Letter+to+English+Heritage,+applying+for+listing+-+Matthew+Bradby,+Tottenham+Civic+Society+on+1st+November+2007

=//Tottenham Civic Society//= c/o 21 Gospatrick Road Tottenham London N17 7EH English Heritage Heritage Protection Operations Team Waterhouse Square 138-142 Holborn London EC1N 2ST

1 November 2007

Dear Sir or Madam


 * __Wards Stores, Tottenham High Road, London N15 – Application for National Listing__**


 * Introduction**

This is a formal application for national listing of the former Wards Department Store, which stands at the junction of Seven Sisters Road and Tottenham High Road, London N15. I have attached some press coverage, photographs of the interior and exterior and also other documents including our petition to save this building and a location map.

The building is currently under imminent threat from development. Specifically, a property developer, Grainger, has put forward draft plans to demolish the entire block on which this building stands to replace it with an anonymous mixed retail, leisure and housing units up to eight storeys high, under draft plans from their appointed architects. The existing block is currently exclusively composed of Victorian and Edwardian houses and shops, two and three storeys high. Therefore the proposal will fundamentally disrupt the scale, quality, future potential and character of the area.

Tottenham Civic Society is of the view that the Wards Stores building is a very serious candidate for national listing. This is particularly the case once the internal spaces and layout have been considered. Tottenham Conservation Area Advisory Committee is also in full agreement with the Civic Society on this issue as are all the local residents associations, local businesses and market traders. The local press is very supportive. I have also written to The Victorian Society and their opinion at first sight is that ‘this is a building worth saving’.

The building is in a conservation area, one of six that comprise the historic Tottenham High Road corridor. It is also locally listed by Haringey Council as making a significant and positive contribution to the conservation area. Their own publication SPG 2 says that they will protect such buildings from demolition and I do not believe that a majority of Councillors or members of the Planning Subcommittee actually support the proposed demolition, which was never an agreed part of their development brief for the area.

As the location map shows, the building is on a strategic junction, of two old and major roads, and as such has served as a prime retail space in its past. The reproduced postcard images from the early part of this century show the grandeur of this Edwardian shopping parade in its heyday. However the shop, which opened in 1901 or 1902, was closed some time in the 1970s and has not operated since. I understand that several attempts have been made to re-use the building over the years, but these have been rebuffed by the owner.

However part of the ground floor is occupied by Seven Sisters Market, which rents space to independent traders, many of whom are originally from Colombia. This has given a new vibrancy to the area. The traders are a leading part of the campaign to save the existing building, for which in common with long standing local residents they have a great affection. They have also engaged their own architect to come up with an alternative vision which retains Wards in its entirety, in a more sensitive, humane proposal that balances heritage, social, cultural and commercial concerns.

Tottenham is a relatively deprived area of London and it has not had a coherent voice to represent the heritage lobby for some years. For this and other reasons it has suffered from over-development and the loss of heritage. This loss and risk of loss continues to be acute and we are real risk of becoming impoverished in our built heritage. However there is much that remains to be saved and we are of the view that heritage-led regeneration is the most sustainable and realistic way to regenerate Tottenham.


 * The Wards Stores building**

The former Wards Department Store is an unusual, dramatic, angular structure which makes the most of its broad corner location. 1901/02 is the date that has been given to me by some local residents, but on one of the old postcard pictures there is a date of 1909 on the building. Of course, Selfridges was also opened in 1909. I do not know the architect at this stage but we are carrying out further research and we will advise you of any additional information that we obtain.

As you can see from the pictures, advertising hoardings currently obscure the ground floor, but I understand that the ground floor elevation is also comprised of plate glass windows that are intact. The hoardings and the poor weather in some of the photographs do not show the building to its best advantage. In addition it has been stripped of its exterior decorative features, but as you can see from one of the enclosed pictures, the original balustrade from the top of the building is stored inside.

The building extends behind the Tottenham High Road façade for some distance to the north. There is a very similar, two storey frontage on West Green Road to the immediate north which has the original balustrade intact //in situ//. I am not certain what the exact relationship between the two frontages is and whether they were constructed simultaneously.

The connecting part of the building, to the rear of Tottenham High Road, is characterised by a series of large glass skylights that you can see in some of the pictures. This is an ingenious solution to the problem of illuminating the entire second floor of the store. The roof is flat and lead-covered. The wide open spaces are supported by pillars on which you can see interesting carved decoration. I do not know whether the pale blue paint on the columns that you can see represents original colour.

I believe this building has much in common with similar but grander commercial buildings in the Oxford Street area of central London. The detailing on the columns is very similar in style to the stone carved decorations at Oxford Circus. However with its regular, angular and industrial-modernistic shape the building also seems to share heritage with American department stores of the period and thus may represent part of the American influence on the British high street of which Selfridges is only the grandest example.

The building is therefore very dissimilar from all other Edwardian buildings in Tottenham, for example Windsor Parade, another Edwardian shopping parade about a mile to the north and in the process of expensive restoration by a Heritage Lottery Grant. Windsor Parade is far more traditional in style with steep pitched roofs, prominent chimneys and stucco work. Wards Stores is also very dissimilar from the Decorative Style shops in Muswell Hill, further to the west.

I believe that it is necessary to retain Wards Stores to show the full range of Edwardian building styles within this part of North London. In addition to the above examples, we also have the nationally listed Edwardian Baroque of the Town Hall complex, a few hundred yards to the north, the nationally listed Palace Theatre (1908) about half a mile north, and the important Arts and Crafts garden suburb, Tower Gardens, further to the northwest, built from 1903-1915. Wards Stores is actually more unusual in style than any of these buildings, both from a local and national perspective.


 * Listing criteria for commercial buildings**

To quote from English Heritage’s own Selection Guide for Commercial Buildings: ‘Listing in the past … has favoured the opulent and the grand at the expense of the more modest end of the sector… Consequently the latter have suffered disproportionate loss. Where examples arise, listing should aim to redress this balance.’ I think that all of your essential criteria apply in certain degrees in this modest but most unusual store.

Date. I would argue that the building’s date makes it vitally important to preserve it as a milestone in the development of the English high street under international influences at the turn of the 20th Century. This is a vital part of the national heritage for all of us.

Selectivity. Given the high rates of attrition referred to with twentieth century buildings, there will be fewer and fewer good examples of this kind of building remaining as time goes by. This is the best example of the type that is likely to be identified.

Alterations. The Wards Stores building is clearly in an exceptional state of preservation and it has apparently undergone no substantive alteration since it was a built a century ago. Because it has been mothballed for the past thirty years, the building survives in an exceptional state, interior and exterior. In this sense it may be better preserved than most buildings of similar vintage, precisely because it has remained closed for so long.

Rarity. I believe in London this building is very rare and I am not aware of a truly similar building anywhere in England. In Haringey there is nothing to compare with it.

Authenticity. This is clearly a fully authentic and unique example of a small early 20th Century department store in international style.

Group Value. As the entire structure remains in its original setting of Victorian and Edwardian neighbours, its heritage value can be fully appreciated.


 * Summary**

I believe that this building is ‘the Selfridges of Tottenham’ and deserves to be conserved for future generations to appreciate the style and quality of the area’s commercial heritage. If the building is demolished, this will be of serious and irrevocable detriment to the area’s culture and history.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,


 * Matthew Bradby**
 * Chair, Tottenham Civic Society**