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For other uses, see Islington (disambiguation).

Islington
Buildings on Islington High Street
OS grid referenceTQ315844
London borough
Ceremonial countyGreater London
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townLONDON
Postcode districtN1
Dialling code020
PoliceMetropolitan
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UK
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Islington (/[invalid input: 'icon']ˈɪzlɪŋtən/) is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England, and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street and Essex Road. The name is often applied to the areas of the borough close to Upper Street such as St Mary's, St Peter's, Barnsbury, and Canonbury, which were developed in the Georgian era.

Modern definition

Islington grew as a sprawling Middlesex village along the line of the Great North Road, and has provided the name of the modern borough. This gave rise to some confusion, as neighbouring districts may also be said to be in Islington. This district is bounded by Liverpool Road to the west and City Road and Southgate Road to the south-east. Its northernmost point is in the area of Canonbury. The main north-south high street, Upper Street splits at Highbury Corner to Holloway Road to the west and St. Paul's Road to the east.

The area around Angel tube station is sometimes considered a district in its own right: The Angel, Islington. The northern part of this area (from the Liverpool Road junction northwards) is within the district of Islington, while the southern half is in neighbouring Finsbury. The area below Penton Steet and east of Pentonville Road is the adjoining district of Pentonville.

History

Etymology

Islington was originally named by the Saxons Giseldone (1005), then Gislandune (1062). The name means "Gīsla's hill" from the Old English personal name Gīsla and dun ("hill", "down"). The name later mutated to Isledon, which remained in use well into the 17th century when the modern form arose.[1] In medieval times, Islington was just one of many small manors thereabouts, along with Bernersbury, Neweton Berewe or Hey-bury and Canonesbury (Barnsbury, Highbury and Canonbury – names first recorded in the 13th and 14th centuries).

Origins

1861 Royal Agricultural Hall, view from Liverpool Road. Now the rear entrance to the Business Design Centre
1861 Cattle show at the Royal Agricultural Hall

Some roads on the edge of the area, including Essex Road, were known as streets by the medieval period, possibly indicating a Roman origin, but little physical evidence remains. What is known is that the Great North Road from Aldersgate came into use in the 14th century, connecting with a new turnpike (toll road) up Highgate Hill. This was along the line of modern Upper Street, with a toll gate at The Angel defining the extent of the village. The Back Road, the modern Liverpool Road, was primarily a drovers' road where cattle would be rested before the final leg of their journey to Smithfield. Pens and sheds were erected along this road to accommodate the animals.[2]

The first recorded church, St Mary's, was erected in the twelfth century and was replaced in the fifteenth century.[3] Islington lay on the estates of the Bishop of London and the Dean and Chapter of St Pauls. There were substantial medieval moated manor houses in the area, principally at Canonbury and Highbury. In 1548, there were 440 communicants listed and the rural atmosphere, with access to the City and Westminster, made it a popular residence for the rich and eminent.[1] The local inns, however, harboured many fugitives and recursants.

The Royal Agricultural Hall was built in 1862 on the Liverpool Road site of William Dixon's Cattle Layers. The hall was 75 ft high and the arched glass roof spanned 125 ft. It was built for the annual Smithfield Show in December of that year but was popular for other purposes, including recitals and the Royal Tournament. It was the primary exhibition site for London until the 20th century and the largest building of its kind, holding up to 50,000 people.[4] It was requisitioned for use by the Mount Pleasant sorting office during World War II and never re-opened. The main hall has now been incorporated into the Business Design Centre.[5]

Water sources

A statue of Hugh Myddleton, creator of the New River, surmounts a drinking fountain at Islington Green. (November 2005)

The hill on which Islington stands has long supplied the City of London with water, the first projects drawing water through wooden pipes from the many springs that lay at its foot, in Finsbury. These included Sadler's Wells, London Spa and Clerkenwell.

By the 17th century these traditional sources were inadequate to supply the growing population and plans were laid to construct a waterway, the New River, to bring fresh water from the source of the River Lea, in Hertfordshire to New River Head, below Islington in Finsbury. The river was opened on 29 September 1613 by Sir Hugh Myddleton, the constructor of the project. His statue still stands where Upper Street meets Essex Road. The course of the river ran to the east of Upper Street, and much of its course is now covered and forms a linear park through the area.[6]

The Regent's Canal passes through Islington. For much of its length it travels through an 886 metres (2,907 ft) tunnel that runs from Colebrook Row, just east of the Angel, to emerge at Muriel Street not far from Caledonian Road. The subterranean stretch is marked with a series of pavement plaques so that canal walkers may find their way from one entrance to the other above ground. The area of the canal east of the tunnel and north of the City Road was once dominated by much warehousing and industry surrounding the large City Road Basin and Wenlock Basin. Those old buildings that survive here are now largely residential or small creative work units. This stretch boasts one of the few old canal pubs with an entrance actually on the tow-path, The Narrowboat.

The canal was constructed in 1820 to carry cargo from Limehouse into the canal system. There is no tow-path in the tunnel so bargees had to walk their barges through, braced against the roof.[7] Commercial use of the canal has declined since the 1960s.

Market gardens and entertainments

In the 17th and 18th centuries the availability of water made Islington a good place for growing vegetables to feed London. The manor became a popular resort for Londoners due to this rural aspect and many public houses were founded to serve the needs of both visitors and travellers on the turnpike. By 1716, there were 56 ale-house keepers in Upper Street, also offering pleasure and tea gardens and activities such as archery, skittle alleys and bowling. By the 18th century music and dancing were offered, together with billiards, firework displays and balloon ascents. The King's Head Tavern, now a Victorian building with a theatre, has remained on the same site, opposite the parish church, since 1543.[5] The founder of the theatre, Dan Crawford, who died in 2005, disagreed with the introduction of decimal coinage. For twenty-plus years after decimalisation (on 15 February 1971) the bar continued to show prices and charge for drinks in pre-decimalisation currency.

By the 19th century many music halls and theatres were established around Islington Green. One such was Collins' Music Hall, the remains of which are now partly incorporated into a bookshop. The remainder of the Hall has been redeveloped into a new theatre, with its entrance at the bottom of Essex Road. It stood on the site of the Landsdowne Tavern, where the landlord had built an entertainment room for customers who wanted to sing (and later for professional entertainers). It was founded in 1862 by Samuel Thomas Collins Vagg and by 1897 had become a 1,800 seat theatre with 10 bars. The theatre suffered damage in a fire in 1958 and has not reopened.[5] Between 92 and 162 acts were put on each evening and performers who started there included Marie Lloyd, George Robey, Harry Lauder, Harry Tate, George Formby, Vesta Tilley, Tommy Trinder, Gracie Fields, Tommy Handley and Norman Wisdom.

An 1805 map of Islington

The Islington Literary and Scientific Society was established in 1833 and first met in Mr. Edgeworth's Academy on Upper Street. Its object was to spread knowledge through lectures, discussions, and experiments, politics and theology being forbidden. A building, the Literary and Scientific Institution, was erected in 1837 in Wellington (later Almeida) Street, designed by Roumieu and Gough in a stuccoed Grecian style. It included a library (containing 3,300 volumes in 1839), reading room, museum, laboratory, and lecture theatre seating 500. The subscription was two guineas a year. The library was sold off in 1872 and the building sold or leased in 1874 to the Wellington Club, which occupied it until 1886. In 1885 the hall was used for concerts, balls, and public meetings. The Salvation Army bought the building in 1890, renamed it the Wellington Castle barracks, and remained there until 1955. The building became a factory and showroom for Beck's British Carnival Novelties for a few years from 1956, after which it stood empty. In 1978 a campaign began with the aim to turn it into a theatre. A public appeal was launched in 1981 and a festival of avant-garde theatre and music was held there and at other Islington venues in 1982, and the successful Almeida Theatre founded.[5]

Housing

Some early development took place to accommodate the popularity of the nearby Sadler's Wells, which became a resort in the 16th century, but the 19th century saw the greatest expansion in housing, soon to cover the whole parish. In 1801, the population was 10,212, but by 1891 this had increased to 319,143. This rapid expansion was partly due to the introduction of horse-drawn omnibuses in 1830. Large well-built houses and fashionable squares drew clerks, artisans and professionals to the district. However, from the middle of the 19th century the poor were being displaced by clearances in inner London to build the new railway stations and goods yards. Many of the displaced settled in Islington, with the houses becoming occupied by many families. This, combined with the railways pushing into outer Middlesex, reduced Islington's attraction for the "better off" as it became "unfashionable".[8] The area fell into a long decline; and by the mid-20th century, it was largely run-down and a byword for urban poverty.[1] The author K M Warwick was born in 1957 in Islington, and recalls it as a place scarred by bomb damage and that half of Sonderberg Road was a bomb-site that quickly sent his family scurrying away to Essex to a new life, along with many other families.

World War II caused much damage to Islington's housing stock, with 3,200 dwellings destroyed. Before the war a number of 1930s council housing blocks were added to the stock, but it was after the war, partly as result of bomb site redevelopment, that the council housing boom really got into its stride, reaching its peak in the 1960s with the construction of several extensive estates, both by the Metropolitan Borough of Islington and the London County Council. Clearance of the worst terraced housing was still undertaken but Islington continued to be very densely populated with a high level of overcrowding.

From the 1960s, the remaining Georgian terraces were rediscovered by middle-class families and many of the houses were rehabilitated, with the area becoming newly fashionable. This displacement of the poor by the aspirational has become known as gentrification. Among these new residents were a number of the central figures in the New Labour movement, including Tony Blair before his victory in the 1997 general election. "Islington is widely regarded as the spiritual home of Britain's left-wing intelligentsia" (The Guardian).[9] The Granita Pact between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair is said to have been made at a now defunct restaurant on Upper Street.[10] The district still has many council blocks, but the local authority has begun to remove a few of them, such as the Packington Estate, and replace them with more attractive mixed developments.

The completion of the Victoria line and redevelopment of Angel tube station created the conditions for developers to renovate many of the early Victorian and Georgian townhouses, and build developments of luxury apartments, popular with City professionals who could then walk or cycle to the nearby City. The inns of the 17th century have been replaced by busy gastropubs and trendy wine bars. Small shops selling bijou items are increasingly being priced out of the area and replaced by national (and international) chains, although many boutiques remain. Islington remains a district with diverse inhabitants, with its millionaires' houses and apartments not far from social housing in immediately neighbouring Islington districts such as Finsbury and Clerkenwell to the south, Bloomsbury and King's Cross to the west, and Highbury to the north west, and also the Hackney districts of De Beauvoir and Old Street to the north east. Islington has become one of the most desirable places to live in London, reflected by the number of housing developments announced in late 2011 and early 2012 at prices considerably higher than those achieved in comparable west London districts such as Chelsea and Notting Hill, and the highest recorded growth in house prices anywhere in London in 2011, reported as 15% in the Evening Standard.

Monopoly fame

The area is included in the British version of Monopoly which features The Angel, Islington. However, in the game the Angel is the third cheapest property on the board, which reflects the time in which the board was drawn up, rather than its current position as home to celebrities, media-types, politicians and City lawyers and bankers. 'The Angel, Islington' was included as the licensees considered the names of places they were to use over tea in the Lyon's Corner House, built on the site of the original Angel Inn.

Nearby Monopoly locations are Pentonville Road (mostly within the Borough of Islington) which runs from King's Cross station to The Angel.

Upper Street

At the southern end of Upper Street is a former tram shed that closed in 1979 and which is currently a Jack Wills shop.[11] The building was formerly The Mall Antiques Arcade. Its closure reflects the reduction in the number of antique traders in the nearby Camden Passage, although a weekend antiques market is still held there.

Islington High Street

Islington High Street is the former High Street of the village of Islington. The earliest reference to Islington High Street is its appearance on a 1590 map of the area. At this time, nine inns (including the famous Angel, which has subsequently given its name to the area), as well as housing and a public pond were shown lining the street.[12] Then as now, Islington was and is unusual in that the village church, St Mary's, does not stand on the high street but is some way off on Upper Street.

In 1716 Islington High Street came under the control of the newly formed Islington Turnpike Trust. The Trust grew rapidly, and soon had control of most major roads in the area, building a number of major road arteries through the expanding residential areas, including Caledonian Road, Euston Road, City Road and New North Road.[13]

The Peacock Inn[14] at 11 Islington High Street dates from 1564, although the current façade dates from 1857. It featured in Tom Brown's Schooldays as the inn at which Tom stays prior to travelling to Rugby School. It closed in 1962, although the building still stands.[15]

Angel tube station on Islington High Street has the longest escalator on the London Underground system, at 318 steps.[16] In 2006 a Norwegian man made headlines after skiing down the escalator at the station.[17]

In literature

Islington features extensively in modern English literature and culture:

  • The Diary of a Nobody, an English comic novel written by George Grossmith and his brother Weedon Grossmith. The main character lives off the Holloway Road in Brickfield Terrace.
  • Of Solitude, a poem by Abraham Cowley (1668) mentions this area in conclusion of the poem (not the essay of the same name, which is more common)
  • The Wilfers of Holloway feature in Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend.
  • Douglas Adams lived in Islington and used it as a setting in his novels, and named a character in his famous Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy series after a well known local estate agents – Hotblack Desiato.
  • In Neil Gaiman's best selling novel Neverwhere Islington is an angel that lives under London, named after the Angel tube station.
  • Martha Grimes' fictional detective, Richard Jury, lives in a flat in Islington.
  • Emma Evans, protagonist of Margaret Drabble's novel The Garrick Year (1964), lives, after she has married her husband David, in "an ordinary nineteenth-century terrace house in Islington, and on either side of the front door stood a small stone lion . . . the back garden was up to the standard of the lions".
  • Simon Gray's play Otherwise Engaged is set in Islington. It was written in the 1970s.
  • In The Zoo, a comic opera by Arthur Sullivan and B. C. Stephenson, two of the main characters are the Duke of Islington and his beloved, whom he asks to become the Duchess of Islington.
  • Nick Hornby's book, and later film, About a Boy are set in Islington.
  • Nick Hornby's novel SLAM is set in Islington.
  • Joan Smith's female detective, Loretta Lawson, lives in Islington.
  • The film, Notes on a Scandal is set in Islington.

Transport

The area is well served by bus routes, with a major bus interchange located near Angel tube station. Red route and residents' parking restrictions apply throughout the area.

Nearby places

Nearby stations

Education

For education in the area, see the London Borough of Islington and City of London articles.

Government and infrastructure

The Civil Aviation Authority has its head office in the CAA House in Islington.[18]

Listed buildings

The Grade II* listed St Paul's Church seen from Essex Road. This was built in 1826 to a design by Sir Charles Barry, who went on to build the current Houses of Parliament. (March 2007)
The Egyptianate former Carlton cinema on Essex Road is Grade II listed, and has now closed. (November 2005)

Grade II*

English Heritage[19] list three Grade II* listed buildings within Central Islington (and many more in surrounding districts):

Grade II (selected):

The area is perhaps most notable for its Georgian townhouses, shops and pubs. Many whole terraces are listed including much of Liverpool Road (one side of which is in Barnsbury) and Islington High Street/Upper Street. Other multiply listed streets include Arlington Square, Camden Passage, Compton Terrace, Colebrooke Row, Cross Street, Duncan Terrace, Essex Road, Gibson Square and Milner Square.

Other Grade II listed structures include:

  • The Almeida Theatre.
  • The Angel Baptist Church, Cross Street.
  • The Angel public house (the original one, now a Co-op bank – not the newer Wetherspoon's), Islington High Street.
  • The Business Design Centre (part of which is the former Royal Agricultural Hall), Upper Street.
  • The Camden Head public house, Camden Passage.
  • The Hope and Anchor public house, Upper Street.
  • Ironmonger Row Baths.
  • Islington Town Hall.
  • M Manze's Pie and Eel Shop, Chapel Market.
  • Mecca Bingo Hall (now closed), Essex Road (once the Carlton Cinema). This is due to become a church in the near future.[20]
  • The Old Queen's Head public house, Essex Road.
  • St John's Church, Duncan Terrace.
  • St Mary's Church, Upper Street (rebuilt after World War 2 – only the spire remains from the original).
  • South Library, Essex Road.
  • The York public house.
  • Emirates Stadium
  • London Art House

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Islington: Growth", A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8: Islington and Stoke Newington parishes (1985), pp. 9–19. Retrieved 13 March 2007
  2. ^ 'Islington: Communications', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8: Islington and Stoke Newington parishes (1985), pp. 3–8. Retrieved 9 March 2007
  3. ^ John Richardson, Islington Past, Revised Edition, Historical Publications Limited, 2000;pp 59–60.
  4. ^ A Vision of Britain – Islington. Retrieved 26 April 2007
  5. ^ a b c d 'Islington: Social and cultural activities', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8: Islington and Stoke Newington parishes (1985), pp. 45–51. Retrieved 8 March 2007
  6. ^ The Story of the New River (Thames Water). Retrieved 12 December 2007
  7. ^ Alan Faulkner "The Regent's Canal: London's Hidden Waterway" (2005) ISBN 1-870002-59-8
  8. ^ Dunton, Larkin (1896). The World and Its People. Silver, Burdett. p. 29.
  9. ^ David Clark – "Accusations of anti-Semitic chic are poisonous intellectual thuggery"; 6 March 2006. The Guardian. Retrieved 9 March 2007
  10. ^ Happold, Tom and Maguire, Kevin. "Revealed: Brown and Blair's pact" – The Guardian, 6 June 2003. Retrieved 25 December 2005.
  11. ^ "History of the Mall Antiques Arcade". The Mall, Islington. Retrieved 12 May 2007. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  12. ^ Croot, Patricia (1985). "Islington Growth". A History of the County of Middlesex. 8. British History Online: 9–19. Retrieved 11 May 2007. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  13. ^ Croot, Patricia (1985). "Islington Communications". A History of the County of Middlesex. 8. British History Online: 3–8. Retrieved 11 May 2007. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  14. ^ www.londonremembers.com
  15. ^ "Places of Note". London Borough of Islington. Retrieved 11 May 2007. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) [dead link]
  16. ^ "London Underground Statistics". Tube Prune. 21 April 2003. Retrieved 11 May 2007. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  17. ^ "Tube Ski Stunt Blasted by Police". BBC. 28 March 2007. Retrieved 12 May 2007. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  18. ^ "London Head Office." Civil Aviation Authority. Retrieved 9 September 2010.
  19. ^ Images of England. Retrieved 10 March 2007
  20. ^ Islington Gazette (9 July 2008). "Bingo hall gets all-clear to become church". Retrieved 17 July 2008.

London/Islington travel guide from Wikivoyage

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