Tottenham

Tottenham and its vicinage are embellished with many handsome mansions and villas, interspersed with gardens, and numerous families of opulence are residents. The village is lighted with gas, and well watered by several fountains produced by boring; a stream, once the river Moselle, passes through the parish, and empties itself into the river Lea.
Pigot’s 1839 Directory

Lordsmeade: home of John Eliot Howard

Tottenham is situated on the Roman Road – Ermine Street  - and it has always been an important route from London to the North and East of England. There were a number of coaching inns on the High Road including the Swan, the Red Lion and the Ship from which coaches ran throughout the day in 1832-1834.  After 1839 omnibuses drove to the City and Oxford Street with the last coach leaving London at 10.20pm.

According to Albert Hill in 72 years in Tottenham - five mail coaches a day used to travel to Cambridge, Louth, Lincoln, York and Edinburgh leaving St Martin's Le Grand in the City at 8pm and passing the Lancasterian Girls school (then the Marlborough Mission) at 8.35pm.

The spacious open area, called Tottenham Green is situated upon a rising ground, a short distance south of the High Cross, a little beyond the fourth mile-stone : it contains about four acres of ground, is skirted by several good residences, and is considered to be one of the most eligible parts of the parish on account of its contiguity to the metropolis; at the farthest extremity from which, towards the north-east comer, stands the Chapel-of-ease to the Mother Church, called Trinity Chapel.
From: The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Tottenham, in the County of Middlesex. William Robinson, 1840