Tower Gardens, Tottenham

By the end of  nineteenth century Tottenham had become a village suburb of London, still surrounded by fields, but connected to London by railway and tramline. Today, Tottenham forms part of the Borough of Haringey and is thus a part of the Greater London Metropolitan Area. Originally known as the White Hart Lane Estate, the Tower Gardens Estate links the north part of Tottenham with Wood Green. Development started in 1901, when the London County Council, bought some 225 a. of farm-land with the intention of housing over forty thousand people.

The London County Council (LCC) was established in 1889 with the creation of the County of London as part of the general introduction of elected county government in England, by way of the Local Government Act 1888. The local authority for the county was the LCC. In 1900 the lower-tier civil parishes and district boards were replaced with 28 new metropolitan boroughs. In 1965, the London Government Act 1963 replaced the county with the much larger Greater London administrative area. The old County of London is now known as Inner Londen. The LCC proposed to build housing as a result of the 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act, that gave local authorities new powers to create homes on the outskirts of the city to relieve overcrowding in the inner city areas. The LCC sought land within (Tooting) and outside of the county in Acton, Tottenham (both in Middlesex), Croydon (in Surrey) and Barking (in Essex).

The Tower Gardens Estate occupies a special place in history as one of the world’s first municipal garden suburbs. The area had hitherto belonged to the Awfield Farm, part of the Tottenhall Estate (now Bruce Castle). The £10,000 needed to purchase land was donated by Samuel Montagu 1832-1911 – First Baron Swaythling and Liberal MP for Whitechapel. The land was then transferred to the LCC with the aim to build quality housing and gardens for working class people currently in overcrowded homes in Tower Hamlets - hence the name Tower Gardens. The development would take the shape of an ‘urban garden estate’ as a suburban alternative to the separate garden city satellites The Garden City Association (founded in 1899) advocated. Immediately to the east the Peabody Donation Fund* completed 154 terraced cottages in 1907.

The Tower gardens Estate with the striking component parts of the ladder type first layout and the semicircular Roundway encompassing it. Outside of the Roundway a proliferation of closes, open garden courts and winding streets can be seen. At the heart of the design is a formal axis that widens to accommodate public gardens (P) - now built over with a day centre and a doctor's surgery - and the Tower Gardens (TG) a small neigbourhood park. In the second and third phase many allotment (A) were incorporated. Both the schools (S), the Church (C) and the Union Hall (U) are situated on the edges of the estate in the 1920s.  Topham Square (T) was built over allotments. Also within the Roundway is the Peabody Gardens Estate (PG). To the west the garden suburb connects to earlier Victorian terraced housing. In purple the shops are indicated. The shops on Great Cambridge Road are part of the estate.

Tower Gardens Estate was built in three principal phases, the first occurring between 1901 and 1915; the second phase spanned the period between 1918 and the latter part of the 1920s. The second phase can be roughly divided in a primary building campaign north-east of the first building phase which included the new northern route (the Great Cambridge Road) and a secondary building phase in which the area beyond the Roundway was developed. Inside the Roundway Topham Square was developed as a special project in 1924 to house families coming from poor housing in Shoreditch. Similar projects are to be found north of White Hart Lane. The third phase spans the 1930s.

The area south of Risley Avenue was designed by W. E. Riley mainly as a rectangular grid of terraced houses with two storeys and constructed with red or yellow London stock brickwork; some of these houses are gabled and faced by slate and ceramic tiling in a style that reflects the Arts and Crafts movement. These houses often have pebbledashed upper floors and have been built on a strict layout of parallel streets. Later sections owe less to the Arts and Crafts movement and become progressively more standardised.

The ‘butterfly’ junction of Risley Avenue and Awlfield Avenue is very characteristic of the Garden City esthetic. So are the set back building lines east of the Tower Gardens park and the elaborate corners on the southside of Tower Gardens Road towards Lordship Lane. Similar architecture has been built around Morteyne Road.

Many of the flats and houses north of Risley Avenue were designed by G. Topham Forrest after 1918, and much influenced by Belgian trends; compared with the earlier layout the housing is less dense, initially incorporated four allotment gardens, and is organized around a central axis, namely Waltheof Gardens, which provided for tennis courts and a community club.

Based on the architecture one can easily discern the various building phases of the Tower Gardens Estate. There is an earlier section (the westernmost side of the street ladder) and a more Unwinesk section west of this, that also incorporates the small park. The area within the Roundway is from a single building campaign, except for the east side and some small infills. Later expansion is outside of the Roundway often in interlinked building campaigns where similar architecture is used. The 1930's architecture in the far north is very different from the earlier buildings.

Later expansion of the estate is located outside of the Roundway and consists of informal streets with closes. The parts from the 1920s include a new section of the Roundway, connecting the semicircle with the main axis of the ladder (Risley Av.) and Lordship Lane around the Peabody Gardens Estate. The parallel Marshall Road is also laid out at the same time. On the other side Courtman Road is built together with a part of Gospatrick Road and Stockton Road. Closes are used for a maximum use of space. Also parts of the earlier fabric are filled in at this time. Along Lordship Lane an urban front to the estate is built with long rows of houses. The housing is expanded west of Gospatrick Road in the late 1920s with the formal arrangement of The Crossway and the area around Reynardson Road.

In the early 1930s the housing is expanded northwards. The neighbourhoud east of the Great Cambridge Road is built. At the same time the area around Fenton Road is completed. Both neighbourhoods have little variation in the buildings and a formal layout.

In the second half of the 1930s the housing is extended even firther north across White Hart Lane. West of the Great Cabridge Road we see a formalised variation of Garden City Style terraces and formal row houses arranged around green courtyards - a combination of the English close and the German Gartenhof. To the east parallel streets perpendicular to the throughroad make up what is in effect an extension of the neughbourhood south of White Hart Lane. In 1936 the Lordship Recreation Ground is opened opposite the estate.

The plan of the Tower gardens Estate reveals a shift in spatial thinking. The oldest part being a variation on the Victorian favourite: the grid. This grid was also used for the second building campaign but the buildings are placed according to the Garden City esthetic and a park is introduced. This phase is a precurser to the next big design idea: the Roundway. Originally semicircular with a central axis and fanning streets. Later through traffic is diverted around the Peabody Gardens Estate with a new road section. New streets are less straight and have closes running of them.This style is used for all new housing outside of the Roundway, with the exception of the Gartenhof-inspired section in the far north which incorporates new ideas from Germany and especially Vienna.

* Peabody Trust, originally named the Peabody Donation Fund, is one of the few so-called Model Dwellings Companies still in existence today. Founded in 1862 by London-based American banker George Peabody, it is one of London's oldest and largest housing associations. Model Dwellings were apartment buildings or housing estates constructed, mostly during the Victorian era, along philanthropic lines to provide decent living accommodation for the working class. As such they were forerunners of modern-day municipal housing and a precursor to the Garden City Movement.