38]
• Cycle Superhighway 1 (CS1) - CS1 begins in Tottenham, on the High Road near the Tottenham Hotspur stadium. CS1 runs north–south on residential or quiet roads from Tottenham, through Dalston to the City of London. Some of the route runs on segregated cycle track between Seven Sisters and South Tottenham railway stations.[39]
• Quietway 2 (Q2) - Q2 skirts around Tottenham's south-eastern edge. Running on towpaths, quiet roads and residential streets, Q2 runs unbroken from Russell Square to Walthamstow.[40]
• EuroVelo 2 (The Capitals Route) - EuroVelo 2 (EV2) is a long-distance, international cycle route running from Moscow, Russia to Galway, Ireland. The route follows the course of NCR 1 through Tottenham.[41]

The River Lea towpath is a shared-use path maintained by the Canal and River Trust.[42]

Cycling infrastructure in maintained primarily by Transport for London (TfL) and the London Borough of Haringey.