Tottenham in 1839
Tottenham is in Edmonton hundred, about 4 miles from Shoreditch church, on the York road. The parish, which is divided into four wards, has an area of 4,680 acres, with a population, in 1831, of 6,937. The main street is formed of good houses irregularly ranged along the road. In this street is a brick cross, erected A.D. 1600, in place of a former wooden one.
The church is on a small eminence a short distance west of the village, and is an ancient building, with a square embattled tower covered with ivy. The font is of great antiquity, and there are many monuments. A new church of considerable size has been built on Tottenham Green, and there are several dissenting meeting-houses.
Bruce Castle (now occupied as a school) is a brick mansion, rebuilt in the latter part of the seventeenth century. A detached brick tower, which covers a deep well, is the only remain of the previous edifice, which was built by the Comptons early in the sixteenth century. The edifice takes its name from a castellated mansion, the residence of Robert Bruce the elder, father of the king of Scotland, of that name, which anciently occupied the site.
The river Lea forms the eastern boundary of the parish. There are extensive flour and oil mills. The living of Tottenham is a vicarage, of the clear yearly value of £978, with a glebe-house. The chapelry attached to the new church is of the clear yearly value of £309, and is in the gift of the vicar.
There were, in 1833, two infant schools, with 85 children ; an endowed free grammar-school with 80 boys ; a ‘blue-coat’ school, with 60 girls, and a ‘green-coat’ school, with 40 ; two Lancasterian schools, with 283 children ; a Catholic school, with 65 children ; and several private day and boarding schools. There were also four Sunday-schools, with about 450 or 460 children. |