File:Exuberant.jpg

English: 9 December 2009. Looking across High Road, Tottenham towards the corner of Lordship Lane.

Exuberant? Yeah, isn't that how anyone felt as they entered the Council offices to read planning files - especially when on the look out for unscrupulous developers?

"No. 639 High Road, on the corner of Lordship Lane, currently contains the Council’s town planning offices. This exuberant neo-Jacobean style Grade II listed building successfully defines the junction at the southernmost end of this stretch of the High Road. Built between 1901 as the offices of Tottenham and Edmonton Gas Company by John Sherwell Corder and extended in 1914 this Edwardian building is two storeys with an attic storey with shaped gables constructed of rich red brick with terracotta strapwork ornament and dressings and stone banding. It has an imposing stone arched doorway, with a rectangular stained glass fanlight above, in a prominent entrance porch with Doric columns, and a stone balustraded balcony above. There are several stained glass windows with Art Nouveau patterns throughout the building. The building’s roofline is adorned with massive red brick chimney stacks, shaped gables with semi-circular pediments and finals, a balustraded parapet and two octagonal corner turrets with ogee shaped copper domes. The turrets have elaborately decorated terracotta corbels at first floor level and polished pink granite pilasters. There are two entrances with stone banded elliptical arches set amongst a series of elliptical arched timber showroom windows with glazing bars and elliptical arched top-lights."

(From Tottenham High Road Conservation Areas Appraisal. See paragraph 4.52.

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Another good reason for sheer exuberance was the very high professional standard which used to be on display near the entrance to this office.

See where this picture was taken.