Tottenham Town Hall is a municipal building in Town Hall Approach Road, Tottenham, London. It is a Grade II listed building.[1]
| Tottenham Town Hall | |
|---|---|
 Tottenham Town Hall | |
| Location | Town Hall Approach Road, Tottenham |
| Coordinates | 51°35′14″N 0°04′21″W / 51.5873°N 0.0724°W |
| Built | 1905 |
| Architect | Arnold Taylor and Rutherford Jemmett |
| Architectural style(s) | Baroque style |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
| Designated | 9 August 1988 |
| Reference no. | 1249634 |
  Shown in Haringey | |
History
editIn the 19th century the local board of health met at Bruce Castle.[2] After the area became an urban district in 1895, civic leaders decided to procure purpose-built municipal offices: the site they selected for the new building had previously been occupied by four large residential properties: Eaton House, Wilton House, The Ferns and Hatfield House.[2] They decided that the new municipal offices would be flanked by a fire station to the south and swimming baths to the north both to be built in the same architectural style and at the same time as the municipal offices.[2] A school, to be built to the north of the swimming baths, was added to the scheme a few years later.[3]
The foundation stone for the new facility was laid on 6 October 1904.[2] The building was designed by Arnold Taylor and Rutherford Jemmett in the Baroque style; it was officially opened by the Chairman of the Council, T H Camp, on 2 November 1905.[1] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto Town Hall Approach Road; the central section of five bays featured a doorway with a stone surround flanked by Tuscan order pilasters on the ground floor; there were tall rounded-headed windows with Gibbs surround arches flanked with Ionic order columns in the centre and Ionic order pilasters beyond on the first floor; there was a cupola with a clock at roof level.[1] The principal room was the council chamber on the first floor.[1]
The building became the headquarters of the Municipal Borough of Tottenham as "Tottenham Town Hall" when the area secured municipal borough status in 1934.[4] In May 1962, after Tottenham Hotspur won the first FA Cup against Burnley, a victory reception was held at the town hall and Jimmy Greaves held the FA Cup trophy aloft from town hall balcony.[5]
The town hall ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged London Borough of Haringey was formed in 1965.[6] In the late 1980s a memorial to Cynthia Jarrett, whose death in October 1985 was the catalyst for the Broadwater Farm riot, was erected outside the town hall.[7] The building subsequently deteriorated and was placed on the Buildings at Risk Register.[8] An extensive programme of refurbishment works of the building to the designs of BPTW was completed in December 2010.[8] The works included restoration of the council chamber, which was renamed the Moselle Room after the River Moselle which flows through the area.[9][10] The development also made land available behind the town hall for Newlon Housing Trust to create new affordable homes.[11]
The adjacent swimming baths and the fire station, which both formed part of the original composition, were redeveloped as an arts centre and as a restaurant in 2007[12] and 2015 respectively.[13]
References
edit- ^ a b c d Historic England. "Tottenham Town Hall, Haringey (1249634)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
- ^ a b c d "London's Town Halls". Historic England. p. 105. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
- ^ Baggs, A P; Bolton, Diane K; Scarff, Eileen P; Tyack, G C (1976). "'Tottenham: Local government', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5, Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, Tottenham, ed. T F T Baker and R B Pugh". London: British History Online. pp. 342–345. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ Great Britain Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, Tottenham UD/MB. Retrieved 2008-02-10.
- ^ "Tottenham Hotspur player Jimmy Greaves holds the FA Cup trophy aloft from Tottenham Town Hall to a crowd of fans as they arrive". Alamy. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
- ^ "Local Government Act 1963". Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
- ^ "Monument: Cynthia Jarrett". London Remembers. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ a b "Tottenham Town Hall". BPTW. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
- ^ "The Civic Plunge Revisited" (PDF). Twentieth Century Society. 24 March 2012. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
- ^ "Forget France - London Has Its Own River Moselle". The Londonist. 6 July 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
- ^ "Hall of fame: landmark Tottenham Town Hall starts new page in its history". Tottenham Independent. 10 December 2009. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ "Bernie Grant Arts Centre". AJ Buildings Library. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ "Planning Committee: Old Fire Station, Town Hall Approach Road". London Borough of Haringay. 23 July 2015. Retrieved 20 September 2020.