White Hart Lane, Haringey
A thoroughfare winding between the High Roads of Tottenham and Wood Green, best known as the (nearby) home of Tottenham Hotspur, the Premier League football club
An artist’s impression of the NDP stadium, seen from Tottenham High Road
The White Hart was a public house at 750 Tottenham High Road, belonging to Charrington’s brewery. In the 1890s its landlord set up a nursery on the fertile soil behind the inn, but within a few years the newly professional Tottenham Hotspur FC sought to move here from their previous home at Northumberland Park. Originally Hotspur FC, and formed from an older cricket club in 1882, the club became Tottenham Hotspur two years later. Most of the founders were old boys of St John’s Presbyterian school and Tottenham grammar school. In the days before the stadium became all seated (in 1994) the ground witnessed some huge attendances – most notably in the 1948-9 season, when the record gate of 75,038 was achieved for a match against Sunderland. The ground’s capacity is currently 36,214.
The club presently proposes to rebuild its stadium, in a scheme that’s codenamed the Northumberland Development Project because the site borders the avenue called Northumberland Park, which in turn is so called from the former ownership of the land thereabouts by the dukes of Northumberland. The (deliberately) cumbersome and forgettable project name will later be dropped when a corporate sponsor comes up with an acceptable offer for the new stadium’s naming rights. That’s assuming the project is now going to proceed, following what seems have been the end of the club’s regrettable attempt to outflank West Ham United’s bid to take over the Olympic stadium (or at least its site, as Spurs had a total rebuild in mind) after the 2012 games.
White Hart Lane was also the name given to the one of the first out-of-town cottage estates built by the London County Council, although much of this housing actually lies closer to Lordship Lane. Begun in 1904, the estate was extended north of Risley Avenue after the First World War.
At the last census, 44 per cent of homes in the ward of White Hart Lane were rented from the council, a very high figure. 12 per cent did not have central heating. Only 44 per cent of 16- to 74-year-olds were employed.
