A free heritage walking tour for Open House 2026

Meet: 10.45am for an 11am start, outside All Hallows Church, N17 7AA (circular tour ends here to go inside the church)

Four hundred years ago, Tottenham was a rural village on the outskirts of London and its vicar, William Bedwell, was England’s most important scholar of the Arabic language. If you wanted to learn Arabic, you wouldn’t go to a prestigious school or university — you would visit his vicarage, on what is now White Hart Lane.

Join historian Samantha Brown on this guided circular tour, which begins and ends at a building Bedwell knew very well: All Hallows Church. Interweaving Bedwell’s own descriptions of his parish with details from a 1619 map of the area, Samantha will take you back to the early 1600s, shedding light on Bedwell’s life and work in the area, and painting a picture of Tottenham as he knew it.

Please note that while the tour will describe a large area of Tottenham, the walk itself will be limited to the area around Bruce Castle Park.

This walk should last approximately 1.5-2 hours. Please dress for the weather and wear sensible footwear for walking.

For any queries, please email museum.services@haringey.gov.uk

Description supplied by the event organiser.