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    • ... such an excellent man
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    • Home: Tottenham Green
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      • 7 Bruce Grove Campaign
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      • Visit 2025
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    • Carol Ann Duffy
    • Goethe discovers Luke Howard >
      • Goethe's request
      • Goethe: In honour of Mr Howard
    • JMW Turner
    • John Constable
    • Percy Bysshe Shelley
  Tottenham Clouds
  • Tottenham Clouds
    • Luke Howard 250 anniversary >
      • Luke Howard's Legacy
      • Luke Howard’s Climate of London:
      • Urban Climate walks
      • Visit to the Met Office
      • Visit to the Science Museum
    • Cloud Appreciation Day 2023
    • First Cloud Appreciation Park
    • Luke Howard Weather Station
    • Luke Howard Legacy Appeal
    • Cloud Garden
    • Who we are
  • Clouds
    • Clouds over Tottenham
    • Cloud Appreciation Society
    • International Cloud Atlas
    • Met Office
    • Resources
  • Climate Science
    • Climate Change >
      • Global Community response
    • Measuring the weather
    • Climate of London
    • Urban Heat Islands
    • International Association of Urban Climates >
      • The Luke Howard Award
  • Luke Howard
    • ... such an excellent man
    • Family >
      • John Eliot Howard
  • Places
    • Home: Tottenham Green
    • Homes: Bruce Grove >
      • 7 Bruce Grove Campaign
    • Friends Meeting House
    • Brook Street Chapel
    • Winchmore Hill Burial Ground >
      • Visit 2025
      • Visit 2024
      • Visit 2023
  • Artistic connections
    • Art and Poetry in Tottenham >
      • Art
      • Poetry
      • Photographs (in homage)
      • Sky Puddles
      • Weather Report 2016 Tottenham
      • Weather Report 2017 New River
    • Art of the Sky
    • Music For Clouds >
      • Music from Pole to Pole
    • Carol Ann Duffy
    • Goethe discovers Luke Howard >
      • Goethe's request
      • Goethe: In honour of Mr Howard
    • JMW Turner
    • John Constable
    • Percy Bysshe Shelley

Tottenham

at the time of Luke Howard
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the spread of villas along some of the lanes branching off High Road was more noticeable than the growth of separate hamlets. The most uniform building, made possible by the break-up of the manorial estate in 1789, took place along the new road called Bruce Grove; superior, semi-detached houses, soon associated with rich Quaker families, lined part of its south-western side by 1800.

The residential nature of most new building gave late-18th-century Tottenham the appearance of an extended, semi-rural suburb rather than a town.  Private schools continued to benefit from the relatively healthy air; among them were establishments opened in 1827 at Bruce Castle and in the following year at Grove House, both of which became nationally known.

Tottenham was a very quiet and secluded town, where fortunes could be made by enterprising traders or craftsmen who secured the patronage of the local gentry.

A doubling of the population between 1811 and 1851 was reflected in many new schools and chapels and in the first modern Anglican church, built at Tottenham Green in 1830.

The opening of a railway station in 1840 and of a church at Wood Green in 1844 presaged the establishment of a local board in 1848 and a transformation of the old parish, when the social standing of much housing along High Road would be lowered and the contrast between concentrated development there and open country to the west would be ended. In 1840, however, it was still possible for William Robinson to claim that the pattern of settlement did not differ greatly from that of 1619. All but a few of the inhabitants lived in or near High Road.

Source British History Online - Tottenham: Growth before 1850

Luke Howard's homes in Tottenham
Click on the links below to learn more

Tottenham Green

Luke Howard first moved to Tottenham in 1813 to a large house at the North West corner of Tottenham Green on Philip Lane.
Tottenham green

4 Bruce Grove

After living in Ackworth in Yorkshire from 1828 to 1837, the Howards returned to Tottenham moving in with Luke's mother and sister, Elizabeth, at 4 Bruce Grove
4 bruce grove

7 Bruce Grove

Luke Howard moved to 7 Bruce Grove to live with his son on Mariabella’s death on 23 February 1852 and remained there until his death on 21 March 1864.

Luke Howard died here in 1864 having lost all memory of his beloved clouds but still looking up at the sky.

7 Bruce grove

Luke Howard: Places of worship

Quaker Meeting House

Luke Howard was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, known as the Quakers.
Friends Meeting House, Tottenham

Brook Street Chapel

Luke Howard and his family left the Quakers and established Brook Street Meeting House. 
Brook Street Chapel


Houses of the period
in Tottenham

Picture
Eagle House by John Bonny Tottenham Green
Picture
Coombes Croft House, Tottenham by John Bonny
Paintings by John Bonny are in the Bruce Castle Museum collection
Picture
Home of BG Windus, Turner and Pre-Raphaelite Collector, Tottenham Green
Picture
Sunnyside, home of Priscilla Wakefield, Mother of Microfinance,.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
  • Tottenham Clouds
    • Luke Howard 250 anniversary >
      • Luke Howard's Legacy
      • Luke Howard’s Climate of London:
      • Urban Climate walks
      • Visit to the Met Office
      • Visit to the Science Museum
    • Cloud Appreciation Day 2023
    • First Cloud Appreciation Park
    • Luke Howard Weather Station
    • Luke Howard Legacy Appeal
    • Cloud Garden
    • Who we are
  • Clouds
    • Clouds over Tottenham
    • Cloud Appreciation Society
    • International Cloud Atlas
    • Met Office
    • Resources
  • Climate Science
    • Climate Change >
      • Global Community response
    • Measuring the weather
    • Climate of London
    • Urban Heat Islands
    • International Association of Urban Climates >
      • The Luke Howard Award
  • Luke Howard
    • ... such an excellent man
    • Family >
      • John Eliot Howard
  • Places
    • Home: Tottenham Green
    • Homes: Bruce Grove >
      • 7 Bruce Grove Campaign
    • Friends Meeting House
    • Brook Street Chapel
    • Winchmore Hill Burial Ground >
      • Visit 2025
      • Visit 2024
      • Visit 2023
  • Artistic connections
    • Art and Poetry in Tottenham >
      • Art
      • Poetry
      • Photographs (in homage)
      • Sky Puddles
      • Weather Report 2016 Tottenham
      • Weather Report 2017 New River
    • Art of the Sky
    • Music For Clouds >
      • Music from Pole to Pole
    • Carol Ann Duffy
    • Goethe discovers Luke Howard >
      • Goethe's request
      • Goethe: In honour of Mr Howard
    • JMW Turner
    • John Constable
    • Percy Bysshe Shelley