Tottenham


Tottenham is a district of North London, England, in the London Borough of Haringey. It is north-north-east of Charing Cross and lies in between Edmonton, Walthamstow, Harringay, Stamford Hill and Wood Green.

History

Toponymy

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. It is not related to Tottenham Court Road in Central London, though the two names share a similar-sounding root.

Early history

There has been a settlement at Tottenham for over a thousand years. It grew up along the old Roman road, Ermine Street, 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 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 and also hunted in Tottenham Wood. A rural Tottenham also featured in Izaak Walton's book The Compleat Angler, published in 1653. The area became noted for its large Quaker population and its schools Tottenham remained a semi-rural and upper middle class area until the 1870s.

Modern era

In late 1870, 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. Two armed robbers, Latvian Jews of Russian extraction, held up the wages clerk of a 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.
During the Second World War Tottenham was one of the many targets of the German air offensive against Britain. Bombs fell in the borough during the first air raid on London on 24 August 1940. The borough also received V-1 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 stuffs for pigs and poultry. 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.
, the scene of rioting in 1985

Riots

Parliament

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.

Local government

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. In 1894, Tottenham was reconstituted first as an urban district then as a municipal borough in 1934. 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.

Geography

Sub-districts

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. 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.
A claim made by MP David Lammy in 2011, indicated that at that time Tottenham had the highest unemployment rate in London and the eighth highest in the United Kingdom, and it had some of the highest poverty rates within the country.

Ethnic composition

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 Colombians, Congolese, Albanian, Kurdish, Turkish and Greek-Cypriot, Turkish, Greeks, Somali, Irish, Portuguese, Polish, Vietnamese, Filipinos and Zimbabweans populations. The Seven Sisters ward has the largest proportion of Jewish residents among Haringey wards, at 18.1%.
There have been major tensions between the African-Caribbean community and the police since 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:
Tottenham has been one of the main hotspots for gangs and gun crime in the United Kingdom during the past three decades. This followed the rise of gangs and drug wars throughout the area, notably those involving the Tottenham Mandem gang and various gangs from Hackney and all of the areas surrounding Tottenham, and the emergence of an organised crime ring known as the Turkish mafia was said to have controlled more than 90% of the UK's heroin market.
In 1999, Tottenham was identified as one of the yardies' strongholds in London, along with Hackney, Harlesden, Peckham and Brixton.

Landmarks

dominate the western part of Tottenham

London Underground

The Victoria line passes through Tottenham, calling at Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale. This connects Tottenham directly to Walthamstow, the West End and Brixton.
The line has its operating depot in the area at Northumberland Park.

National Rail

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:
Greater Anglia trains also operate a limited service to Seven Sisters.
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:
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.

Buses

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

Cycling

The area is connected to both London and National cycle networks, with provisions for recreational and commuter cycling across Tottenham.
The River Lea towpath is a shared-use path maintained by the Canal and River Trust.
Cycling infrastructure in maintained primarily by Transport for London and the London Borough of Haringey.

Sport

Tottenham is the home of Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspur. From 1899 until 2017, the club's home ground was White Hart Lane. In 2017, White Hart Lane ground closed and demolition commenced to make way for a new stadium on the same site, known as the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, as part of a wider project for the redevelopment of the area. The new stadium was due to open in September 2018, but was delayed until later in the 2018-19 season. The stadium was opened on 3 April 2019. For the 2017-18 season and most of the 2018-19 season, the club played their home games at Wembley.
Tottenham also has two non-League football clubs, Haringey Borough F.C. who currently play at Coles Park Stadium and Park View who play at the White Hart Lane Community Sports Centre.

Namesakes

Tottenham cake is a sponge cake baked in large metal trays, covered either in pink icing or jam. Tottenham cake "was originally sold by the baker Henry Chalkley from 1901, who was a Friend, at the price of one old penny, with smaller mis-shaped pieces sold for half an old penny." The pink colouring was derived from mulberries found growing at the Tottenham Friends burial ground. Originally "a peculiar local invention" of north London, the cake is now mass-produced by the Percy Ingle chain of bakers. The cake featured on The Great British Bake Off TV programme broadcast Tuesday 17 September 2013 on BBC2.

Notable residents