Moselle River - Tower Gardens

Moselle River
The Moselle flows south and then turns east.

Post to the west Wood Green
Post to the east Tottenham
Post to the north White Hart Lane

Awlfield Avenue
The housing is copying the style of Hampstead Garden Suburb, the road name is a 17th field name
Butterfly layout of the junction with Risley Avenue is very characteristic of the Garden City approach

Boreham Road
Empress Works. This is at the back of no 1 and in the 1930s was the Empire Garage which was a purpose built private bus garage for the Empress Bus Co. This was taken over by the London General Omnibus Co. and was used as a body shop by them. It is still called Empress Works and is a clothing workshop.

Boundary Road
The Moselle runs along the east side of the road in a culvert

De Quincy Road
Built 1914-15 on the White Hart Lane estate

Downhills Way
The Moselle passes under the road
St.Benet Fink. The original church was in the City and is first mentioned in 1216. It was a church dedicated to St Benedict rebuilt with a gift from a Robert Finke. In 1904 a mission to the Tottenham district was established by Rev Harold Van Cooten and a Tin Tabernacle opened in Granger Road in 1905. The current church was built 1911with the assets of the original St Benet Fink. It is in red brick and has a small spire with a single bell. It was designed by J. Alder.  The organ is in a mahogany case made in 1784 by Samuel Green and comes from the City church of St Peter le Poer.
Vicarage by J Alder in red brick.

Freedom Road
Road on the edge of Broadwater Farm Estate, offering sports facilities and interactions with Lordship Lane Park

Gospatrick Road
On the Tower Gardens Estate, this was originally the White Hart Lane Estate. This was built in two principal phases, the first 1899- 1914; the second, this road in the late 1930s. It was one of the world’s first garden suburbs.

Heningham Road
George Heningham was a Tudor gentleman who lived in the Black House in Lordship Lane and who funded an almshouse
The road is on the Tower Gardens Estate, this was originally the White Hart Lane Estate. This was built in two principal phases, the first 1899- 1914; the second, this road in the late 1930s

Lordship Lane
In the 17th this was called Berry Lane
The Moselle flows eastwards parallel to Lordship Lane to the corner of Westbury Avenue where its path is indicated by the wide pavement. The stream was open here until about 1900. Its crossing point is marked by a low brick wall.
Lordship Lane Junior School. Built in 1905 on the land of Graingers farm. The school had been previously in Gladstone Avenue
Westbury Medical Centre on the site of Graingers farm house
Poachers Pub. This was Wetherspoons Moon under Water. Had an inn sign of George Orwell.
Purpose built used car showroom on the corner of Downhills Way. Built for a dealer specialising in performance cars said to have gone out of business due to prosecution for clocking. This is a totally amazing building and easily the best thing in the area – it has two enormous cones on the roof.  Edith has been admiring it for years.
The New Moon pub
Public toilets, tiny half timbered building.
Tottenham Lido.  The Lido opened in 1937 to replace the existing open-air pool, which on Tottenham marshes. It was heated, had 96 changing cubicles for each sex and 500 lockers. There was a clock tower that could be seen from park. It was closed for the winter. In the winter closure in 1984, it was damaged by a squatter group was closed and demolished for housing
Lido estate. Housing on the lido site
Broadwater Farm. The Lido was on the site of Broadwater Farm. It was a farm until 1916. It had been built in 1798 but later extended.

Lordship Lane Park
Recreation Ground 1932.  This was the previous area of Broadwaters farm and of the Downhill’s estate. In the 17th the area was Downhills, Broad Waters and Lordsmeade. South of this stream was Downhills, which does not stretch as far south as the present day Downhills Park.  The ground was opened in 1936 purchased by Tottenham Council in 1926 from the Townsend Trustees
Anti-aircraft gun emplacements and searchlights in the Second World War,
Two public air raid shelters constructed within the park. One at the main gate in Lordship lane and the other at the Downhills Park Road entrance. These were large reinforced concrete shelters built underground. The Downhills Park Road entrance shelter was hit by a bomb in 1940 and 41 people killed and 100 injured. This was not reported and there is as yet no memorial.
Model Traffic Area. Opened in 1938 and was the first of its kind in England to help children develop knowledge of road safety. It was filmed as an early BBC TV pre-war. In 1992 it was restores
The Moselle flows through the park west to east in a straight line surrounded by trees. In the middle ages it was known as the Slype.
Lake – the rectangular lake can be seen on plans of the Downhills Estate from the late 18th. From the 1930s it was used as a boating pool and remains today but one of the two islands has now gone.  It has sometimes been known as a homestead moat.
Shell Open Air theatre

Morteyne Road
Built 1914-15 on the White Hart Lane estate

Risley Avenue
The housing and its layout was influenced by Hampstead Garden Suburb. The road is a dividing line between the two sections of the white hart lane estate. The area to the south was designed by W. E. Riley as a rectangular grid of terraces in an Arts and Crafts style. North of Risley Avenue houses were designed by G. Topham Forrest after 1918, and influenced by Belgian trends. It is less dense, incorporated allotments and is organized around the central axis, of Waltheof Gardens, with tennis courts and a community centre.
Tower Gardens Park

Somerset Close
Housing on the site of Rowland Hill School
The Roundway
This major road reduces here to a two way road from a dual carriageway. Dates from the 1930s and is a postal district boundary

Topham Square
Developed in 1924 to house families coming from poor housing in Shoreditch.

Waltheof Avenue
Named for Waltheof who was an Earl of Northumbria
20a Haven Day Centre

Westbury Avenue
The Moselle arrives at the juctyion of the road with Lordship lane. If then turns south in a wide loop. Its route can be seen in an alleyway running from the corner of the road to Downhills way close to Sandringham Road.

White Hart Lane Estate
Now called Tower Gardens Estate. This early London County Council cottage estate was laid out from 1911. It is outside the London County Council boundary but walking distance to a Great Eastern Railway station and the trams. It has grid pattern streets but there was an attempt to do away with tedium in the layout. When ‘moderates’ took over the London County Council they wanted to sell the estate off. This didn’t happen but the northern part was sold and the rest developed as a garden suburb with a brief to copy Hampstead Garden Suburb.  Public open space was made possible by donations from Sir Samuel Montague,  given because of links to Jewish people from the east end. The estate was extended after the Second World War.

Sources

Dictionary sensagent web site
Friends of Lordship recreation ground web site
GLC Home Sweet Home
London  Journal 12/1
Pevsner and Cherry.  London North
Pinching and Dell, Haringey’s Hidden Streams
Protz. Tottenham. A history
Stevenson. Middlesex

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