By Michael Parsons
Tottenham Hale from Broad Lane my memories, rounding the bend in Broad Lane from Tottenham High Road on the right was the Gestetner factory, two or three mornings a week one of the Merchandise Transport fleet would be unloading a full load of paper which was a return load from Scotland. On to the Hale, which in the 1960s was just a small island which traffic went around either side of to the left went past Chestnut Road on the left and then onto Northumberland Park where the Victoria line depot is now based.
Back to Broad Lane and up over the railway bridge where there were four rail lines going underneath through the station, there was a Lebus tunnel under the road from the loading bays over to the main factory for the canteen. Past the loading bays over the River Lea and the two locks to pass D H garage and petrol station with the G P O garage at the back. Part of the field next door was our car park and then part of the Victoria line was tunnelled from here.
Up by now Ferry Lane past the Ferry Boat Inn and then passed the reservoirs on the left and the L M S railway on the right up towards the Standard Public House. In what is by now Forest Road there was a rail line crossing the main road going behind the pub into the old A E C works and there sidings which back in 1959, I watched the builders dig up the railway lines by then the factory was S NOTON’S luggage manufacturers. This the space that Lebus moved up to when they finished up in Tottenham before they moved up to Halifax which again is a factory that I knew quite well.
Tottenham Hale 1950s