Warmington House

Warmington House is a residential building constructed in 1828 and situated on the High Road in Tottenham. It is built of stock brick with stucco dressings and a clay tile roof.

The building is three storeys high and three bays wide. The ground floor is arranged as two rooms deep on either side of a central hall with a rear stair leading to the first floor. The first and second floors have rooms arranged around a longitudinal landing, with a secondary stair positioned at the north end of the first-floor landing.

The exterior presents a symmetrical facade, though the north side is partly obscured by the adjacent building. The ground floor features banded rusticated stucco work extending up to the first-floor cill band, with a frieze and cornice band above, terminating in a parapet. The principal entrance is a central four-panel half-glazed door set beneath a rectangular fanlight, surrounded by a moulded architrave (though the top section has been removed). Sash windows with glazing bars occupy the ground and first floors, with plain sash windows on the second floor. The first-floor windows have moulded architraves and unmoulded pediments, while the second-floor windows are set within gauged brick arches. A stair window with a Diocletian window to the attic is located on the south side elevation. The rear elevation retains some original sashes, including a tall round-headed stair window with margin lights. A six-panelled door is present with a modern shallow brick porch. The roof is pitched. Single-storey rear extensions of twentieth-century date have been added but are not of special interest.

The interior retains its original room plan form. The hall features a cornice with paterae. Double-door openings connect the front and rear rooms in the south ground and first-floor rooms. The main stair displays a mahogany handrail with a swept rail to the inner string and stick balusters, though the balustrade is currently boxed in and the ground-floor newel has been replaced. The round-headed stair window retains its margin lights, panelled reveals and shutters. The secondary stair also has a mahogany handrail with square balusters (some missing) and turned newels. An elliptical moulded arch spans the second-floor landing. Additional features of interest include cornices, notably those to the ground-floor south rooms which display elaborate mouldings, simple chimneypieces and grates, ceiling roses to the ground floor, and surviving door and window architraves. Vertical sliding shutters survive in the north ground-floor rear room, and original six-panelled doors are present; some further panelled doors may survive beneath modern flush panels. Moulded skirtings and dado rails are also evident throughout.

The house was recorded in the Tottenham Poor Rate books as being built in 1828. It takes its name from James Warmington, a farmer, coal merchant and skin salesman, who occupied the property from 1851 to 1876. A notable later occupant was John Alfred Prestwich, a manufacturer of cine cameras who lived there from 1888 to 1898. Prestwich went on to invent the JAP motor cycle petrol engine and founded the JAP Engineering Company. The building served as a restaurant from 1911 to 1923, and was most recently used as a supporters' club and offices for Tottenham Hotspur FC.

The house was extended to the rear during the twentieth century. Warmington House is designated at Grade II as an important survival of the Georgian houses that once lined Tottenham High Road, one of the principal historic corridors into London, and as a residence of 1828 retaining its internal plan form, staircases and a number of original architectural features.