The private improvement rate was made when the main works for the water supply and drainage were approaching completion. This the owner could either pay at once, and in that case was entitled to a reduction, or it could extend over a period not exceeding thirty years. All who were able to pay in one sum did so. Mr. Heath was the first clerk. He served the Board for nineteen years, and was succeeded in 1869 by Mr. Crowne, who still holds the office of Clerk to the Tottenham Urban District Council. When Mr. Crowne first came Tottenham and Wood Green were one parish. In 1888 they were separated, and Wood Green became a separate parish in 1894. Years ago there was so little postal work that only one postman was employed for the two parishes.
“The Three Coneys” was the original name of what is now known as “The Bell and Hare.” Passing by Park-lane there were several good houses—one was called “The Cedars.” The name was given to it on account of two beautiful cedar trees in the garden, which were planted by Queen Elizabeth on one of her visits to Tottenham. The next house has been occupied by a doctor as long as I remember, and the adjoining house, lately called “The Vicarage,” was first used for that purpose when the Rev. J. G. Hale was Vicar of All Hallows; prior to this it was occupied by Capt. Goss, the first commanding officer of the local Volunteers. The title deeds of the next house, occupied by the late Mrs. Mudge, date back as far as the time of Charles I. It has a basement kitchen, with very low ceiling. The steps from the road lead into the sitting-room, and when one has passed through the door there is still a step to be taken to get on the floor; the windows extending below the level of the floor.
In the small house, which came next, James Filsell, the Parish Clerk, lived. He had the care of the parish map; this is now kept in the vestry room at All Hallows.
THE DIAL HOUSE,
which has a sun dial on the side of the house, dated 1691, still stands to speak for itself.
THE BLACK HOUSE
was the peculiar name of a very old house which formerly stood opposite White Hart-lane. It was partly built of brick and partly of stone, with large iron gates before it. This house belonged to a favourite of Henry VIII., named Hynningham, whose family are buried in the church. Henry VIII. frequently came here. In one of the rooms was an inscription, “In this chamber King Henry VIII. hath often lyen.” The remains of this house were in 1631 part of the out-offices of Mr. Gerard Gore, in whose mansion Sir John Coke, Secretary of State, resided during the summer months. The same house was later on occupied by Sir Hugh Smithson, who on the death of his wife’s father became second Earl of Northumberland.
In April, 1889, there was in the “Quarterly Review” an interesting article on the “Annals of the House of Percy,” from which it appears that the Duke and Duchess of Somerset had a large family, of whom six attained maturity. The oldest of these was Algernon, Earl of Hertford. He married the daughter of Henry Thynne, and in 1722, on the death of his mother, he succeeded to her honours, and was summoned to the House of Lords as Baron Percy. He had two children, Elizabeth, born in 1716, and George Lord Beauchamp, born in 1725. When Lady Elizabeth Seymour was twenty-three years old she paid a visit to her cousin, Lady Lowther, at Swillington, and here she met Sir Hugh Smithson, a Baronet of good family and possessing a large estate in Yorkshire. The young people were mutually attracted. Lady Elizabeth received his attentions with pleasure, and wrote to her mother regarding his proposal of marriage that “had it met with my pappa’s approbation, and your’s, I should very willingly have consented to it.” Satisfactory answers having been received to questions as to Sir Hugh’s position, Lord and Lady Hertford gladly consented, but the proud Duke of Somerset did not consider the alliance was good enough for his grand-daughter. However, he at last gave a grudging assent, mainly because the suitor was in the present possession of an ample fortune, and had a good prospect of a future inheritance from an uncle, old Mr. Smithson, of Tottenham High Cross; but he made it plain to Lady Elizabeth that he considered it her duty to stand out for more advantageous terms than had satisfied her father and mother, for he said, “You are descended by many generations from the most antient familys in England, and it is you that doth add antient blood to Sir Hugh Smithson’s family; he adds no such antient blood to your family.” But the old uncle absolutely declined to be tied up by any legal process, saying “It was true, he was no Duke, nor boasted of any such great alliance, but in point of honourable dealing he would yield to no man.” The Duke being at last satisfied, the marriage was solemnized on the 18th July, 1740. The happy pair did not lose much time before they paid a visit of state to the kind uncle who had paved the way to happiness for them, she in a silver stuff of four pounds a yard, and Sir Hugh in a lead colour and silver stuff embroidered with silver. For four years life ran smoothly for them, and then suddenly, in the autumn of 1744, young Lord Beauchamp died of small-pox at Bologna, and Lady Elizabeth Smithson became sole heiress of the honours which her father had inherited from his mother, the last of the Percys. The Duke of Somerset was furious at the extinction of all hope of the direct continuance of his honours. He had always hated his daughter-in-law, Lady Hertford, and he now included his son in that hatred, to whom, as Horace Walpole said, “he wrote the most shocking letter imaginable,” telling him that it is a judgment upon him for all his undutifulness, and that he must always look upon himself as the cause of his son’s death.
The old Duke petitioned the King to confer upon him the Earldom of Northumberland, with remainder, after his son’s death, to his grandson Sir Charles Wyndham, and so to exclude Lady Elizabeth, the rightful heiress. In this project he was not successful, and in due time Lady Elizabeth’s husband became Duke of Northumberland, assuming the surname of Percy. Their married life was a very happy one; he was devoted to her, and she returned the devotion, calling him “my dearest angel” and “joy of my soul.” The house in which they lived in Tottenham was taken down and a row of houses erected, called “Northumberland Row,” the middle one being named “Percy House.” In some of these houses is some very curious carved work. Part of the old house and part of the garden wall still remains next the road.
Passing Northumberland Park there are still some old houses to be seen before arriving at Union Court, which is on the boundary of Tottenham and Edmonton.