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White Hart Lane is a thoroughfare winding between
the High Roads of Tottenham and Wood Green, but it is best known as the (nearby) home of Tottenham Hotspur, the Premier League
football club. The White Hart was a public house at 750 Tottenham High Road, belonging to Charrington's brewery. In the 1890s
its landlord set up a nursery on the fertile soil behind the inn, but within a few years the newly professional Tottenham
Hotspur FC sought to move here from their previous home at Northumberland Park. Originally Hotspur FC, and formed from an
older cricket club in 1882, the club became Tottenham Hotspur two years later. Most of the founders were old boys of St John's
Presbyterian school and Tottenham grammar school. In the days before the stadium became all seated (in 1994) the ground witnessed
some huge attendances – most notably in the 1948-9 season, when the record gate of 75,038 was achieved for a match against
Sunderland. The ground's capacity is currently 36,214. Spurs were the leading London team in the 1960s, but have since been
overshadowed by their long-time rivals Arsenal. The club presently proposes to rebuild its stadium, in a scheme codenamed
the Northumberland Development Project.
White Hart Lane was also the name given to the one of the first out-of-town cottage estates built by the London County
Council, although much of this housing actually lies closer to Lordship Lane. Begun in 1904, the estate was extended north
of Risley Avenue after the First World War.
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