Transforming Townscapes

Transformations in Bruce Grove

Around the Bruce Grove area of Tottenham High Road there have been many transformations of some shops and businesses over the past two decades. The aim to restore the historic Victorian and Edwardian fabric of some of these buildings has made a huge difference in 2008 to Windsor Parade (first built in 1907), and the Station Parade just north of Bruce Grove station. 

The Wilson Building

Today’s Iceland store at 522 – 528 Tottenham High Road was given a dramatic conservation makeover in 2010-11. It was originally known as the ‘Wilson Building’. If you compare the building today with a view of it in its heyday in the early 20th century (spot the tramlines running up Tottenham High Road in the picture), its main architectural feature is its large plate glass windows. 

At some unknown date in the 20th century the original windows were lost, with small, squarish wooden framed windows put in their place. During the restoration programme the upper parts of the building were transformed as much as possible back to their original appearance, revealing terracotta-coloured columns topped with intricate capitals around each window. Combined with the bands of deep, Staffordshire Blues and glazed bricks, this brought the colour of its original Edwardian elegance combined with its bold industrial design back once more to this iconic store on the High Road

The ‘Wilson Building’ we have inherited was the second building built by G. L. Wilson & Co. Ltd at this spot. As a long-standing Tottenham building firm since 1877, G. L. Wilson upgraded their showrooms with this 1905 build, heralding in the fashions of the new century, incorporating steel-framed plate glass windows. Their showroom complemented warehouses and depots at all local stations, including across the road at Bruce Grove Station. 

Station Parade

Long gone from the High Road and having disappeared after the Bruce Grove restoration of this shopping parade, there are many fond and lasting memories about 'Davis - Doorway to a Man's World'. This was the men's clothing shop that once operated at 529-535 High Road, Tottenham. 

With its intriguing name (and missing apostrophe - unless it fell off?), this was a prominent and very memorable shopfront. It appears to have been a shop which evokes lots of stories - almost becoming part of a rite of passage for locals: it was a place where they bought their first suit for their first job or matching outfits for a soon-to-be groom and best man, or even the place where a favourite pair of jeans were purchased! 

It would appear that the business originated in about 1951 with a Harry Davis of Tottenham. It carried on for the next 40 years or so, with the shopfront having changed in style over that time. It possibly closed during the mid-late 1990s. Once the shop laid empty, people often wondered about what it was and its history. In the early 2000s there was a short article online but that has sadly also disappeared. 

Images of the old shopfront with 'before' and 'after' photographs - one taken c.2004 for the 'before' and c.2006 for the 'after'. Comments include someone coveting the circular marble-looking medallions that were incorporated into the shop's Davis logo!