One of Tottenham’s more notable (not to say more unlikely) sixteenth-century inhabitants was Balthasar Sanchez. Born in Jerez, he became court confectioner to Philip II of Spain, and when Philip married Mary Tudor, accompanied his master to England. He must have found England (or or at least Tottenham!) highly agreeable; for after Mary’s death in 1558 and Philip’s return to Spain he stayed on, converted to Protestantism, and bought a mansion which later became the ‘George and Vulture’ inn (sadly, gone last century). Allegedly, he introduced the secrets of fine confectionery-making to England.

Whatever, he appears to have made pots of money, and with it endowed these almshouses on the High Road, which survived until the 1920s. By this time, they had fallen into a seriously delapidated state, and, as may be seen from this 1800s engraving, had sunk several feet below the level of the High Road (or rather, the High Road had risen and the almshouses had stayed put). they were demolished and replaced by Burgesses’ department store, named ‘Sanchez House’ in commemoration of Balthasar and his almshouses. Burgesses’ was taken over by the Co-Op in the late ’60s/early ’70s, and in the 1980s the store was demolished and replaced by the unutterably hideous Tottenham Enterprise Centre. Why the old store building couldn’t have been adapted to a new purpose is a question that has frquently exercised my mind (and doubtless that of many other Tottenham residents who remember it) ever since. Burgess’s was, admittedly, not great architecture by any stretch of the imagination , but at least it had a bit of style about it (I hope to have a picture up soon) and, compared to its hideous, and already decidedly cruddy-looking, replacement it was Canterbury Cathedral.