Events

22 June is Windrush Day, and Windrush has its own London Transport rail line to celebrate, recognising the contribution immigrants made to the country. It doesn’t go through Haringey, but we have our Weaver and Suffragette lines. Weaver, from Liverpool Street to Enfield/Cheshunt/Chingford, acknowledges the immigrant French silk weavers and the Jewish ‘rag trade’. It brought migrants from the East End to Tottenham and provided residents with the easiest route to the Essex seaside.

Meet: Outside Costa Coffee, 261 Tottenham High Road, N15 4RR

Beautiful flowers, plants and bold colours inspired the exquisite fabric designs and artwork of internationally-renowned Althea McNish. She also loved creating her own special garden at 142 West Green Road in Tottenham.

Why not join local artist Siân Dorman and get hands on and creative just like Althea and make your own floral designs and flowers – out of recycled plastic! No previous art experience necessary – just a love for being creative and trying something new!

Since the 19th century, Haringey’s fields and woods have been steadily covered in bricks and concrete. But through foresight and community action, some green spaces have survived. Tottenham Marshes to the east and Highgate Woods to the west edge a borough with parks, greens, allotments and commons poking holes in our urban jungle. Today, children play in the parks, walkers patrol the larger areas, with runners and cyclists weaving round them, football and tennis players find their places and for fitness there are the outdoor gyms.

Location: All Good Bookshop, 35 Turnpike Lane, N8 0EP

Free, all welcome. No booking required!

Help us make community-designed decorations for South Asian Heritage Month in Turnpike Lane!

Throughout South Asia, trucks, buses and rickshaws are decorated with metal sheets, embossed with iconic South Asian designs and painted in bright colours. Truck art has come to tell the story of the trucker, their lovers and hometowns.

Free, all welcome. Booking required.

Location: Orange Cafe, N8 0PR

Through the medium of printmaking, for South Asian Heritage Month you are invited to explore with printmaker Sunbul Akhtar (@nightpress) what your identity means to you through your living/working space in Haringey. The prints you produce will be used by Sunbul to decorate a storytelling chair. The chair will be used for future storytelling events in the community.

In the workshop you will:

Free, all welcome. Booking required.

Location: Orange Cafe, N8 0PR

Through the medium of printmaking, for South Asian Heritage Month you are invited to explore with printmaker Sunbul Akhtar (@nightpress) what your identity means to you through your living/working space in Haringey. The prints you produce will be used by Sunbul to decorate a storytelling chair. The chair will be used for future storytelling events in the community.

In the workshop you will:

Free, all welcome. Booking required.

Location: Orange Cafe, N8 0PR

Discover more about Turnpike Lane and South Asian Heritage with Deborah Hedgecock (Curator of Bruce Castle Museum). 

Come along and hear this brief introduction with Deborah about how Turnpike Lane has developed over time. 

(There is a guided walk later in the morning - please book this separately if you wish to attend that as well).

Free, all welcome. Booking required.

Location: Starting from Orange Cafe, N8 0PR

Discover more about Turnpike Lane and South Asian Heritage with Deborah Hedgecock (Curator of Bruce Castle Museum). This will be a guided walk with Deborah in and around Turnpike Lane, looking at places, personal stories and events as we explore our local South Asian Heritage and community history.

Free, all welcome.

Join guide Oona Kelly as she takes you on a walk along the beautiful River Lea, from Tottenham Hale down to Springfield Park (Hackney) and back up to the Ferry Boat Inn. Along the way you will discover the remarkable history of the River Lea and the vital role it played in the development of Tottenham, its industries, transport and the people who lived there.

Starts: Outside Tottenham Hale Station, N17 9LR. Meet at 10.15am for a 10.30am start.

Ends: Ferry Boat Inn, N17 9NG

Join us at Bruce Castle Museum and Archive to celebrate this year's Open House Festival!

On Saturday you can enjoy curator-led guided tours of Bruce Castle and the Tudor Tower, 'meet the architect' to learn about the ongoing East Wing restoration project, visit All Hallows Church and the Priory Gardens, plus take part in the Age Well Festival in Bruce Castle Park.

Join us at Bruce Castle Museum and Archive to celebrate this year's Open House Festival!

Free, all welcome. Booking required.

Join Val Crosby for a guided tour exploring some of Tottenham's hidden heritage.

On this walk you will visit part of Tottenham Cemetery to look at the historic site of the mansion of Tottenham Park, sometimes called the Moated House, and the charming and unusual Montague Cottage. Learn about the residents, the buildings and what stood there long before the mansion was built.

Please book your free ticket for this walking tour via Ticket Tailor.

Free, all welcome. Booking required.

Starts: Abney Park main entrance, Stoke Newington High Street. Meet at 10.15am for a 10.30am start.

Established in 1840, the historic Abney Park Cemetery is known for its beautiful woodland, wildlife and its role as resting place for important activists and pioneers. Perhaps less well known, however, is that a surprising number of those buried in this garden cemetery were from Tottenham. Non-conformists, dissenters and radicals from Tottenham found their resting place here, as it was not attached to an established church.

Free, all welcome. Booking required.

Meet: 10.15am outside the African Caribbean Leadership Company (former West Indian Cultural Centre), N8 0DD for a 10.30am start. Next to bus stop E, Wightman Road.

Free, all welcome. Refreshments included. No booking required.

Summer has drifted away, the weather is cooler, but Autumn brings us many rewards with nature’s harvest of fruits, nuts and berries. We live in the city, but not so long ago there were farms, nurseries and orchards on our land, and there are still some remnants to be found in our green spaces and on the edges. My memories take me back to the mulberry tree – once part of an old orchard – in the factory grounds behind our houses. It was a tree we were able to climb where we could scrump a harvest of juicy berries.

Join us at Bruce Castle for morning tea and the opportunity to look at our collections and share stories.

October's session is: Bonfires and Broomsticks!

With Halloween and Bonfire night on the horizon, we'll be looking at Autumnal festivities past and present. During the session you will be able to chat over morning tea in a welcoming environment, handle some of our museum and archive collections and share your own stories.

You will also have exclusive access to the museum’s downstairs galleries.

‘Bruce Castle is haunted, as everybody knows…If Bruce Castle is not haunted, then who stalks about in the turret class room when mortals are a-bed? And who…leaves nought behind him but a heavy feeling of presence in the darkness?’ The Brucian, August 15, 1856

Visit the Candlelit Castle and be transported back to the Victorian age of ghost stories by costumed guides. They will share the sinister secrets and eerie experiences hidden inside the walls of one of London’s most haunted buildings.

‘Bruce Castle is haunted, as everybody knows…If Bruce Castle is not haunted, then who stalks about in the turret class room when mortals are a-bed? And who…leaves nought behind him but a heavy feeling of presence in the darkness?’ The Brucian, August 15, 1856

Visit the Candlelit Castle and be transported back to the Victorian age of ghost stories by costumed guides. They will share the sinister secrets and eerie experiences hidden inside the walls of one of London’s most haunted buildings.

Join local historian Margaret Burr as she takes you on a guided walk exploring the fascinating stories behind the lives of Luke Howard, Namer of Clouds (1772-1864) and his Tottenham Green neighbours: Priscilla Wakefield (1751-1832), the Quaker philanthropist, writer and feminist economist and the Turner collector, BG Windus (1790-1867).