Haringey Uncovered: Tottenham Wood

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The Story of Haringey’s Ancient Woods

AS OLD AS THE TREES The woods in Haringey have been here since people first came to England at the end of the last ice age.

“We’re not just talking about a bit of snow,” says Mike Hocker, from the Friends of Queen’s Wood. “We’re talking about a giant ice sheet that came all the way down to just north of Muswell Hill. About 12,000 years ago, the climate got warmer and the ice began to melt, and the woods have been here throughout most of the last 10,000 years.”

The first people in Haringey hunted animals with sharp flint weapons. We know they were here because flint chips have been found in the woods. It took 4,000 years for people to settle down in simple villages and start clearing woodland to make fields for crops and animals.

In Sumer (now Iraq) people were building cities, and perfecting irrigation, art and trade. Advanced cultures soon developed in Egypt, India, China and South America. But in England, people were still living in huts made of branches and mud (although someone had managed to build Stonehenge).

Civilisation finally arrived 2000 years ago, when England was invaded by the Romans, who quickly set to work making pots in the woods.

“The clay at the top of Queen’s Wood is just the stuff you need for making pots,” says Mike. “The only puzzle is where did they get the water from? They could have got the slaves to carry it up the hill.”

The great wood was still here when Boudica burned London to the ground in 61AD; when the Romans left a few years later; when the Saxons, the Vikings and then the Normans invaded; during the Black Death in 1349 and the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. By the 18th century, the trees that covered Haringey had been here so long there was a saying: ‘You shall as easily remove Tottenham Wood.’

DID YOU KNOW...

The fossilised remains of an ice-age elephant and hippopotamus have been found under Trafalgar Square.

DID YOU KNOW...

The forest that covered Haringey was called Tottenham Wood, and Wood Green used to be called Tottenham Wood Green.

DID YOU KNOW...

People walked to England across the English Channel 12,000 years ago it was just a boggy marsh.

TIMBER!!!

“Most of Medieval London was built of timber: that’s why it burnt so well in the Great Fire in 1666,” says Mike Hocker.

“Timber was the equivalent of oil wells, and they were facing the same sort of situation we’re facing now: they were absolutely dependent on the forest that they were rapidly clearing. You would use oak to build houses, docks and the foundations of bridges, and oak bark contains tannin for making leather.

You’d make wheels out of ash, and bows out of ewe. If you look at an old windmill, the teeth of the cogwheels are made of apple wood or pear wood, and Hornbeam was used for making charcoal, which was used for smelting metals. Ship-builders would come down to the woods and choose a curved branch or tree they needed for a particular bit of their boat.”

Although the woods were carefully looked after, sooner or later the wood was going to run out.

A BONE OF CONTENTION In 1665, the Bubonic Plague hit London.

At its peak it took the lives of 6,000 people a week, on its way to a final death toll of at least 100,000. “There were stories in the 19th century that people had found human bones in the woods near Muswell Hill Road (alongside the builders yard that’s there now)” says Mike Hacker. “There is this legend that it was a plague pit and that they were tipping bodies in.” But perhaps you can still enjoy your picnic: the bones have never been seen again.

DID YOU KNOW...

When Old St Paul’s Cathedral burnt down in the Great Fire in 1666, timber from Tottenham Wood was used to rebuild it the way it is now.

DID YOU KNOW...

To build a big ship like those that fought the Spanish Armada in 1588 would take all the trees from Queen’s Wood.

BARE WITCHES A few years ago some people who live near Highgate Wood were woken up by loud music,” says Lucy Roots, from Friends of Queen’s Wood. “The Wood has 13 oak trees planted in a circle where nothing ever grows, and the police found a group of witches there dancing around in the nude.”

The ancient woods hold great power and significance in folklore, so you might still catch witches on the minor sabbat of the vernal equinox dancing naked round the oak circle, but only if you’re very lucky.

BRICKING IT In the 18th century, coal replaced wood as the major fuel, and made it a lot cheaper to make bricks. Coal saved Haringey’s woods by making what was left of the great Tottenham Wood almost useless.

At that time, Muswell Hill, Hornsey, Crouch End, and Highgate, were still villages surrounded by woodland, meadows and pastures. Tottenham, and Wood Green were a bit bigger, but still surrounded by countryside.

In the 19th century, new railway lines and stations meant more people could live further out of the city. Terraced houses were built out of cheap bricks all across the borough, the villages were slowly joined together, and Haringey started to look the way it does now.

What was left of Haringey’s woods was owned by the Church Commission, and when they wanted to sell it off for development into more houses there was a tremendous outcry. People stirred up Parliament with meetings and rallies, and Highgate Wood, Queens Wood and Coldfall Wood were eventually saved.

Along with Bluebell Wood and North Wood, they are the last bits of the great Tottenham Wood, and the forest that has been here since the last ice age.

DID YOU KNOW...

Park rules, like the one forbidding people from cycling in the woods, were decided in the late 19th century. Other 100-year-old by-laws that still apply include no disturbing fish, worrying cows, or selling indecent books..

DID YOU KNOW...

Queen’s Wood was renamed to commemorate the jubilee of Queen Victoria. It used to be called... Churchyard Bottom!

This booklet was produced by young people at Exposure, Haringey’s award-winning youth media charity, with help from BTCV, Bruce Castle Museum (Haringey Libraries, Archives & Museum Service) and Friends of Queen’s Wood. It was paid for by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Produced by

Siobhan Renshaw

Nick May

Sinead Clinton

Benita Nantume

Rohan Chummun

Harry Yeates

The following young people took part in this project:

020 8883 0260