Wood Green, United Kingdom

At around the same time as the Dorset Survey, the New River was constructed through Wood Green. Winding through the area, the river looped across Chitts Hill and then passed along the northern side of Wood Green Common before turning south. The proximity of Wood Green to the new watercourse enhanced the area's reputation and between the 17th and early 19th Century, several large properties were constructed in the area, initially as country retreats for wealthy Londoners. Such dwellings included Cherson House, Wood Green Cottage, Moat Cottage and the Grange, all of which were situated on the fringes of Wood Green Common and dated from the 17th Century. Later, Wood Green House (c. 1780), Chitts Hill House (c. 1805) and Bounds Green House were constructed at the perimeter of the common. Despite the development of these dwellings, by 1798 the population of Wood Green stood at just 100 inhabitants and remained scattered. It was centred at this period on Wood Green Common.

At the same time as the population was growing so was the traffic along Green Lanes. As a result, Wood Green's first inn and recognisable business appeared. In 1770 George Chesser established a blacksmith's shop on the corner of Green Lanes and Lordship Lane (later known as Spouter's Corner). In 1781, the Three Jolly Butchers coaching inn was opened on the west side of Green Lanes between Lordship Lane and Bounds Green Road.

During the early decades of the 19th Century, the number of inhabitants in the area began to increase significantly. By the middle of the nineteenth century the population had increased to 400 and the centre of Wood Green's gravity had moved north and east with most development taking place in a triangle directly north of St Michael's Church. By the time of the publication of the 1869 Ordnance Survey map, Clarence Road, Truro Road, Nightingale Road, Finsbury Road and Commerce Road were all laid out and were becoming increasingly built up.

The opening of the Great Northern Railway Line station at Wood Green in 1859 encouraged further development. By the end of the nineteenth century, much of Wood Green had been built up. What remained was built over during the first part of the twentieth century.

The Victorian development was both residential and commercial in nature. Wood Green's industrial development was centred on the area bounded by Wood Green Common, the Great Northern Railway, Turnpike Lane and the High Street. Amongst the first companies to arrive in the early 1860s was E Welch & Co Tobacco Manufacturer. Then in short order came the Hornsey Steam Laundry, Henry A. Ivory & Co Piano Manufacturers and Davis and Timmins Screw Factory. In 1880, Barratts arrived and grew to be one of the biggest confectionery manufacturers of the twentieth century.

As Wood Green's population grew, so did its high street. The earliest retail developments had been in Commercial Road and Finsbury Road during the 1860s. However, by the early 1880s retail activity was clearly shifting to the High Road. At first, it focussed on the area between White Hart Lane and Truro Road. As the population grew, retail growth south of Lordship Lane began to exceed that north of it and by the end of the first decade of the twentieth Wood Green, High Street had become a popular shopping centre for North London. By 1976 Wood Green was the largest shopping centre in north London with a turnover of more than £20m.

With the reorganisation of local government in the 1960s, Haringey Council was formed from the former boroughs of Wood Green, Hornsey and Tottenham. The new unified administration wanted to reinvent Wood Green as a ‘Heart for Haringey’. It was one of a number of new suburban centres intended to counteract the pull of Central London. The Shopping City was constructed between 1976 and 1981.

Up to the nineteenth century, Wood Green came under the governance of the Manor and Parish of Tottenham. Tottenham developed from a parish in Middlesex into an Urban sanitary district in 1875, after a local board of health had been established in 1850.

In 1888, the Municipal Borough of Wood Green was created as an urban district, and later a municipal borough, of Middlesex. In 1965, under the London Government Act 1963, the Municipal Borough of Wood Green was abolished and its area merged with that of the Municipal Borough of Tottenham and the Municipal Borough of Hornsey to form the present-day London Borough of Haringey.

The constituency of Wood Green was created in 1918 and existed until 1983 when it was split. Some of the constituency was transferred to the neighbouring seat of Tottenham, but most was merged with the Hornsey parliamentary constituency to form the Hornsey and Wood Green parliamentary constituency. Since 2015, the seat has been represented in the House of Commons by the Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) Catherine West.

In mid century, Wood Green was known locally as the "Golden Mile of North London". Some shops and buildings were demolished in the 1960s and buildings were cleared to construct Shopping City, now known as The Mall Wood Green, which is one of London's major shopping centres.

The Alexandra Palace, which is within Wood Green parish, played a leading role in the development of public service television. It is now an events and entertainment venue hosting exhibitions, concerts and sporting events.