History of Tottenhall

In the 1800s much of the Tottenhall area, the area between the east of Green Lanes and the A10, and boundaried by the North by the A406 and the South by White Hart Lane, was mostly open space. The only roads shown on an ONS map of 1867 are Tile Kiln Lane, which also included what is now Tottenhall Road, and Wolves Lane.

In the early 1902 Southgate Isolation Hospital had been built on the area of what is now Medesenge Way and St. Paul’s Rise. The photo at the top of this page shows nurses tending the hospital allotments in 1917. In 1936, the hospital added tennis courts to the site, something which was covered by local press. In 1948 the hospital name was changed to Greentrees and it became part of North Middlesex hospital. The hospital closed and was demolished in 1988.

Tottenhall Infant School was built in 1923 and used as an auxillary war hospital until 1923. It opened as an infant school in 1924. The current school building was built in 2004.

Most of the homes built in the Tottenhall area were built between 1914 and 1936, including those between Wolves Lane and Green Lanes, on Pasteur Gardens, Empire Avenue and the surrounding roads.

Tottenhall Recreation Ground itself used to be Eley’s Farm. Over the years it has been the home of many sports clubs including in the 1930s the Weselyan Lawn Tennis Club, 1938 The Methodist Circuit Sports Club, in the 1950s Southgate Athletics Club, the NALGO Lawn Tennis Club and Ellenborough Lawn Tennis Club.