All Hallows Churchyard, Tottenham

All Hallows Church was built in 1150, when King 'David' of Scotland gave the Church of All Saints or All Hallows to the Canons of the Holy Trinity in London, who held it until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, upon which it was granted by Henry VIII to William, Lord Howard of Effingham. However, not long after this Effingham was imprisoned and his estates confiscated, and the church at first reverted to the Crown before Henry granted it to the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral. The oldest part of the building today is the early C14th tower with diagonal buttresses, and although other parts are also medieval there were subsequent alterations in 1695, 1741 and 1816, and extensive C19th restoration. Waight in 1876 mentions ivy on the tower, which was possibly first encouraged by the then Lord of the Manor in 1690, but the ivy died following restoration of the church in 1875-6. This was undertaken by William Butterfield who added the transepts and chancel, at which time the remains of Lord Coleraine's Vestry, a late C18th addition also known as the Mausoleum, was removed. William Butterfield worshipped at the church and is buried in the adjacent Tottenham Cemetery (q.v.). Next door to the church is The Priory, which since 1906 has been the vicarage and has an C18th iron gate with curly overthrow probably by George Buncker brought from the former vicarage in Tottenham High Road.

The churchyard is enclosed by an C18th low brick wall with rough grass to the west and north, clipped privet hedges by the paths radiating from the south door, mature trees including yews, one of which is c. 200 years old, and plane trees on the west and north boundaries. There are many scattered tombs and gravestones, including a number of fine C18th monuments. A path leads to Tottenham Cemetery, which abuts the churchyard to the north. Various details are known of the history of the churchyard in particular. In 1766 an order was given to build a 6 foot wall at the west end of the churchyard and also on 'the north side as far as the paling'; in 1787 another order was given to build a brick wall on the western side. In 1787 the iron gates to the churchyard given by Lord Coleraine were 'removed to the centre where they now [1861] stand' and were replaced by 'double rational gates'. The burial ground was enlarged on the north side by half an acre purchased from Mr Holbrook for £126, and consecrated in January 1792. And in 1807 £153 was spent on 'new gates, and a new wall...'.

William Robinson, writing in 1840, noted that many of the old tomb-stones had been moved and laid to form a path from the 'iron-gate entrance . . . up to the lobby of the little south-door entrance into the church'. He also mentions a black marble plaque in the wall on the north side of the churchyard: 'This wall rebuilt in 1816 etc..'; also noting that: 'there are two yew trees of considerable age [. . .] one, opposite the great porch entrance... the other opposite the little south door entrance' (estimated at 200-300 years old in 1818 by Robinson). The whole area in 1861was one acre two roods. The ground was eventually closed for burials in 1857.