The early history is taken from Dave Morris’ History of the Estate, with a few minor additions. If you are local and know more Tower Gardens history, reach out!

• 1901: London County Council (LCC) purchased 225 acres of farmland in north-west Tottenham for £90,225.
• 1903: First houses built on the estate, starting with two blocks between Teynton Terrace and Wateville Road.
• 1903: Donation of £10,000 was offered by Sir Samuel Montagu. The grant was to support the rehousing of working-class residents of Whitechapel ‘without distinction of race or creed’. The subsidy enabled provision of a public garden, named Tower Gardens.

1910s

• 1911: All blocks within the grid were complete. Local allotment sites laid out.
• 1912: Risley Avenue School opened to serve the expanding population.
• 1914: First wave of 963 homes completed. The rents are fairly expensive for many who had hoped to move to the estate, and tend to be occupied by working class artisans and the ‘working poor’.
• 1914: Residents send delegation to the LCC to demand a public hall be built on the estate for residents, as originally agreed by the architect in 1911.
• 1914 – 1918: Wartime.
• 1919: White Hart Lane Estate Welfare Association (WHLEWA), based on the Tower Gardens Estate, is formed and organises a wide range of well-supported activities, events, sub-committees etc over the next 20-30 years, including whist drives, dances, sports clubs (including cricket, bowls, netball, tennis, football, cycling and swimming), annual sports days, ‘mums and dads’ days in August, flower competitions/garden club and a savings/loan club. A monthly Newsletter (delivered by street reps to all homes) is produced up to the 1950s.

1920s

• Residents continue to campaign unsuccessfully for their own meeting hall, and to be able to meet in the council run estate office (which the Council refuse).
• Fireworks and bonfires are organised annually in many streets on Nov 5th (at least up to 1945 when the LCC set up ‘anti-bonfire patrols’).
• Another long-running tradition (which may have continued up till the ‘80s) is by neighbours commemorating a local death by making financial collections, and laying wreaths on the pavement outside the home of the deceased.
• 1924: Topham Square flats completed. New, poorer residents begin to arrive, via LCC waiting lists, in the 1920s and ‘30s from demolished areas of central London.
• 1929: After 10 years of proudly holding their own garden competitions, the Garden Club is invited by the LCC to take part in an LCC one for local residents. There is controversy when LCC judges produce a disparaging, negative report.

1930s

• The WHLEWA lobbies the LCC for improvements for domestic electric lighting, baths, hot water, rent reductions. All requests refused.
• 1936: 10,000 people attend the public opening of Lordship Recreation Ground, opposite the estate.
• 1937: Street parties held throughout the estate on the date of the royal ‘silver jubilee’ and the coronation.
• 1938: the Loan Club has 800 members it removes £18,000 from their bank for a Christmas payout.
• 1939 – 1945: Wartime. Bomb dropped on The Roundway, killing at least one resident. Street parties held throughout the estate at the end of the war to celebrate peace.

1940s

• Local Garden Club and Loan Club continue to flourish. Many ‘better off’ residents move out to the new suburbs in the ‘30s and ‘40s.
• Residents take over the Waltheof Club (which had been a private building) for a community centre.

1950s

• 1952: Large and lively sports days organised in 1952 and ‘53 in the Tower Gardens park by the WHLE Residents Association (Note name change).
• The Garden Club and Loan club continue to be very active. But the WHLERA newsletter ceases.
• 1959: The Morris House surgery opens one of the first purpose built health clinics in the country.

1960s

• The WHLERA has a brief revival and successfully lobbies Tottenham Council for safety barriers in Tower Gardens, repairs to local roads and improvements to school toilets and playgrounds.

1970s

• 1978: The pre-1915 parts of the estate (the southern areas i.e. most of the homes) are designated a Conservation Area.
• Haringey Council take over the management of the estate (from the GLC).

1980s

• 1980: New ‘Right to Buy’ laws lead to increasing percentage of private ownership of local homes. In 1981 Haringey Council bring in Design Guidelines to protect the historic character of the homes in the conservation area.
• Tower Gardens Estate Conservation Committee very active.
• Tower Gardens Residents Association and other residents campaign for the regeneration of the Tower Gardens park, and for a new Playcentre.
• 1985: ‘House and Home’, a BBC programme about the estate, is broadcast.
• 1988-90: 30-40 local residents in ‘short-life’ accommodation campaign, with some success, for full tenancies. They hold local protests and some evictions are resisted. A well-supported residents petition calls for all local empty properties to be brought into use for the homeless.

1990s

• 1990: Waltheof Club members campaign for Roundway crossing.
• A neighbourhood watch group is formed for a couple of years. Playcentre parents group organise summit meeting over safety in the TGs park.
• 1998: Tower Gardens Residents Network (TGRN) formed. Meets at least monthly throughout the next 5 years. Organises a wide range of activities, public meetings and campaigns, and regularly leaflets the estate. Members receive monthly bulletins.
• The Tower Gardeners gardening club formed. Organises trips, new planting on verges around the estate, and campaigns for improvements to the TGs park.

2000s

• 2000: The TGRN and a firm of consultants each separately conduct a successful survey of residents views and concerns – with similar results. They show traffic calming and better facilities (especially for youth) as top priorities.
• 2000: TGRN launch campaign for traffic calming and Home Zone improvements. Estate officially designated as a ‘Home Zone’ development area. Major works programme starts in 2001, and continues until 2005.
• 2001: The association actively helps to launch the Haringey Federation of Residents Associations.
• Regeneration works are done in the Tower Gardens park following a series of public planning meetings involving the Tower Gardeners, TGRN and Haringey Council.
• TGRN continued to be active until the end of Dec 2003 [membership – 212 households], but declines during 2004. A new Tower Gardens Residents Group (TGRG) is formed a couple of years later.

2010s

• The TGRG continues to lobby for improvements, conservation and good management of the estate, and organises social events and history walks.
• Resident group supports successful campaign to save Lordship Rec, a third of which had been earmarked for potential house building in a future ‘redevelopment’ of Broadwater Farm and adjacent social housing estates.

2020s

• 2024: Friends of the Park plant a new hedge (with 500 saplings!) around the toddler play area in TG park with money from CPRE London, and continue to be active in the park and organise a fun yearly picnic. Trees for Cities organises a tree planting day in Waltheof Gardens.
• 2025: Haringey Council plants new trees around TGs.