Tottenham

Most people know Tottenham as a football club, which is like knowing a house only by its loudest lodger. Henry VIII hunted here and Quakers ran schools here, right up until the railway started selling cheap workman's tickets and the market gardens were bricked over before anyone thought to object. The High Road still runs along the old Roman route north, and it has been carrying other people somewhere else ever since. On match days the crowds pour in by the trainload, sing the place's name for ninety minutes, and leave without once asking what it's like on a Tuesday.