Clerkenwell

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Agdon Street

Was called Woods Close. People used to wait for an escort into the city here

Albemarle Way

General Monk brought Charles II to the throne. A late 17th-century street largely rebuilt in mid-Victorian times, and named after the Cromwellian general, George Monck, Duke of Albemarle. Notable residents of the street were Carr's assistant, Samuel Ware (1781- 1860) and William Hone, probably identifiable with the champion of Queen Caroline and author of The Everyday Book

2, although refronted, still retains behind the later facade its 18th-century staircase and upstairs parlour, with a pedimented chimneypiece, doorcase, and wainscoted walls.  At the beginning of the 19th century James Carr, architect of St James's Church and later his son and successor in practice Henry, lived here (before 1905 numbered 12). A c19 front.  Skeletons uncovered during excavations under in 1989 suggest that one burial ground for the Priory of St. John was south of the church, while bones near the church were possibly from the Prior's own burial ground.  Evidence of the priory's eventual expansion beyond its walled precinct was revealed by excavations during the same season at the south end of St John's Lane, of late mediaeval foundations and more pans of skeletons.

5 Stuart Devlin Silversmith

Amwell Street

Developed as part of the New River Estate.  1820s. Named after the Hertfordshire springs which feed the New River.  Close to the headquarters of the New River Company.  Developed from the 1820s.  Streets with agreeable terraces with stuccoed ground floors.  Many doorways with fluted quarter-columns and pretty curving light patterns characteristic of the earlier c19. Downhill from Claremont Square, has terraces with small shops many with good c19 shop fronts. The west side of Claremont Square, Myddelton Terrace (1821), was also part of a longer road, created from the old-field path to Clerkenwell.  It was later renamed Amwell Street. . Chadwell Mylne himself laid out the handsome suburb on the Company's land north of New River Head.

Clerkenwell schools, parochial, 1828 modest and cheap.  Designed by Chadwell Mylne and John Blyth. Eleven bays in minimal Gothic two storeys. Built on New River land.

St.Peter and St.Paul, 1853, Commissioners RC. By John Blyth for members of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion; R.C. from 1847. Sober Italianate front with central Venetian window, interior with galleries on thin iron columns, with ornate Gothic iron railings. Post-war stained glass of saints.

Fountain Pub, Dirty Dick mirror gives pub another name

9 Home of Aveling, portrait painter

13 Bowman and Flood Ltd., non ferrous foundry

42 Lloyds Dairy.  From 1914, tiled interior. Timber corner shop with fine lettering.  An early corner shop that was run by members of the Lloyd family until after 2000.

69 was 2 and previously 25 Myddelton Terrace one of Cruickshanks homes.  He was Dickens' Illustrator.

71 was 23 1834, removes next door one of Cruickshanks homes

Charles Allen House

Arlington Way

Arlington House, New River Co. flats

19 Divertissement

Ashby Street

Was previously Upper Ashby Street. Some remaining properties of the Northampton Estate.  Partly survives.  It was named after Castle Ashby, the Earls' Northamptonshire seat, and its eastern half.  Upper Ashby Street, is now plain Ashby Street

Attneave Street

Sherston Court

Aylesbury Street

Marks the boundary of the precinct of St. Johns.  Which covered the whole area.  The street owes its name to a post-Dissolution mansion, which belonged to the Earls of Aylesbury but had become tenements by the early c18.  A 17th mansion, which was part of the priory buildings.  The Earls of Aylesbury one of the noble families, which acquired and built on its lands.  The house of the Aylesburys until 1706.

Aylesbury House The whole monastic property was the subject of a grant by James I in 1607, defined  "the scite or house of the late Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, &c, having therin one great mansion, and one great chapel, &c, containing by estimation 5 acres", which the King bestowed on a gentleman named Ralph Freeman.  It subsequently • passed to Sir William Cecil (1629?), Earl of Exeter, and then by the marriage of the Earl's daughter, to the Bruce family, Earls of Elgin (1641), in whose possession it remained until 1706.  One of this family, who became Earl of Aylesbury, adapted the old Priory church for use as a family chapel.  A large mansion, at least partly from Priory buildings, was created immediately north of the church, probably for Lord Aylesbury, with a doorway communicating from the north aisle to the house.  It was certainly known as "Aylesbury House", and stood in a courtyard enclosed by iron gates, extending on both sides of the church.  In 1989 excavations revealed parts of walls, evidently from this house, based on mediaeval foundations; also some of the undercroft or Priory vaults.  The noted cabinetmaker Giles Grendey (1693-1780), who made fine furniture for Longford Castle, Kedleston had a house here. 

16 site of Bull's Head, Britton's House

Vast dominating premises of E.Pollard, shop fitter and joiner.  It is now dominated by the vast former premises of E. Pollard & Co., shop fitter and joiner, 1912-26

51, late c18, has a genuine workshop window in the middle floor 

Back Hill

Features in films 'Mona Lisa’.

4 Presbytery and offices to St. Peters church 1865-6, Italianate.

Berry Place

Bakers Row:

On 1690 map

Baker’s Yard.  Warehouses redeveloped. Redeveloped by Kinson Architects, 1988; three-storey warehouses in pale brick; a blue comer column between each garage and doorway adds some character

Berry Street

Bowling Green Lane,

Depressing Victorian contrast – in 1675 there were two bowling greens shown on Ogilby and Morgan's map

16-17handsome four storeyed factory 1877 for William Notting, printer and type founder.  Buff brick segment-headed windows; red brick and terracotta trimming

Industrial dwellings, 1874

10 Board School. 1873  by Robson, picturesquely asymmetrical.

Vast car park along Farringdon Road

Catherine Griffiths Court – low folksy housing

Brewhouse Yard

16 BDP Studiosin old brewery buildings.  Original glazed brick and vaulted ceilings.  Gallery, and café.  Brewery. 1728, became Allied Breweries

Briset Street

Now re-named after the benefactor of St John's Priory, and formerly called Berkeley Street after the Berkeley family whose large Tudor mansion, long ago destroyed, stood on the comer facing St John's Lane. Sir Maurice Berkeley was Standard-Bearer to Henry VIII, Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth, and ancestor to the Earls of Berkeley. In the 19th century this neighbourhood consisted of crowded, narrow courts, densely populated by the very poor.

16 A single house with its original former shop-front survives at what was the entrance to Berkeley Court.

Corner site with St John's Lane was rebuilt as offices 1987 architects EPR Partnership

17 Rowley and Parkes clock maker

Britton Street

Formerly Red Lion Street, developed in 1719 by Simon Michell, a rich local magistrate, on land originally belonging to St John's. It was occupied by well-to-do City merchants. In 1937 it was renamed after John Britton (1771-1857), a local draughtsman and topographer.  approached by narrow lanes and passages. Has the best-surviving c18 houses in this area.

14

22

24 Reconstructed facade of Booth's Gin Distillery.  The early-20th-century arcaded Renaissance front, with sculptured frieze, of Booth's Distillery, by E. W. Mountford, architect of the St John Street buildings of the City University, monumental 1903 re-erected from its former site in Turnmill Street rather meaninglessly here in 1975 as a condition of the demolition of the original building.  The granite ground-floor arches are original, the brick upper floors facsimile reconstruction, incorporating F. W. Pomeroy's attic frieze of carved panels showing gin-making processes.  An archway leads through to a late c20 courtyard: behind the frontage are plain council flats and private offices, built by YRM, who took over the redevelopment of the site, building their own offices across the small yard at the back in 1973-6.  These are in their impeccable sleek and anonymous style of the time: a red steel frame with glazed bands, two storeys above recessed ground floor, overlooking St John's Gardens

27, 28, and 30-32.  Good door case

27-32 c18 houses on the w side, ^H partly rebuilt

28, 30-32 clockmakers' attic workshop windows

36 early nineteenth century like New River estates.

44, on the comer of Albion Place, offices and flat designed 1987 by Piers Gough, of Campbell, Zogolovitch, Wilkinson & Gough, make the most of the corner site: gabled, but its flattened planes creating a hexagonal effect, accentuated by the 'latticed' glazing of the windows.

54 probably original, with a fine door case.  18^th red brick houses with carved door brackets.  Clockmakers’ attic workshop windows

55 early 19th century in the style much used in New River Estate houses.  Refronted in the early c19, has good shop front.

56 clockmakers' attic workshop windows

57 18th century, reconstructed.

59 also a good doorcase.  Note cock-eyed window lintel caused by subsidence.  18^th red brick houses with carved door brackets

Janet Street Porter’s House.  A piece of whimsy, a private house with top-floor studio, by CZWG, 1987.  Successfully eye-catching, but the motifs fail to coalesce: strident lozenge windows with large lattice panes and a forceful purple pantiled roof overpower the quiet buff and brown brick walls.

Jerusalem Tavern. Where Britton worked - this is Britton of Britton and Brayley.  18^th building but only a pub since the 1990s

St John's Garden Burial Ground of St. John's.  Was previously Benjamin Street Burial Ground. Well-planted and much needed small park.

Brooke’s Market?

Open square and back of redeveloped Prudential building

16 1900 Austrian looking

Chadwell Street

Developed as part of the New River Estate.  1820s. Named after the Hertfordshire springs which feed the New River.  Close to the headquarters of the New River Company.  Developed from the 1820s. Streets with agreeable terraces with stuccoed ground floors.  Many doorways with fluted quarter-columns and pretty curving light patterns characteristic of the earlier c19

Mount Zion Chapel

Providence Chapel

Angel Baptist Chapel. 1824. Contemporary with the New River Estate. Calvanistic Methodists.  Stucco front with central pediment and Ionic porch.

Clerkenwell

‘Clerkenwell’ c.1150, ‘Clerkenewella’ c.1152, ‘Clerekenewelle’ 1242, ‘Clarkynwell’ 1551, that is 'well or spring of the scholars or students', from Middle English ‘clerc’ and ‘welle’. In  early Latin sources from c.1145 the well or spring is referred to as ‘fons clericorum’. There is vivid corroboration of the etymology in William FitzStephen's account of London in 1174, in which he describes scholars and youths gathering at this and two other wells  on summer evenings. 

Clerkenwell Company made emergency repair parts for printing trade, there and elsewhere Martin? 90% work in London, food packing labels, die stamps 95%, lot of rush jobs Martin? Operatives' wives made artificial flowers and mantles as outworkers for City firms 1860s Centre for machine tools.

Stedall Machine Tool Co., importing machine tools from the Continent, 300-400 machines in stock for early delivery Churchill Co., last century, importing US machine tools

1837 growth area for colour printing, use of wood block and copper plate, lithostone or zinc plate, involved in hand processes, precision trades typical of Clerkenwell

Finsbury. 1898 factories and workrooms with over 100 workers in clothing trades, millinery, mantles lingerie and neckwear, 1800 woodworking and ready made furniture, Electroplate and enamellers, 1950s, with bulk of work sub-contracted to other London manufacturers GUS and GUM parcel facilities here and Woolworth's

Clerkenwell Close

The close, originally part of St Mary's Nunnery, was by the 16^th  and 17^th  filled with houses with gardens. The establishment of many craft industries in Clerkenwell changed the ownership of these houses. cottages were built at the corner opposite the Horseshoe, popularly known as 'weavers' cottages' but actually watchmakers' or jewellers' accessories workshops, with characteristic 'studio' lighting on the top floor. Over the years these were became ruinous and were demolished. Features in films 'A Fish Called Wanda’.

14-18 are rebuilt in Victorian style, though not in facsimile.  Since the mid-1980s the Close has had an effective face-lift.  Tactful, bland mixture of 19^th offices and warehouses.  Refurbished and rebuilt in 1985-9

27-31 Clerkenwell Workshops, four- and five-storey warehouses converted to small workshops in 1975, some of the first to challenge the post-war policy of replacement Clerkenwell industry by housing.  This sturdy and colourful bright range was built in 1895-7 for the London School Board by the works department, under T.J. Bailey, as the Board's central store 'Furniture', 'Stationery' and 'Needlework' appears in little cartouches over the entrances.  Blue brick ground floor with segmental windows; three upper storeys with red brick pilasters.  This was an early sign of revival for the decayed area.

36-41, slightly east of this, in 1987 pan of a large mediaeval building with chalk and ragstone walls was found, with an adjoining courtyard. The Observatory. Flashy offices

42-46, mediaeval floors and hearths, possibly part of kitchens, were excavated in 1986-7.  Intended as replicas of demolished clockmakers cottages.  Unconvincing detail.

47-48 late 18th-century pair with double- pitched roof, have been salvaged from ruin and restored.  The nunnery had been transformed after the Dissolution into Newcastle House, occupied in the c17 by William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle.  This was demolished c. 1793 and replaced by terraced I houses from which these houses survive.  Converted to flats in 1991 by Hunt Thompson, with new flats behind. Newcastle House.  A rather forbidding mansion with an entrance court and two wings, built over the nunnery ruins which until the late 18th century 1753 could still be seen. Here lived William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, a devoted Royalist who fought for King Charles I, and his eccentric second wife Margaret Lucas, the blue-stocking authoress. A descendant married George Monck, Duke of Albemarle, who also lived here. By degrees noble residences were abandoned as their owners followed the Court westwards, and Newcastle House was occupied by a cabinet-maker before being demolished in c 1793. On its site was built Newcastle Place — itself long since demolished — a row of substantial houses by James Can, architect of St James's Church.

54-56 early 19^th

Cromwell House built by the rich Challoner family of the City and later said to have been occupied by Oliver Cromwell.

The Observatory.  One jarring note in this area, at the corner of Newcastle Row; flashy offices with a parade of mirror glass a crude Neo-Deco detail, 1987-8 by Peter Tiggs Partnership. London Ecology Centre Exhibitions and events concerned with the environment of the city.

Crown Tavern, 1815, collection of clocks in restaurant a clock with connections with the Rye House Plot.  Stucco- trimmed, c. 1860. Features in films 'Suzie Gold’.

Horseshoe Pub.  From 1833 from 1747, supposed to be a tunnel to the prison for the hangman's drinks. 18^thhouse at the back of it. Air of a village corner tavern contributes, with the unexpected windings of the narrow street, to the Close's still surviving atmosphere.  Modest c19 pub built out in front of an older building.

Comoys Briar Pipe Manufacturers 1879-1937,

Peabody Buildings high blocks (1884). An American philanthropist, George Peabody (1795- 1869), founded a housing trust on the lines of 'Model Dwellings' companies, with which the Victorians attempted to combat the fearful slums brought by rapid industrialisation. Usually even the few shillings' rent were then beyond the means of all but those regularly employed, and the poorest still endured life in stinking courts and alleys like the rabbit-warren behind Turnmill Street and Cowcross Street

St.James’ Church.  Built 1788-92, by James Carr, a local architect and builder. It is on the site of the choir of the Nunnery.  In 1656 the parish bought the church and the avowdson but the old church was demolished in 1788 and there is a model of it in the vestry – with a real clock in it. This church is a stock-brick box with a stone tower topped by a balustrade and vases and with an obelisk-like spire. Inside a curved end is underlined by the gallery, which is reached by two staircases.  In the early 19^th  upper galleries were added for the charity school children. The church was restored by Blomfield in 1883-4, but many Georgian furnishings remain. The font is carved rosewood, c. 1820. There is an an 18^th  communion table with-bowed front and wrought-iron rails.  Also 18^th churchwarden’s pews and box pews in the gallery. There is a mahogany organ case with feathery palm leaves and an important organ of 1792 by George Pike England. The Royal Arms in Coade stone are over the nave door, with an early 18^th  statue of St James, from a poor box. There is a stained glass window of the Ascension by Alexander Gibbs, 1863, with large coloured figures.  Beneath the tower are two charity boards, a bell ringers’ board about Westminster Youths, 1800 and amonument to the victims of the Fenian riots, 1867. There are vestry furnishings for the church officers and the local corporation. Monuments: a brass of John Bell, Bishop of Worcester, 1556; Elizabeth, Countess of Exeter, 1653; Elizabeth Partridge 1702, with bust and putti ; Henry Penton 1714, wall monument with obelisk; Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, 1715, tablet with books and scrolls, and a black marble floor slab; Thomas Crosse 1712, by Roubiliac; a wall monument with two busts.  There are also monuments from the old nunnery.  Features in films 'About a Boy’, ‘Love, Honour and Obey’..

Nunnery. The north west end of the entrance wall outside the church are remains of the old nunnery.  It was the Benedictine Nunnery of St.Mary founded in 1140 by Jordan Briset and dissolved in 1539. Augustinian canonesses. fragmentary traces of column-shafts and bases of the old nunnery cloister and the position of the north door into the nave which were excavated in 1975.  In the garden the corner of a mediaeval building was found which was part of a range of buildings north of the cloister.

St.Chads well 1822.

Churchyard managed by the Vestry of Clerkenwell

Clerkenwell Green

A misnomer, as no 'green' has flourished here for 300 years, though in its aristocratic 17^th days it was bordered with trees. City knights and aldermen had houses here and Isaak Walton lived here after retiring from his City linen-draper's business. In the 19^th Clerkenwell became heavily industrialised, densely populated, and poor, and the Green became a centre for protest meetings, especially by radicals and unemployed, and was regarded as 'the headquarters of republicanism and revolution'.  Here Dickens’ Oliver Twist watched the Dodger.  There are some trees, but it is now urban and commercial.  Features in films 'A Fish Called Wanda’, ‘Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence’

Clerkenwell Sessions House.  The Former Middlesex Sessions House which has been the  London Masonic Centre since c. 1980. Built 1779-82 by Thomas Rogers, Surveyor to the County of Middlesex, and altered by the County Surveyor, Frederick  Pownall in 1859-60. It has a Palladian front with decorative reliefs by Nollekens of Justice and Mercy. The square central hall with a circular dome is original, but the gallery, central staircase and lantern to the dome are by Pownall. He kept the Court Room ceiling. Before 1613 the justices met at The Castle in St John Street. Then Baptist Hicks built a hall for them, called Hicks Hall and this used as  was the Sessions House until 1779 when a row of old buildings on the west side of Clerkenwell Green was removed and this new building was erected at the County's expense. It includes a Jacobean fireplace and Hicks’ portrait taken from Hicks Hall. By 1860 even this building was too small and it was enlarged. In 1919 the courts moved to Newington Causeway and the building was converted to office use. it remained empty for some years until it was acquired by a Masonic foundation, and restored in 1979. Features in films 'I Believe in You’.

12—14 shop fronts have some good high-Victorian decoration.  Characteristic warehouses of 1878, builder T.E.G. Charming, with plenty of jolly terracotta and curved shaped gables enclosing large Gothic arches.

15-17, reconstructed from ruins in 1986, unfortunately replaced a pretty Regency pillared shop-front with a timid echo.  Facsimile late Georgian shop fronts, eighteenth century houses, 15 Longcluse clock dial painter 

16 has a good early c19 shop front with Ionic columns, re-erected in 1978

18-19 Klamath House 1990 by Huckle, Tweddle Partnership; a sleek stone front with modish features: angled balcony, centre window stepping out in width, stair-tower with playful small window shapes.

29 a former public house of c. 1860, with narrow arched triplet windows on the top floor below bracketed eaves

31 mannered classical building of 1911. It has a narrow stone frontage with long thin windows.  Included in a development of 1984-6, which was designed to convey the small-scale 18^{th –}19^th  variety that once existed here - flats and workshops with brick and rendered fronts with a variety of curved and angled bays.

31a Features in films 'Love, Honour and Obey’.

37a Marx Memorial Library Built 1738 by James Steer as a Welsh Charity School. - for the children of poor Welsh residents of London – which moved to Gray's Inn and the building became in turn a coffeehouse, shops, and a radical club. It was much altered in the c19; but the front elevation was restored to a semblance of its simple c18 appearance in 1969. It was used for radical meeting from 1872, when it became the headquarters of the London Patriotic Society, and by the socialist Twentieth Century Press from 1892 to 1922. Lenin had an office here in 1902-3. In the first-floor library, is a large forceful 1930s mural, in fresco, by Jack Hastings, pupil of Diego Rivera, depicting 'The Worker of the Future upsetting the Economic Chaos of the Present', including portraits of Marx, Lenin etc. Leon Trotsky, used to pore over the radical books while Lenin edited the journal, Iskra.here.

Charitable infant school in the same house

Clerkenwell Parochial Sunday School

Clerkenwell Protestant Sunday School on site of earlier school of 1801,

Horse and cart

Site long left empty was rebuilt in 1987 by Islington Council, as a flat-and-workshop complex of lively design.  Excavations here in 1984 revealed a mediaeval tenement basement, which were within the precinct of St Mary's Nunnery and probably rented out.

Telephone box

Working Men's Club

Clerkenwell Road

Built by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1878 to link New Oxford Street and London Docks. It was opened by Hogg, Chair of the Metropolitan Board of Works.  The Middle level interceptor sewer passes beneath beneath it  part of it is shown as ‘Passing Alley’ or  ‘Pissing Alley’ on the Roque map. It also incorporated Wilderness Row and some of Charterhouse Grounds. several narrow streets and alleys west of St John Street were destroyed – like Liquorpond Street. Warehouses, offices and a tram route were built along the new street.  Features in films 'Mona Lisa’.

102- 108 Columbia Gramophone Co.

122 Shop front 19^th

18 Hugin House

29 Elson silversmith

49-53 Red House

55-57 36

57-18c facades of Booths Distillery, recalled from Turnmill Street

60 Marshall silver repairs

74 William Phipps spoon silversmith

84 flat iron building on the corner

Cavendish Mansions 1882

Corner are Holborn Offices

Duke of York. Debased classical pub elevation

Griffin Pub, site of Reid's Griffin Brewery LE Reid's bottle labels on the walls

Hat and Feathers  pub.  Alsopps mirror.  1860 by Hill & Paraire, with ornate stuccoed front and a good bowed corner.    Listed Grade II,

Holborn Union Offices, 1886.  Board of Guardian’s Offices.  1885-6 by H. Saxon Snell & Sons, a symmetrical classical block in blue and orange brick.     The present Council offices.  During a short period when Finsbury and Holborn were jointly administered for local government purposes: a palatial brick frontage — ironic in view of its original use which has responded well to cleaning.

Holborn Town Hall, demolished .A substantial brick-and-stone pile was erected in 1878-9- for Holborn District Board of Works to exploit recent road improvements. Designed by the Board's surveyor, Lewis Isaacs, and Henry Louis Florence in an eclectic classical style, it boasted the unusual juxtaposition of a lavish double-height hall over a municipal stone-yard. It was sold in 1906 to pay for the new town hall and was demolished in the 1960s.

Kipp House

Mountford House

Penny Bank chamber with coin design on the walls.  Penny Bank Gallery. Converted for Association of Craftsmen 1879-80 by Henman & Harrison. Traditional crafts. These are towering model dwellings sparsely decorated with bands of tiles bearing the name of the National Penny Bank, founded 1875, and modelled on the Yorkshire Penny Bank, where amounts as small as one penny could be deposited.

Plaque about bombing blocked by German airship

St Peter's. A mission church for the poor Italian community living around Saffron Hill.  Built in 1862-3 by John Miller Bryson, probably influenced by more ambitious but unexecuted plans of 1853 by Francesco Gualandi.  It has a tall narrow two-bay front and an entrance of two arches. The upper parts date from 1891 by F. W. Tasker built in  brick and stone.  Before Clerkenwell Road was built it was intended to provide a grand facade to Herbal Hill. It has a slarge and impressive interior like an Italian basilica. In 1885-6, the walls and ceiling were painted by Arnaud and Gauthier, from Piedmont.  There is a painting of the Annunciation, signed by Bon Einler1861.  There are also four Italian Baroque terracotta statues of evangelists, apparently brought from the Manchester exhibition of 1857. Every year on the first Sunday after July 16 there is an Italian sagra around the church. The fete involves a procession through the streets to mark the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  Caruso and Gigli once performed on the church steps on some Sunday mornings. Features in films 'Mona Lisa’,’Queen of Hearts’..

Victoria Dwellings

Coldbath Fields

Was a path going to the river Fleet, name probably ironic,

Well in the fields

Coldbath Fields Prison, 1794-1887, built by Howard as a experiment in strong discipline Tristan treadmill

Apple Tree pub, 1720 on the same site in the eighteenth century, Parcels run to the north from 1887. Strong man of Islington Topham prisoners from Coldbath Fields there

Coldbath Square

Cold Bath cured nerve disorders there from 1697-1870

Coldbath House

Compton Passage

Church School

Compton Street

Name relates to the Northampton Estate family ownership

Terrace remains from Northampton Estate developments.  Modest, some houses only one bay wide.

St Peter and St Paul R.C. School, remodelled 1968-71 by Farrington, Dennys &-Fisher

Cornwall Place?

New River and Treasurer.

Corporation Row

Was once called Cut Throat Lane. It long marked London's most northerly built-up limit. Its name derives not from the City but from a 'corporation' or union workhouse, built in the fields about 1662 for a union of metropolitan parishes. It stood at the NE corner of the present Hugh Myddelton School grounds.

35-43 Early Georgian terraces

NW corner bowling green

Mulberry garden pleasure ground opened in 1742 on east side, became an exercise ground for the Clerkenwell Volunteers

Clerkenwell Bridewell

Adjoining was a large bowling green, from which the neighbouring lane was named.

Mulberry Garden, one of Clerkenwell's many pleasure grounds, was opened in 1742, laid out in avenues and gravel-walks, and providing entertainments such as an orchestra, refreshments, skittles and fireworks. It was fashionable, but apparently not long-lived. Later, during the Napoleonic Wars, its ground was used for exercising by the Clerkenwell Volunteers.

The Quaker Workhouse, a large quadrangular building, was taken over about 1692 by the Society of Friends for their own poor members and for a charity school. By 1774 part of the building had become tenements. In 1786 the Quaker Workhouse removed to land off the present Rawstorne Street, and the old building fell into ruin. It was demolished in 1805, and the Paving Commissioners took part of the site for widening Corporation Row

New Prison Wall. A tablet on the inner side of the north wall, between the two gates, commemorates the site of the explosion in the wall of the prison.  in 1867 an attempt was made to free Fenian prisoners Burke and Casey who were awaiting trial by blowing up the north precinct wall. the leader, and as a result 15 people were killed and forty or so seriously injured. Michael Barrett, the instigator, was hanged — the last person in England to do so in public. The bomb planted was between the gates marked ‘Infants’..

Crawford Passage

Before 1774 it was called Pickled Egg Walk

Cockpit

Cruikshank Street

Amwell House.  Lubetkin.  Two-storey added by Skinner, Bailey & Lubetkin in 1956-8

Bevin Court.  1952 by Lubetkin after Tecton had left.  Form of the old Holford Square.  On the site of the bombed Holford Square of 1841 the one major c20 addition: by Skinner Bailey & Lubetkin, i.e. part of the Tecton firm after it had split up.  The first design, which preserved the form of the old square, was rejected in favour of a cheaper solution of a seven- and eight-store Y-shaped block of 130 dwellings.  The wings have the distinctly Tecton surface patterning, achieved here through alternation - windows, textures, and access-gallery uprights - private balconies were too expensive.  The surprise is the stunning central staircase, one of the most exciting C20 spatial experiences in London Views out in different directions between the access points to each wing.  Mural in the entrance by Peter Yates.

Holford House.  Lubetkin a four-storey block of maisonettes, is part of the same scheme

Cyprus Street

Was King Street, 1880

Flats 1930s a group of Monson's flats,

The Trianglean overbearing brown brick cluster of maisonettes of the 1970s, by Clifford Culpin & Partners, for the GLC, with a monumental entrance under a high-level bridge.  They replaced an earlier low rent housing scheme, the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company & Compton Dwellings of 1872-6

Dallington Street

Was Allen Street, Dallington Master of Charterhouse

St.Paul's Buildings, Galactic House, Bailey Wood turners

Cavendish Buildings

Earlstoke Street

Now disappeared, had been Upper Smith Street.  Two Smith Streets were named after the 9th Earl of Northampton's wife Maria, daughter to a Wiltshire gentleman.  Disappeared under university extension, had been renamed Earlstoke Street in 1935, after Maria Smith's parental home,

Easton Street

Exmouth Market

1756, rural path called Bridewell. The south side was built in the 18th century as Braynes Buildings, looking out over fields towards Highgate. It was frequented by visitors to the spa-wells, but in 1818 the north side was also built up and the street re-named in honour of Admiral Pellew, Lord Exmouth. The houses are mostly original, though much altered.  Exmouth Street served as a main road connecting St John Street with westerly districts. On completion of the last stretch of Rosebery Avenue in 1892, application was made to allow costers — always unpopular with the authorities — to establish a street market here as its traffic was now diverted to the new road. It long remained a flourishing market. Of recent years, with falling population, and competition from the more conveniently-sited Chapel Market, its prosperity has declined, but attempts have been made to maintain it.

8 In the 1820s Joseph Grimaldi, the famous clown, lived here, one of his frequently-changed lodgings. 

32-34. a date-stone of 1765 with Brayes Building on the stuccoed front

43, first floor note curious 'rococo' plaster swags in canopy form.

55

56 plaque to Joseph Grimaldi. Which says  ‘clown, lived here 1818-1828'. Grimaldi, born in London, is said to be the greatest English clown ever. He was a master of song, dance, acrobatics, mime and an astute manager. He lived here for the last decade of an eventful popular and well rewarded life. Plaque erected 1989.

City Mansions

Holy Redeemer. Site of chapel built on site of Ducking Pond House for Huntingdon Methodist Connection in 1756. Demolished 1856 and replaced by the Italian church. On the site of Spa Fields Chapel demolished in 1886 when its lease expired. 1887-8 by J.D. Sedding, completed by H. Wibon, 1892-5. Not in their exuberant free Gothic mood, but a powerful Italian Renaissance design, exceptional among London's Victorian Anglican churches. The brick exterior hides a steel-framed construction. Tall front with round-arched doorway, boldly lettered frieze, and striped brick above with a circular window. Big deep-eaved pediment. Projecting campanile. They make bold use of tiles for stringcourses and arches. Inside, four groin vaults on an unbroken entablature, resting on giant Corinthian columns. Capitals carved by F. W. Pomeroy. Sedding planned frescoes, but these were not carried out. Behind the nave arcades, narrow aisles, and narrow, inorganically placed transepts.  Marble High Altar under a massive domed baldacchino, on the pattern of Santo Spirito, Florence. Behind it, Wilson's Lady Chapel, with altarpiece in pedimented Ionic frame. Large stone Font 1909 17th-century font came from St Giles's. Cripplegate and other furnishings by Wilson. Prince Consort's Organ from the Chapel Royal, Windsor, by Father Willis installed 1889. London's only church in Basilica style. Exceptional.  The foundation stone was laid by William Ewart Gladstone. It lends a Roman touch to this corner of Clerkenwell, enhanced by the cleaning of its West front in 1987 in advance of its centenary in 1988.   There is an unusual set of An Nouveau Stations of the Cross

Clergy house 1906

Church hall 1916, added by Wibon.

Street Market

Exmouth Arms named after Sir Edward Pellew, British nineteenth century Naval Commander made Viscount Exmouth

London Spa, tile work inside.   One of Clerkenwell's most famous resorts, opened about 1730 between the upper and lower parts of the later Rosoman Street. It was a re-discovered mediaeval well of chalybeate waters, advertised as curing every imaginable ailment. Other small spas and gardens (such as the New Wells), opening in the vicinity during the summer season were usually identified by their situation vis-a-vis the well-known London Spa. Entertainments included rope-dancers, fireworks, freaks, singers, operetta, and home-brewed ale, but the resorts were often reviled by moralists for their disorderly customers. In 1835 the London Spa was rebuilt as a tavern, and again about a century later. .1730 between top and bottom of Rosoman Street, rebuilt as a pub building of second Sadler's wells

Eyre Street Hill

Gunmakers Arms

Farringdon Lane

The continuation of the route out of Clerkenwell.  Formerly Ray Street.

City Pride pub was the White Swan changed by Fullers city and

30 Abbott House. Plaque about being opened by John Gerald??

16 Clerk’s Well of Hockley in the Hole.  Site of old healing well – all sorts of fairs and fun there. A kind of beer garden from Charles II's time. Butchers dog's competitions at Clerks’ Wells. Set up by churchyard in 1800 ‘clerks well’ as in ‘Clerkenwell’. In Tudor times there was a stream flowing through the nunnery grounds there. In 1673 it was turned into a well and given to the poor of the Parish of Clerkenwell but it was in fact leased to a brewer called John Crosse who enclosed it. Just putting a drinking fountain on an outside wall for the public. 1720 'excellently clear, sweet and well tasted'. In 1800 a pump was set up by what is now 16 Farringdon Street but the water started to fail and then the vestry closed it down because it was polluted. The well chamber was filled with builder's debris and built over. In 1924 16 Farringdon Street was rebuilt and the well was found again. The Council leased the building and forgot about it again a rectangular enclosure with some medieval ashlar wall; repaired with brick.  It was rediscovered in 1924, and identified as the well mentioned by Fitzstephen and Stow, which gave its name to the area.  It lay just outside the precinct wall of the nunnery.  Fitzstephen describes it as 'frequente scholars and youth of the City when they go out for fresh a summer evenings'. In 1924 workers uncovered the old well where the parish clerks performed their medieval 'miracle' plays.

Sacred wells used to run in the wall of the convent of Saint Mary Tudor brickwork.  1170 miracle plays

Plainerhouse, 1875,

Peabody buildings 1884

Peabody Terrace 1964

34 Warehouse 1875 for John Greenwich, watch and clock manufacturer with Gothic details and clock.  Most notable the tall gabled designed by Roy Plumbs, a prominent clock, and other appropriate decoration  - hourglass, scythe etc.- above the upper windows

Farringdon Road

This was built as an extension to Bagnigge Wells Road and previously it was part of Field Lane and Chick Lane which was a very rough area. The railway runs down the side and Farringdon Station and the goods yard covered the valley side.  Chick Field Lanes were demolished as were others like Coppice Row and Victoria Street.  It was called ‘Farringdon’ for Mayor Farndone who was a goldsmith. The Ward was called after him and ghe street after the ward. It has building on a grander scale than elsewhere in Clerkenwell and the printing industry, because of nearby of Fleet Street was prominent here.  Many buildings remain from this period although their use has changed and there are some buildings from the 1980s, although names and a few relics survive to give some inkling of the earlier history of the area. Features in films 'Alive and Kicking’.

14-16 plaque about Clerks' well

20 Smith New Court House along the curving sliver of land between road and railway, a flat canyon-like office frontage of polished granite, c. 1993 stepping up to a high tower at the comer of Cowcross Street.  Not an asset to the townscape.

75 indifferent with the usual polished granite uprights of c. 1990.  Then a long sequence of smaller groups of workshops and warehouses of the 1880s

77-79 warehouse with classical detail.  1880s

83-86 Associated Press

84-104 speculative group of 1872 by Plumbe, 1872-3, built as a speculation    Gothic arches to the top floor, lush capitals

91-93, c. 1930-5, stone-faced and quiet.

94, Quality Chop House, a rare survival of an early c20 working-class restaurant, much-refurbished 1980s but with some original fittings.  Much refurbished.

99-101 1887, slightly Gothic, with some black diapering.

103 premises for J. &R.M.Wood printing press maker.  Machine Hall behind with cast iron columns.  1865 by John Butler Machine hall behind with cast-iron columns.

Flats - on the large site at the corner of Clerkenwell Road by Chassay Architects, 1993-4, building up from four to seven storeys, constructed around a deep-plan concrete frame intended for offices, the change of use during construction a sign of the times.  Brick and rendered frontages, with glazed set-back top floor.

105-107 1887.  Are both dated 1887, slightly Gothic, with some black diapering.

106 Penny Black, was Clerkenwell Tavern, 1888 Pub in the 84-104 group

109-111 for William Dickens chromolithographer, Venetian Gothic palazzo.  1864 First large premises of colour magazine printing by Henry Jarvis, a splendid Venetian Gothic palazzo.  Red and black brick, with close-set Gothic arcades.

113-117premises for V.& J.Figgis, typefounders.  1864. 1875-6 by Arding & Bond.  The main building is of five storeys, with a sixth above a cornice; the windows of the four middle floors are enclosed in two series of giant arches; the whole is tied together by continuous rusticated brick piers.

119-141Guardian offices.  Built as a warehouse and converted to offices. An uncouth intruder. On the site of Corporation Dwellings built by Waterlow opposite Farringdon Road Buildings built by the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Working Classes.  Built as a warehouse c. 1976, and converted as offices for the Guardian by Elsom Pack & Roberts.  An uncouth intruder, six storeys of drab brown precast panels contrast tellingly with subtler articulation of the c19 buildings.

142-144 1950

143 offices and shops was site of grim Clerkenwell workhouse?

145-155 late 19^th commercial terrace, a good example.  A decently proportioned late c 19 commercial terrace.  A balanced design with slightly narrowed houses.  The others each have a ground-floor shop and three or four-light upper windows extending almost full width party walls.

150 Swinnerton

Car park vast multi-storey of the 1980s with bland arched frontage of red and yellow brick.

Catherine GriffCourt housing of the 1980s behind the car park, folksy brick

Bakers' Row

Betsey Pub was Betsey Trotwood and before that the Butchers Arms. in Pear Tree Court from 1686. Named after David Copperfield’s aunt.

Eagle where Lenin stayed gone

Farringdon Market on this area after it had been covered over, before that Fleet Market was on the edge of the stream

Flats on the corner of Clerkenwell Road. Intended as offices in the 1990s

Fleet Building, Telephone Exchange

Fleetway House HQ of Amalgamated Press, gone, IPC Magazines

Gazzano cafe

Line of Fleet, Last section of Fleet arched over in 1850s from Peter Street to Castle Street

Middle Row demolished 1867 sort of structure in centre of main road in lots of old towns, cf. Maidstone.

Red Lion Tavern with plank bridge over the Fleet,

Site of mansion of John Oldcastle, was a pub called Lord Cobham and then Sir John Oldcastle, gone by 1762

Faulkner’s Alley?

Finsbury

Vinisbir 1231, Finesbury 1254, Fynesbury 1294, ry 1535, that is 'manor of a man called Finn", from an Old Scandinavian personal name and Middle English bury. The area was once part of the marshy ground, later drained,  north of the City wall that gave name to Moorgate and Moorfields and on the mid-16^th century 'wood-cut map' of London Fynnesburie Field is still shown as open ground with horses, archers, and windmills. Finsbury Circus & Square were laid out as part of a new residential suburb between 1777 and 1817.

Friend Street

1786-1825 Friend's school, 1702

Hermitage Buildings

Gard Street

Garnault Place

23 Grimaldi

Gee Street,

Called after John Gee

Alfred Place

Cotswold Court

Parmoor Court

Sapperton Court

Gloucester Way

Goswell Road

Swallows

Saddlers’ Sport Centre for the City University. 1973.  Sheppard Robson & Partners, begun 1973. Like the nearby halls in Bastwick Street, faced in brown brick, with some close-set black mullions. Tough but decent, nicely finished, and less dour than the firm's main campus buildings.

Mount Mills, Windmill mount

Pheasant and Firkin, was the Old Ivy House

Carter Patterson, until 1948

132 Gordon's gin

135-137 grand six storey composition

Charles Green balloonist born there

77-81 Carter Paterson and Co.  The premises back from the road and approached by two gateways. Buildings substantially constructed of brick, concrete and iron and are 5 floors in height. They consist of cart area on ground floor, and stables and warehouse space on first floor, and stables and smithy on 2nd floor.. The carts bring in.goods collected in the City to the Bank on the ground floor, they are trucked across to carts waiting to receive them, which distribute them over London.

128 Carter Paterson and Co These premises cover a large area of ground and consist of a building of three floors used as Offices and open and covered yards with brick buildings used for receiving goods, and to some extent storing same, and stables, smithy, boiler and engine house and warehouse with grinding machine and chaff cutting machine. The goods taken were principally parcels. Over the smithy and boiler house is a stable for young horses and at the extreme East end of yard is another very large stable.

Great Sutton Street

Named after Thomas Sutton.  Narrow lined with late c19 factories and warehouses;

30a was built as a dairy by George Waymouth: dairy scenes on ceramic lozenges.

38 London Portable Gas Co. oil gas works.  Cylinders under patent of Gordon and Heard. 3.2.6. per 1000 cf. including collection and delivery and ornamental stands for holders. Some internal piping installed. Horsed vehicle delivery 7 miles from works. Royal Inst. Faraday discovered benzene through it. Ok as long as coal gas expensive but then went. 1827 Charter maybe. 1819-1834

52 Dancer inventor of microphotography

Hall Street

Peregrine House Features in films 'Susie Gold’.

Hayward's Place

Hardwick Street

Named after a Governor of the New River Company. Called after local ironmonger

1-5 refurbished 1920s warehouse

Haywards Place

1834, a humble terrace of six cottages — adorned with diglyphs even so—is at the end of Woodbridge Street opposite the chapel.  Much restored cottages for distillery workers

1-18 was Suffolk Street and site of Woodbridge Chapel.

5 and 6 reconstructed 1951 after war destruction.

Next door new warehouse for Croll meter factory in 1846.

Herbal Hill

1 an early c19 house.

Coach and Horses the comer of Warner Street, opposite huge warehouses, small and cheerful, busy Neo-Jacobean of 1900.  It is on the site of Hockley-in-the-Hole Bear Garden.

Hermit Street

Buxton House

Holford Road (not on az)

Hugh Myddleton Pub. After the New River's completion a handy tavern opened just opposite the Pond, appropriately named after Hugh Myddelton.   The Myddelton's Head, depicted in Hogarth's "Evening" as a wayside tavern, was much frequented by performers from Sadler's Wells. The Tavern was rebuilt in 1831 and stood at the southwest corner of a new paved terrace, Myddelton Place, along the east riverbank opposite Sadler's Wells.  Dinner with Babbage Hershel, Lubbock, Brunel etc. 1832

4 Baron Von Hugel

Holsworthy Square

Six storey tenements rehabilitated for St.Pancras Housing Association by Peter Mishcon in 1981-7.  Ingeniously replanned, with old staircases replaced by lifts and the exterior enlivened by elegant stairs and balconies

Inglebert Street

Provides a vista to St Mark's Church

Insurance Street

Jerusalem Passage

Site of Priory north postern until 1780. It connects the north side of the square with Aylesbury Street and hence with 12 Clerkenwell Green, and in the last century contained flourishing shops. Foundations of the mediaeval buildings survive in cellars below the passage. Corner by the old postern lived the 'musical small coal man' Thomas Britton (d 1714), a native of Northamptonshire who became a coal-dealer in Clerkenwell. He had a natural skill in chemistry, was a noted collector of rare books, and by his extraordinary musical talents gathered celebrated musicians and members of the Court as an informal musical club, held in the poky house above his shop. Jerusalem Passage.  A tavern, the St John of Jerusalem, occupied the corner of this site until 1760, when it was succeeded by a large charity school run by the parish until the lease expired in 1830.  The school then moved, and a row of shops then occupied the ground floor.

8 late c18,

9-10 c. 1830,

11 early c18

12 mid c18

Laystall Street

Plaque about Mazzini. From 1836 onwards, Clerkenwell was the home of Mazzini, the Italian revolutionary. It was also the first port of call for Garibaldi on his visit in 1836

Christopher Hatton Centre, old London County Council School, plaque up.

Leo Yard

Was Red Lion Yard

Little Italy

Area bounded by Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue – also known as Italian Hill.  Name goes back at least two hundred years. Church, shops and driving school.

Little St.John's Square?

North’s Court

21 & 22

49-52

Lloyd Baker Estate

The Lloyd Baker estate, whose three large fields formed a long parallelogram on the hillside between the Pentonville end of the New River estate and the Fleet valley by Bagnigge Wells, was owned by a Gloucestershire family.  In the time of James I Dr William Lloyd, Bishop of St Asaph, was one of the "Seven Bishops" who defied the King; Mary, the daughter of a descendant, the Rev. John Lloyd, married another clergyman, the Rev William Baker of Hardwicke Court.  It was their son, Thomas John Lloyd Baker, who in his father's lifetime actively undertook development of their London estate in the 1820s.  A plan of 1807 shows the three fields, two of them abutting on the east on New River land.  Hill Field contained two small reservoirs used by the New River Company; Robin Hood's Field also adjoined Lord Northampton's estate to the south, as did the third.  Black Mary's Field.  Black Mary's other side extended to Bagnigge Wells road, and housed a cow layer and other farm buildings.  The Lloyd Baker estate was planned from September 1818, placing it fairly early in the post-Napoleonic canon, but it was delayed by a trade depression, which slowed the taking up of leases.  The estate plan was drawn up by the family's elderly surveyor, John Booth

The Lloyd Baker estate owners resented the mean, shimmy alleys between it and Wilmington Square, and would not allow a connecting road between the estates.  To this day only a footpath from one comer of Lloyd Square links them.

Lloyd Baker Street

The estate’s first houses were in Baker Street - later renamed Lloyd Baker Street - appear in the rate books only in 1825.

The slope towards the Fleet River is very appealing with very special semi-detached villas. Was originally called Baker Street.  The houses also have windows framed by giant arches.

Union Tavern – was previously the site of the Bull in the Pound – a resort of vicious characters.

Lloyd Baker Street flats

1-50 1829 "Upper Baker Street,” which was later re-numbered consecutively as 1-50 (1836). 

13 YWCA Moved from Lloyd Square, which was the Sisters of Bethany.  Converted in 1962 from- former convent, a House of Retreat for the Society of the Sisters of Bethany first established at No. 7 Lloyd Square in 1866. By Ernest Newton, 1882-4, in robust Queen Anne-Board school style rather than Gothic, the effect diminished since alteration of the gables.  Small cloister with balustraded corridor on two side Chapel, now studio, rebuilt by Newton 1891-2; low aisle am high clerestory; free Decorator detail.  Boarded barrel roof.  Good Crafts screens; some stained glass

43 Warwick William Wroth, FSA, 1858-1911, eldest son of Rev Warwick Reed Wroth, was a distinguished numismatist at the British Museum, and also author of The London Pleasure Gardens of the 18th Century 1896.  The Rev Mr Wroth, had his vicarage here

Lloyd Square

Lloyd Square first appears in 1833, its progress especially inhibited by the cost of its larger houses, and of such additions as contributing to the central garden layout, which proved a financial embarrassment to some of the builders.  As a result, some were skimped in workmanship. The Lloyd Baker estate, whose three large fields formed a long parallelogram on the hillside between the Pentonville end of the New River estate and the Fleet valley by Bagnigge Wells, was owned by a Gloucestershire family.  In the time of James I Dr William Lloyd, Bishop of St Asaph, was one of the "Seven Bishops" who defied the King; Mary, the daughter of a descendant, the Rev. John Lloyd, married another clergyman, the Rev William Baker of Hardwicke Court.  It was their son, Thomas John Lloyd Baker, who in his father's lifetime actively undertook development of their London estate in the 1820s.  A plan of 1807 shows the three fields, two of them abutting on the east on New River land.  Hill Field contained two small reservoirs used by the New River Company; Robin Hood's Field also adjoined Lord Northampton's estate to the south, as did the third.  Black Mary's Field.  Black Mary's other side extended to Bagnigge Wells road, and housed a cow layer and other farm buildings.  The Lloyd Baker estate was planned from September 1818, placing it fairly early in the post-Napoleonic canon, but it was delayed by a trade depression, which slowed the taking up of leases.  The estate plan was drawn up by the family's elderly surveyor, John Booth, who submitted a plan for Lloyd Square in August 1828, and a year later objected to a contractor's proposal to build it in the style of Amwell Street, which would spoil the symmetry since two sides of the square had already been let in advance.  It was Booth's son, William Joseph (1797-1872), who took over as architect, aligning in a much more individual style than Amwell Street and other New River given the dimensions and shape of the estate, there was small scope for the space at the top end other than turn it into a 'square' - or rather, an open space bordered by houses.  Given, too, that the more common practice was to create a square surrounded by streets.  Lloyd Square is a 'square' as it were by necessity, because space would not allow the converging streets to continue to the top unless houses became almost back-to-back.  The Granville Square plan was here turned inside out, leaving the hilltop as garden ground, and making this end of Wharton and Baker Streets into 'Lloyd Square' with similar paired villas. Early residents of the estate were gentlemen, tradesmen, and small professionals - timber merchant, surgeon, watchmaker, solicitor, and house agent.  Furthermore, the family origin of the landlords led to a large number of Welsh inhabitants over the years.  The Lloyd Baker estate was almost unique in London in remaining in private hand until a very late date.  Miss Olive Lloyd Baker (1903-75), who inherited it from he father at the age of 13, maintained a personal interest in her 450 tenants, administering| her inheritance "like a feudal village".  At her death, rents were mostly below the normal but on the other hand, many houses had shared lavatories and 40 had no baths.  In 1971 Islington Council acquired 95 rather run-down properties on the estate (none in Lloyd Square), and by degrees rehabilitated them with the help of a GLC grant.  Other houses were bought by their tenants, or occupied under licence.  Lloyd Square was kept a leasehold.  The gardens too remained in private local ownership, maintained by the residents through a committee levying a rate, and the only private gardens in the area except for Charterhouse Square.  The peculiar history of this area has given it a strong village atmosphere, with feeling of closely-knit community, enhanced by traditional local shops in adjoining Amwell Street in the character of 'Village Street’.  The distinctive, if not unique streets of the Lloyd Baker estate play a set of variation on terrace and linked-villa theme.  Lloyd Square, at the top of the estate, exhibits the Greek influence of young Booth's early travels, especially in its pediments, and gives a trick effect of paired villas.  All are in fact linked by advanced porch entrances with flat pillars or half-pillars - coupled between two houses, each with a small room above.  Most of the fanlights survive, consisting of seven long cylindrical panes.  All windows are squared, with lying panes.  Some doorcases retain an original circular moulding at the corners.  Two widely spaced rooms on each floor are capped by a heavy cornice and, above, a plain 'pediment', and are sliced across by a broad stringcourse.  Chimneys are centred.  While not emulating the extraordinary owl-like, bespectacled effect of Lloyd Baker Street, whose windows are recessed behind huge arches with brick mouldings, Lloyd Square is distinctly unusual.  The square tilts slightly downhill, contributing to the rhythmic fall of the estate's two axial streets, Wharton and Lloyd Baker.  Internally the houses differ, but on plan, the stairs are generally placed centrally between two rooms

7 was the original Sisters of Bethany

11 -12 are eccentric

12 is really part of Lloyd Baker Street.

21, home of the actor and producer the late Denis Arundell.

24 Home of Poulton, jurist

Alexandra Club.  In 1880-82 a House of Retreat was built for the Sisters of Bethany, the designs of Ernest Newton; since 1966 this has been the Alexandra Club (YWCA). Its window design has a slight echo of the windows of the square's houses.

Archery field house.  Just below the NW corner of the square was a small circular pond, one of the New River Company reservoirs in Hill Field.  This was later drained and two large houses built on the site.  In 1883 these were demolished for the building of a new Spa Field Chapel, for the congregation of the old Exmouth Street 'Pantheon' chapel when was replaced by the Holy Redeemer Church.  By 1938 the chapel's congregation had dwindled away, and this too was demolished and the estate repossessed the site, under a clause of re-ownership should the 'cause' fail.  After the war   Archery Fields House a small block of flats was built on the site in mildly pastiche style.

Lloyd Street

Part of the Lloyd Baker Estate – family estate

Cable House

Lloyds Row

Hugh Myddleton School. Separate Nursery School similarly detailed to the main school. Mallory Buildings?

Called after one of the Knights buried in the church

Malta Street

Named after Hospital of Knights of Malta

St.Mary of the Cross, picturesque fountain 1863. Glass school and parsonage of 1870

Partridge Court, Retired home, local Partridge family

Crayle Court, London County Council, 1960

Manningford Close

Midway House

Margery Street.

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area, which had previously been used for meetings.  In time parts of Clerkenwell, with alleys and mean infillings, became one of the worst Victorian slums, and the Margery Street area.  Built up piecemeal 1819-31 and then cleared and rebuilt in the 1930s.  Another parcel, which belonged to the Northampton Estate, built up piecemeal 1819-31 by a builder, John Wilson.  11 squalid courts which developed on the Northampton lat between Wilmington Square and the Lloyd Baker Estate was cleared in the 1920s and replaced by Finsbury's most extensive inter-war housing.  Five- and six-storey flats of 1930-4 by E. C.P. Monson.  The conventional courtyard lay-out, with polite Neo-Georgian frontages but austere backs, should be contrasted with Tecton's work.

New Merlin's Cave

Bagnigge House

Charles Simmons House

Earlom House

Greenaway House

Gwynne House

Riceyman House

St.Anne's House. 'Very superior blocks of workers flats',

St.Helena House 'very superior blocks of workers flats',

St.Philip House

Spring House

William Martin Court

Mason's Place

Merlin Street

Merlin Street Baths

24 Charles Ronan House, flats for married police.  Expressionist red brick exteriors. More individual 1927-30, by G. Mackenzie Trench, architect to the Metropolitan Police.  A rare early example of flats for married policemen.  Five storeys, around a courtyard entered through large arches with tiled voussoirs.  Drab courtyard elevations with the usual access balconies, but expressionist red brick exteriors with strong verticals ending in blocky chimneys; no period features at all

Milner Street

St Simon Zelotes

Moreland Street

King's Arms

Finsbury Mission

Moreland School 1971 similar to Moorfields.

Mount Pleasant

Clerkenwell Hill circled by the Fleet River. Sarcastically called Mount Pleasant. Site of Cold Bath Fields Prison. Mount Pleasant itself was probably a heap of rubbish, which was sent to build Moscow in 1812. Previously Called Gardeners Fields, swampy. Before 1875 called Baynes Row and Dorrington Street. Once just a country track leading to the Fleet River. 

Cold Bath Fields Prison built 1794 and closed 1900. It was originally the Middlesex House of Correction with places for 1,800 convicts, the largest jail of its time. It was a very rough institution, known as the Bastille or the Steel.

Post Office Underground railway stables, maintenance depot, blind tunnel that was supposed to go up Cubitt Street and along the Fleet Valley. Was to be an extension to King's Cross, and to office in Mornington Crescent, never built

Post Office Sorting Office. By the Office of Works converting the Middlesex House of Correction. Huge Parcel Post Office built in 1900-34 and damaged in 1943. Largest of its kind in the world, with 91 acres of floor space, and about a million parcels every week. Visitors were shown the Sorting Offices and the Post Office Railway.  1934 by A. Myers of the Office of Works. Vast.  Refurbishment and extensions Watkins Gray International, 1996.

4 Grimaldi

47-53 Georgian terrace.  A surprising survival, a modest early Georgian terrace 47-49 is the least altered, with brick bands and cornice and ornamental window heads.  The plaque 'Dorrington Street 1720' seems appropriate but is not in situ; it comes from a street near Brooke's Market

Holiday Inn replacingMounbt Pleasant Hotel, a refurbishmentpfaRowtonHousxe.

Myddleton Passage

Benyon House

Worthington House

Myddleton Square

This is the largest square in the district barring the monumental Finsbury Square, in area just outstripping Charterhouse Square.  Arguably Islington's best, and chief adornment of the distinguished New River estate, it is contemporary with Wilmington and the last part of Claremont Squares.  Design and layout were by the Company's surveyor, William Chadwell Mylne (1781-1863).  Like the rest of the estate it covered former Priory of St John property, Commandry Mantells, and Tomlins remarks that its building, with the adjoining Upper Chadwell and River Streets, "completely obliterated all remembrance of the Mantells and their former lordly possessions.” Mantell is said to be a corruption of Mandeville, the name of a mediaeval proprietor who gave the land to the Priory of the Knights of St John. The Property of the Knights was commonly known as a Commandery. The exact site was a large field called Butcher's Mantells, between New River Yard and the "Upper Pond" where Claremont Square was built, lonely enough to be the night haunt of footpads.  From 1824 to 1829 the new square appears in Sewer Rate Books under the name Chadwell Square.  By 1827, 67 of its 73 houses are recorded, a number of them still empty. Although Myddelton Square is stylistically the most unified in the area, with all houses of four storeys and basements and all its tall drawing-room-floor windows framed in sunken panels, a few minutes' study will show as much variety in building decoration as other Islington squares.  For example, while all end houses have flanking porches each pair is different.  Not all houses are of the same size:  he west side has stucco door and window surrounds, and stringcourses: the houses are stepped upwards to take the slope.  The east side lacks string courses except

3-4 disappeared during the war, enlarging access to Myddelton Passage.

11a-12a the south side, where a pend was made through to back garden the flanking houses have been given small side porches, string course and full rustication where other houses have only horizontal channelling.

18-21 the corner houses a slightly larger, with larger doorways and their piano nobile window furthermore, are rather Frenchified in proportions and have margin panes – though not all survive.

30 Plaque.  The Rev Jabez Bunting (1779-1858), "second founder of Methodism, lived there from 1833 until his death.  He was appointed Senior Secretary of the Missionary So in 1833, and from 1834-58 was President of the Theological Institute.

33 -34 and 23-30 Flatted arches to the ground floor windows and front doors distinguish them.

39 home of Giffard, scholar

39 The Rev Robert Maguire (1826-96), who lived here from 1857-75, was a   cause celebre in 1857, when an overwhelming majority elected him minister I James's Church, Clerkenwell, after a prolonged and unseemly tussle her parishioners and Vestry on the right of appointment, and a knock-out contest her several clergymen.

42 Home to Ballard – Medical Officer of Health and early pollution inspector

43-53 Bomb damage during World War II destroyed houses.  On the north side.  On it now stands this range is an exceptionally early example of facsimile reconstruct which the New River Company undertook with satisfactory results in 1947.  The rebuilt houses are distinct from the originals lacking stuccoed ground floors and having very thin stringcourses and narrow win guards; most other houses have paired balconies.

45 commemorative plaque

5 home of actor, Dibdin.  Flat no 4 home of novelist B.S.Johnson.  The actor-playwright Thomas Dibdin, who when the square was first built lived near the SW corner, writes admiringly in his Autobiography published that year, that the area "not five years since, was an immense field, where people used to be stopped and robbed on their return in the evening from Sadler's Wells; and the ground floor

60 Fenner Brockway, the first Labour peer, lived at here from 1908-10.  A plaque unveiled (by himself) in 1975. He was a a peace campaigner and early supporter of colonial freedom. Lord Brockway, as he became, died in the late 1980s just short of his 100th birthday.

61 Richard Cromwell Carpenter (1812-55), District Surveyor for East Islington, architect of Lonsdale Square, lived here from 1836-42, until 1841 as "Esq. and in 1842 as "Architect" - a nice distinction.

65 Features in films 'The End of the Affair’.

9 home of Painter, Schmit

St Mark's Church. in the centre of the square. Built 1825-27 as a chapel of ease for Clerkenwell and it is like a Commissioners' church - "the usual Gothic box of the period" or “Joke Gothic”.It’s exceptionally solid 90-foot high west tower has a fine traceried and pinnacled porch in keeping with the scale of the square.  It is stock brick  but some of the stone came from Wanstead House.  The window tracery is of iron, not stone. It was designed by W. C. Mylne, Surveyor of the New River Estate.  It was reordered in 1873 by W. Slater to create a chancel; and reseated in 1879. Originally the church had a three-sided gallery, but after serious war damage, restoration left an always-bare interior barer still.  The east window showing the Ascension, with scenes of local events, was designed in 1962 by A E Buss, of Goddard & Gibbs. On the wall at the back of the Church is a plaque recording the death of Sir Hugh Myddelton on 10 December, 1631 with the words "Engineer, Goldsmith and Public Benefactor. He brought Fresh Water to London". Features in films 'The End of the Affair’.

Myddleton Street

Chadwell Mylne himself laid out a handsome suburb on the Company's land north of New River Head, with appropriate names.

50 Buchanan medical practise 1860s.

Hugh Myddleton Junior School. Among the most interesting. 1966 for ILEA. The angled across an incoherent cleared area between Spa Fields and Finsbury Estates. Attractive sturdy buildings, of brown brick with bold timber fascia, a departure from standard types Julian Sofaer for ILEA, 1966-70. The design makes much use of golden section proportions. The Infants' School has one-store-ranges formally arranged around a courtyard; the two-storey Junior School is linked to it, and also has a small courtyard.

Royal Mail Public House.

Mr. Turner, floor cloth and table cover, mfr, fire, building, factory, japan and store room used as a drying house

New River Head

Sir Hugh Myddelton's New River was completed in 1613. Its route from Amwell in Hertfordshire terminated with a reservoir on the high ground above Clerkenwell, later known as Spa Fields. The former ponds are still open spaces, the Upper Pond in Claremont Square is now a covered reservoir, and the inner and outer round ponds of c17 origin are now dry between Rosebery Avenue and Amwell Street. Some early buildings remain. New River Head was opened in 1613 by labourers walking round it. Pumps from old engine house of 1818 raised water to Claremont Square and Crouch Hill. In 1820 the company offices based here but were rebuilt by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1920. Now all private housing.

The Round Pond formed the nucleus of reservoirs to which the New River was channelled. The work was completed in 1613. From the circular "bason" or reservoir of 1613 water was conducted to a cistern thence to smaller cisterns, and finally distributed to the City by means of wooden pipes hollowed from elm-trunks. By the early 18th century the Round Pond was ringed by a much larger, irregular pool, and they were known as the Inner and Outer Ponds. The Round Pond was abandoned in 1914 and vanished under Water Board buildings, and much of its remaining original wall was destroyed in 1976 by the Thames Water Authority to make way for prefabricated offices and car parks. Much of the Pond's sloping revetments had survived undisturbed until then. Part still remains behind the main building on the north side

The Water House.  Sluice-house and offices. On the south rim of the Round Pond what came to be called the Water House was built in 1613-14.  The original brick buildings had a steep-pitched pyramidal roof and its upper storey partly carried over a colonnade –attributed by tradition to Inigo Jones. As well as a gallery above the cistern with stopcocks for the sluices, there was a counting-house, and was home to the clerk. A later Clerk, John Greene who married Myddelton's granddaughter, enlarged the building in the 1690s, when the Oak Room was created.   Subsequently much enlarged, it became home to successive Surveyors to the Company, notably Robert Mylne (1733-1814), but was demolished y the Metropolitan Water Board to make way for the offices opened in 1920.   In 1820, the Company offices moved from Dorset Street here and Chadwell Mylne made the necessary alterations. In 1902 the Metropolitan Water Board took over the New River Company's premises and in 1913 decided to rebuild them entirely.  This ended in the obliteration of the Water House and the destruction of almost the entire Round Pond. Delayed by the First World War, the new offices designed by Austen Hall were opened in 1920, on a reorientated axis, largely covering the drained Inner Pond. The new building did, however, incorporate the Oak Room, rebuilt to face west at an angle of 90° to its former axis.  In 1987 the TWA moved to Reading, and the future of the building, and of the New River itself, came under review.

Wind pump.  Circular brick base c. 1708, now with conical roof for pumping water to the Upper Pond.   It was replaced by a horse. Water was pumped to Claremont Square by a six-sailed windmill designed by George Sorocold. As wind-power proved unreliable, and the mill was damaged by storms, two horse-gins were substituted in 1720. The brick windmill tower remained a landmark for many years and its lowest storey remains to day.

There were two c19 boiler houses.

Engine House. In 1767 an atmospheric steam engine was installed by John Smeaton, in a tall brick engine-house. This engine was at first not completely successful and was rebuilt, and replaced by one more efficient. Two Boulton and Watt beam engines were installed in 1808, for which the engine-house was enlarged - the extensions are still distinguishable – with a tall chimney, which remained until 1946. Water was thus supplied to Holborn, Islington, and Holloway.

Devil’s Conduit In the area of the former inner pond. Rather confusingly re-erected in 1927. It served originally as an extension to the White Conduit, which supplied the Greyfriars.  Handsome 14th-century stone cistern - popularly known as the Devil's Conduit - removed here in 1927 from Queen's Square, Bloomsbury.

c20 buildings of the Metropolitan Water Board facing Rosebery Avenue were converted to flats in 1997-8.

Headquarters Offices.  by H. Austen Hall, 1914-20; Neo- Georgian, with a formal entrance to Hardwick Street and angled wings and an added top storey. The Interior circulation area leads to the Oak room board of 1696-7, reinstalled from the previous offices on the site. It has sumptuous plasterwork and carved panelling, some of the best of its date in London. The ceiling is oval with a painted medallion of William III and allegorical figures, by Henry Cooke, within lushly modelled wreath and borders; charming small plaster panels of rural scenes. The fireplace is flanked in the grand manner with two big Corinthian half-columns; the high-relief watery and fishy subjects flanking the royal arms on the over mantel are carved with all the exquisite realism of the Gibbons tradition, and must surely be by him. Carvings over doors and windows as well. Now flats. Features in films 'The Innocent Sleep’.

Laboratory building by John Murray Easton of Easton & Robertson, 1938, built on a curve, with continuous first-floor windows. At the end a semicircular glazed projection for a staircase, especially handsome inside, with a blue ceiling with figure of Aquarius by F. P. Morion, and original light fittings. One of the most pleasing structures of its date in London.  Meter testing department extended in 1920s. New laboratories on site of first filter beds.  Electric pumps put in 1950. Pipes which brought water from Stoke Newington used to connect King George and William Girling reservoirs.  Seal of the Metropolitan water Board bearing the same motto as on the seal of the New River Company, which it absorbed, and two hands on either side represent a boy pour water and a girl holding a hose-pipe. On a publication by the M.W B in 1953 an old man appeared in place of the boy. The eight drops of water represent the eight water companies which formed the M.W.B. now flats.

Research Building added by Howard Robinson in 1938.

Reservoirs built in 1709. 17th and eighteenth century ponds. In the early eighteenth century the round pond had another pond inside it. 1976 vetements were moved for a car park.  Behind the main building is the old floor of the inner pond.

Surroundings – in 1898 New River Head was surrounded by the Company’s fields. Almost the only buildings within a quarter-mile radius apart from Sadler's Wells and Myddelton's Head, were an old farm-house (Laycock's, by Goose Yard), the cottages then newly encroaching on Islington Spa gardens, and terraces along the east side of St John Street.

Ring Main Shaft.  The new London water ring main passes under this site at about 45 metres underground. Construction site and access shaft. The ring main connects to these shafts at a depth of 40m

Newcastle Row

1, which has a lively blue striped-brick ground floor and projecting eaves in sympathy with nearby buildings.

Northampton Estate

Developed in the early c 19 on land around the Manor House belonging to the Earl of Northampton, which survived until 1869.  The names Compton Street and Spencer Street recall the family ownership.  Watch and clock making spread to this area from Clerkenwell, and during the c19 specialist small-scale industries proliferated.  By the c20 the minor streets had become notoriously slummy; hence the extensive rebuilding

Northampton Road

Was previously part of Rosoman Street. Thomas Rosoman was the builder of the second Sadler's Wells. It is called Northampton because the manor of Clerkenwell was a possession of the Compton family of Compton Wynyates, the head of which became Marquess of Northampton in the eighteenth century.

London, Metropolitan Archive, previously Greater London Record Office in the building since 1986. It was the large former printing works of the Temple Press, built 1939 by F.W.,Troupe and converted in 1984 to house the G.L.C. Archive and Library and remodelled by Bisset Adams.. 13 miles of books on London plus documents and of photographs.

Northampton Buildings stood, On the east side, bounded by Rosoman Street/Corporation Row/Goode Street, from 1892 to 1978 of the Artisans, Labourers and General Dwellings Co. After their demolition, the site remained open and derelict like a travesty of the old grottoes and tea gardens, which since 1984 are more appropriately recalled by an ornamental park and a playground.

35 In 1813 the Finsbury Dispensary was then the top house of the street opposite the London Spa. It contained remnants of a 'grotto garden’, which had been one of the minor showplaces about 1780.

Northampton Buildings of Artisans Labourers and General Dwellings, now Playground

Thomas Wethered

English Grotto Gardens in north east corner of Lower Rosoman Street

Mulberry Garden

35 Daily Chronicle start of News Chronicle

Northampton Tabernacle

35 Finsbury Distillery garden there

Small reservoir. At the corner of the street opposite the London Spa, to which it was at one time connected by water-wheels turned by waste water from the River Head.

Surprise

23

Northampton Square

Northampton Estate was built up on land around the Manor House, which belonged to the Earls of Northampton.  Their titles are reflected in adjoining street names. Square laid out in 1805. A former pipe- field belonging to the New River Co. was cleared of its mass of wooden pipes to form the site of the Square. The Spencer Compton family, Earls and later Marquesses of Northampton and owners of Canonbury Manor, also held land in Clerkenwell.  Northampton 'manor house' remained the family's town house until the late 17^th century, but at some time between 1677 and 1708 they removed to Bloomsbury Square in the general westwards exodus of the aristocracy from Clerkenwell - because of the lure of Whitehall and, to some extent, pressure on Clerkenwell property from City merchants and craftsmen after the Great Fire of 1666.  At that time the mansion's surroundings were known as Wood's Close estate a rural area extending beyond the intersection of Percival Street and Corporation Lane, which was then the limit of St John Street.  Northampton Square was laid out about 1805   its earliest leases dating from 1806-10.  Paving requests start in 1805.  The square's plan incorporated six radial streets, finished about 1815-18, all given Northampton family names.  In shape the square might almost be represented as a lozenge or diamond, with its four corners at the points of the compass, Like many other parts of Clerkenwell the square was before long occupied by master tradesmen and others in the clock and watch-making industry, and already by the 1830s and '40s back premises were becoming infilled by substantial workshops and even small houses for humbler residents.  This juxtaposition may have been Cockerell's policy, such as he had already adopted in the Foundling Hospital Estate, and certainly the Northampton estates did allow for occupation by a wide range of social classes.  Northampton Square continued 'respectable' until about 1900, but long before that the short leases had begun to fall in (late 1870s onwards), and buildings began to be split into tenements, while few repairs were carried out.  Shoddy workshops and hovels were run up in intervening and rear spaces, and the whole area had deteriorated into slum.  Compton was much perturbed by this evil, and even before he succeeded to the estate as 5th Marquess, he instituted improvements.  The most notable contribution to the area was the founding of a new adult education institute in 1896, appropriately named after his family.  The surviving houses are extremely pretty.  Unlike other squares, they have semi- J circular sunk panels on both ground and first floors; a continuous dentil moulding runs below the attic floor, and most doorways retain similar mouldings. 

Northampton House which before 1802 was a private asylum. It had been mansion of the Earls of Northampton on being vacated by its noble owners, at some date before 1728 became a private madhouse; a fate which befell a number of other great houses round London.  For some time it was run by Dr James Newton, a herbalist, who laid out the grounds as a botanic garden, where in 1730 a rare white lily, growing a 'cluster of roots' from the top end of its stalk, was recorded.  Of the inmates, the most notable was perhaps Richard Brothers, a religious fanatic.  A former naval lieutenant, he was first reduced to the workhouse after squandering his pay in disputing the qualifying oath, and then, believing himself a heavenly prophet.  In 1817 Northampton House became a young ladies' boarding academy, and in the 1850s, "Manor House School,” for boys.  It was finally demolished in 1869 to make way for a church.  The site was presented by the 3rd Marquess. 

Northampton Polytechnic/City University The Northampton Institute was originally a branch of the City Polytechnic In 1907 it attained independent existence as the Northampton Polytechnic Institute, and it expanded steadily, acquiring new annexes and facilities, especially in engineering, technical trades and chemistry.  In 1957 it became a College of Advanced Technology, and in 1966 was further upgraded as the City University.  The architect E L Mountford, who also designed Battersea Polytechnic, here in 1896 made imaginative use of an odd asymmetrical site - Baroque executed with Rococo flair.  At the NW corner a low wing tapers to a point with turret and cupola above, abutting on the large main building with its curly gable ends.  The assertive entrance tower, topped with a heavy-looking tempietto, is almost overshadowed by its supporting bracket buttresses, the striped drums and parapet below, and the chiming clock projecting over St John Street.  North of the entrance, the hall block is fronted with a row of pillar-like buttresses; the longer frontage southwards to Wyclif Street combines French Renaissance and Queen Anne features.  Not least of its remarkable decorations is the sculpture by P R Montford above the entrance, of figures symbolising science, agriculture, etc.  In 1966, after the college achieved university status, it was unfortunately considered necessary to sacrifice the whole north end of Northampton Square for new buildings 1966-70, by Sheppard Robson & Partners.  This large addition cut across the top corner in a straight line, obliterating two streets, and a small wing projected forward at the end.  The addition effectively turned the college buildings back to front, with the older buildings now partly used for administration, and main lecture-rooms, and students' corridors entered from Northampton Square.  City University.  The historic nucleus is Northampton Institute built in 19^th as part of estate improvements. Was an important technical institute built in 1896 by E. W. Mountford, but extended several times since It filled an awkward site with a public hall, offices and swimming pool.  Completed in 1898. Bombed and some replacements.  City University. So named from 1966.  It fills an awkward triangle between St. John Street and Northampton Square with public hall offices, workshops and swimming bath. E. W. Mountford won a competition in 1893; the building was completed in 1898. Red brick with lavish stone dressings. An exceedingly successful example of the neo-French c16 style of the moment with its fresh and playful enrichments. At the comer, for example, a picturesque composition in three dimensions: a pert little turret with its cupola, a big bold curved gable higher up, and a lantern tower as a final flourish. The main front is asymmetrical but with a central tower.   Doorway with lively figure-frieze by Paul Montford below. A Baroque curved-up broken pediment. Windows partly French c16 partly Queen Anne. Many alterations: internal courtyard built over at basement level by 1901; five-storey extensions into it, 1909. After war damage the great hall on the St John Street front was rebuilt within existing walls, the gym to its E replaced by a five-storey block (1952-8), and the swimming pool at the Northampton Square comer was reroofed. The main campus buildings by Sheppard Robson & Partners 1971-9, adjoin the Institute cutting brutally across the comer of the square and the site of Charles Street. Tough exposed concrete and dark brick, as used in their earlier university buildings but here there are no alleviating open courts or greenery, and the heavy masses do little to lift the spirit. Circulation at first-floor level. The buildings include library, students' union, refectories, lecture theatres and laboratories etc. The Centenary Building was converted from High Voltage Laboratory to lecture theatres in 1993-4.

St.Peter’s church. dismissed by Pevsner as "quite uncommonly ugly, had a high tower and was intended to be transeptal, though the transept was never completed.  Apart from its vast size, one of its chief features was the series of bas-relief panels on the exterior depicting historic martyrdoms.  There were statues of the chief martyrs in niches at the tops of the buttresses, and inside the church, tablet!  Along the walls listing 66 English martyrs from the Wycliffites onwards.  The church was heavily damaged in the Second World War, and eventually demolished in 1956, when the parish was reunited with St James's, Clerkenwell.  It was replaced by a sadly, unmemorable row of shops and flats, and Wyclif Court, a 14-storey Council block.

New River Company Behind the manor house had been a pipe-field covered with New River wooden water pipes, and their replacement by underground iron pipes enabled the release of such sites for building.

Market in the first half of the 18th century a market for the sale of sheepskins was held in the area between Northampton House and Percival Street, The Skinners' Company owned land immediately west of St John Street.  From 1792 part of the same site was used for the parish 'Greenyard', a pound for stray animals.  The Skin Market ceased about 1815, when the site began to be built over by Market Street and small lanes, all long ago disappeared.  The Council flats, Brunswick Close, adjoining Northampton Square, now cover the area.

The gardens.  Lord Compton, well before he succeeded as 5th Marquess (1897), not only made ground available for the new Northampton Institute, but also had already opened all the square gardens to the public.  1886 he conveyed  Northampton and Wilmington Square gardens to the Vestry as a gift, the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association having offered to run them for the benefit of the poor.  The Marquess's daughter, Lady Margaret Graham, had formally opened the gardens in July 1885, and at the same time a fountain for local use was erected by Charles Clement Walker, Esq., JP, of Shropshire, in memory of his mother who was long a resident in the parish.  The estate remained in the Northampton family's hands until 1949.  Was the garden of the London mansion of the Crompton family? Donation to mother of Walker, JP.  Built in 1830 on the site of a pipe field belonging to the New River Company.  Managed by Vestry of Clerkenwell

11-12 George Baxter (1804-67), who invented the "Baxter print,” a method of oil colour picture printing, and had business premises part of the destroyed range from 1843-60.

18-21 eccentric numbering, extending back into Sebastian Street, has two bays of blind windows - one with a Royal Insurance plate - a handsome back addition; its doorway, in the street.  He also an elaborate fanlight and fine Ionic/composite half-columns.

18-35 survive. This row, the longest, has a variety of good door pilasters, notably

22 double-fronted but with front door asymmetrically placed,

22-25 are unequal in size,

26, the largest with four slightly crowded bays, even has an overhead lamp bracket. The house is oddly cut off at an angle due to the angle of entrance of humble Tompion Street - of which a single small house survival attached to its grander neighbour

27 fames Clarke Hook, RA (1819-1907), portrait, historical and marine painter, admired by Ruskin, was born here and educated at the North London Grammar School, Islington. He studied at the British Museum and the Royal Academy, where he exhibited very successfully; a Radical and keen Methodist.

28, pilasters actually composite half-columns.

29, with pilasters, also has lion masks.

3-25 narrower than the rest, necessitating slim windows and panes.

35 British Horological Institute

36-29 houses are 3-storey with attic and basement, all with balconettes, and a row of characteristic workshop windows in the attics of testify to earlier. Use of some of the houses.

Bessemer lived in Northampton Square,

Brunswick Close on the site.  Development replacing slummy Northampton Estate properties in the 1950s. Three fourteen storey slabs. By Lubetkin’s assistant Franck.  1956

Brunswick Court

South corner house belongs to Sebastian Street, its fenestration, and other features slightly raised above its neighbours.  It is also the only house who circular-headed window has radial astragals, the rest, surprisingly in such a graceful setting, having the simplest type of uncompromising straight verticals.

Owen’s Row

The line of the New River. A short cul-de- sac terrace beside the Empress of Russia pub, and by a small shrubbery.

2-5 humble Georgian terraces

Optics Dept of City University in 1963 buildings, which were once part of Dame Alice Owen's Girls School.

Paget Street

Pardon Street

Was Clark Street. Site of Pardon churchyard and chapel, dates from Black Death

Passing Alley

Features in films 'The Criminal’

Pear Tree Court

A large area of Peabody housing, built in 1883 to house over four hundred people displaced by clearance of the overcrowded small courts hidden behind the houses.  A surviving c1 8 house is just visible at the back. A haunt of Oliver Twist and the Dodger.

Students halls of residence for City University

Large area of Peabody housing

Peartree Street

St.Paul's Church, bombed

Percival Street

Named after Spencer Percival

Brunswick Close Estate swept the old pattern away.  1956-8 Embenon, Franck & Tardrew.  Three bold fourteen-storey slabs, rising from leafy gardens, on a staggered plan to allow for maximum light levels.  Exposed reinforced concrete construction, with small projecting fire escape staircases ornamenting the top four storey flats.  The westernmost block has shops facing St John Street, and originally had an open way through it, a Corbusian concept which recurs in the firm's other Finsbury estates

Earnshaw House, Thomas Earnshaw, pioneer chronometer 1949

Grimthorpe House

Harold Laski House

Tompion House, Thomas Tompion watchmaking pioneer

Pickard Street

Kestrel House

Pine Street

Used to be Wood Street

Finsbury Health Centre, 1935-8 by Lubetkin and Tecton, their first public commission. One of the key buildings to demonstrate the relevance of the Modem Movement to progressive local authorities. This was the first achievement of the 'Finsbury Plan', the borough's effort, inspired by Alderman Harold Riley and Dr Katial, Chairman of the Public Health Committee, to create better living conditions for its overcrowded residents.  It has an H-shaped plan, which is two-storeyed with a pan-basement floor, and a central entrance set in a gently curving projecting wall of glass blocks, between splayed wings. It has the Borough arms over the entrance. The formality is tempered by a roof terrace to the centre, the name above in typical 1935-40 lettering. The walls are faced with cream tiles and there are glass panels and metal windows. A floating effect is achieved in the 'flashgap' - a recessed plinth between the walls and the ground, which is typical of Lubetkin. The light and airy entrance hall is given character by its curved glass wall, and originally had Gordon Cullen's health education murals on the rear walls, with a large map of London in the centre but some original furniture and light fittings remain. The lecture theatre has a curved back and a curved concrete roof. Consulting and treatment rooms are divided by partitions in the wings, where extra space and light fills the corridors. Repairs by Avanti Architects, in 1994 restored part of the exterior to its original appearance. This included asphalt reroofing, new tiles on the left-hand entrance wing, new thermolite glass panels, and the restoration of the original colour scheme of blue and terracotta to the painted concrete.

Finsbury Maternity and Child Welfare Centre

Rawstorne Street

Part of Frog Lane. The old road from London to Highbury.  The Land is part of the Brewer’s Estate let to them by Dame Alice Owen in 1613.  The Knights Hospitaller founded a hermitage in another field on Goswell Fields - the triangle between St John Street, Goswell Road and Rawsthorne Street. Here in 1610 were built almshouses for ten poor women of Islington and Clerkenwell, a chapel, and a school for poor children of the district, all by Dame Alice Owen, who had been enriched by the death of three City husband, in 1613 she conveyed the land in trust to the Brewers Company who administered the charity.

Railway tunnel between Farringdon and King's Cross blown up by bomb 10/40

Brewers Buildings. 1871. Some blocks refurbished 1968

48 St. Mark's National Schools

Amateur Theatre

Ray Street

Was Rag Street, supposed to be a mill site. Also  it was Hockley in the Hole because it was down by the river and because a lot of rough young people used to socialise there.

Ray street crossover. Tunnel below Metropolitan. Lines across widened lines. 1863 rebuilt 1960 widened lines 1860 to allow Metropolitan. Trains over old lines others go under. Eastern end mouth is 16ft lower than Metropolitan tracks and dip under the Metropolitan tracks and go onto the south side of the other lines. Metropolitan tracks went across the widened lines by a wrought iron bridge, which acted as a strut between the walls, which the cutting called Ray Street gridiron, renewed in 1892, and 1960.

Tubinsiation of the Metropolitan Railway after 1860 between November 1860 and May 62. 29 ft wide 59 ft deep. Fleet River in a pipe loft diameter. Tunnel is built on rubble in the river bed but after 1862 flooded to 10 ft. joined by the River of the Wells

Metropolitan Horse Trough

Paupers Burial Ground  was on the west side

Coach and Horses– on the site of the establishment where all the fights and drinking took place.

2

River Street

Chadwell Mylne himself laid out this suburb on the Company's land north of New River Head, with appropriate names. Features in films 'Doctor in the House’.

Rosebery Avenue

Named after Lord Rosebery, Chairman of the London County Council who officially opened it in 1896.  it has been originally planned by the Metropolitan Board of Works. The northern end comes from existing streets but the southern end was new. In the 18^th  there were small roads north of the New River Head.  In the Clerkenwell area new Victorian roads were built over available open space, incorporating existing lanes, which were widened.  The road’s  massive bridges and towering blocks obscure the steep drop to the Fleet Valley and there are 14 arches over the Fleet River. It crosses  Spa Fields, past Sadler's Wells to St John Street in the gap left by the New River between St John's Terrace and Myddelton Place. most of the buildings opposite New River Head were demolished including Eliza Place, the Sir Hugh Myddelton Tavern, and Deacon's Music Hall. At the southern end printing and publishing offices opened , trees were planted, and a new Town Hall and Fire Station were built, and there is even a tiny park - Spa Green which was created from four separate plots.  Among the demolitions was Cold Bath Fields Prison and Mount Pleasant Post Office was begun and surrounded with working-class flats.  There was regeneration in the 1990s to designs by Peter Mishcon. Features in films 'Mona Lisa’.

1-2 Ginnan

133-159 sleek and bold by John Gill Associates, 1987-9, is feebly postmodern, with brick triangular oriels with a tall glazed frontage and transparent curved stair-tower behind.

143 Kempson and Mauger enamellers

143-147 Edison

161 refurbished 1920s warehouse given a neat new steel fire escape to provide a focus at the back.  All by Troughton McAslan, 1989-91.

40 A brick house, which is a remnant of Cobham Row.  In 18^th the street went around the ‘cold bath’.  A three-storey brick house.  Cold bath commemorated in the name Coldbath Square.

44 Fire Station.  L.C.C 1911. F. T. Cooper of the LCC Fire Brigade Branch. Large, quite plain eighteen-window front, but with nice Arts and Crafts details and railings

58-66, striped brick, with two sets of hoist doors.

90 Rosebery Hall

Barnstaple Mansions

Bell

Bideford Mansions

Braunton Mansions

Cavendish Mansions.  Grim looking blocks.

Finsbury Town Hall.  An eclectically styled building, on a triangular island site,  built as the Clerkenwell Vestry Hall in 1894 to replace the old parish watch-house of 1814 and enlarged by the new Borough of Finsbury in 1899.  Site at a spot where six roads met, also opposite the London Spa but the first phase at the same time as the completion of Rosebery Avenue which it fronts.  Lord Rosebery was the local authority chair who also opened the building. It is built mainly of red brick with elaborate rubbed-brick and Ancaster-stone dressings. The architect was Charles Evans Vaughan who won the competition held in 1893. The interior was remodeled by E.C.P. Monson in 1928 but kept the original public hall on the first floor which is most notable for elaborate Art Nouveau detail and the winged female figures holding the electric light fittings... Outside is a lantern and a fanciful glass and iron street canopy. The blunt-ended rear is more Baroque; with a pediment with female figures; and carved frieze above the first floor. The Council chamber was converted in 1975 to a mental health day centre. There were further alterations in 1985.

Flats, tall mansion flats of 1892, with crow stepped gables and decorative Renaissance friezes.  Less frugal in appearance than Rosebery Square although they were intended as low-rental accommodation by their developer, James Hartnoll.

Garden with War Memorial, 192l by Thomas Rudge, a bronze angel of Victory on a tall granite pedestal which bears a plaque showing 'Finsbury rifles attacking ‘Gaza'; two other plaques have disappeared.

Greenwood House

New River Walking up Rosebery Avenue, the pavement in front of Sadler's Wells Theatre follows the former course of the New River. The water ran here in an open channel until 1891 when Rosebery Avenue was constructed and the channel was replaced with an iron pipe.

Rosebery Court.  1989. By Kinson Architects, part of the Baker's Row site prestige offices six storeys with some fancy Mackintosh-inspired Arts and Crafts detail.

Sadler's Wells Theatre.  Is it the sacred well for the Penton Hill? The fashion for combining medicinal waters with entertainment was launched by the discovery in 1683 of two chalybeate springs in Thomas Sadler's garden near the New River Head. Sadler's Wells, and its rival the Islington Spa on the other side of the River, opened at much the same time. Sadler already ran a music-house, and in 1765 this was rebuilt by Thomas Rosoman on more ambitious lines as a theatre: it survived, with frequent alterations, until 1928.  Public breakfasts and noon-tide dancing were the rage, and 'exceptionable or improper characters' were rigidly excluded. It was Mr.Sadler’s wooden music house. The New River, fringed by poplars, enhanced the area. New Tunbridge Wells or Islington Spa, opposite the Wells, enjoyed its dizziest fashion in the 1730s when royally discovered it and the Court flocked here daily. In 1765 a theatre replaced the Music House. A decline in fashion from the 1770s led to a dismantling of the Spa and despite its occasional revival, houses began to encroach. At the theatre Debden’s spectacles used water from the New River reservoir. The gardens, much curtailed reopened in 1826, but in 1840 the old coffee-room was finally demolished and the ground completely built over. Grimaldi, the famous clown, played between 1818-28. 18 were killed in a struggle over the fire alarms. Samuel Phelps produced thirty-four of Shakespeare's plays in 1844-63 as well as concerts acrobatics and performing animals, aquatic spectacles — using an understage tank filled from the New River reservoir - opera, melodrama and burlesque. After Phelps it declined to inferior music hall and then a shabby cinema.   It was rebuilt in 1931 by Frank Marcham as a home of popular opera in north London 1931 with Lilian Bayliss modelled on the Old Vic as 'a theatre for the people'.  It quickly regained its place in Londoners' hearts and the ballet company achieved an international reputation under Ninette de Valois. The theatre has since been the venue for visiting companies. The spa-well survived until this century entered from a house bearing its name since preserved in the theatre. The theatre was rebuilt as a major dance theatre through Lottery funding. 1997-8 by RHWL. Exterior by Nicholas Hare Associates. The wedge-shaped site is enclosed by tall, plain brick walls. At the end is a big glazed foyer with giant video screen. Auditorium seating 1,500; special attention to disabled access. A well survives beneath the present building. – Noel Coward was the last person to drink from it.

Spa Green.  A minute public garden made up of the remnants of the space left by the demolition of buildings for Rosebery Avenue. The north end marks the approximate site of Islington Spa.  One piece of this space came from the New River Co. and was surplus land of theirs - Pipe Fields, used to store pipes. Opened 1895, 3/4 acre.  War memorial 1921 with Victory on a pedestal.

Tall mansion flats 1832.  Less frugal in appearance than Rosebery Square

The Metropolitan Local Management Act creating the Metropolitan Board of Works in the 1850s also conferred wider powers on parish vestries.  Civic awareness brought into existence crusading newspapers such as the Clerkenwell News (1855) and Islington Gazette (1856). The former, precursor of the Daily Chronicle, started at 35 Rosoman Street in the one-time home of the Finsbury Dispensary.  With increasing circulation it moved in 1862 down the road to Myddelton House, a new building on the corner of Rosoman and Myddelton Streets and opposite the London Spa. When this was demolished in 1972 an older building was revealed behind. Nothing now remains. The paths intersecting the open fields belonging to the New River Company all became built up as streets: Tysoe Street, Amwell Street, Garnault Place.

Viaducts – hidden from view in Rosebery Avenue itself.  Pretty. Built 1890 by Westwood Baillie.  Flies over Warner Street cast iron on brick jack arches; pierced trefoil balustrades

Rosebery Square?

Model dwellings, Hartnoll buildings now St.Pancras HA.

Rosoman Place

Features in films 'Alfie’.

Rosoman Street.

Thomas Rosoman was the builder of the second Sadler's Wells. He also built a row of 'good houses' in 1756 along this rural path, previously known as Bridewell Walk. Overlooking fields, it became a favourite suburban retirement for prosperous City tradesmen. Spa-wells and gardens proliferated here, but in the late 18th century the vogue for spas declined, and the street was built over.  Not a single house survives of 18th-century Rosoman Street, which by the 1930s had deteriorated into slum tenements with shops below, and was demolished wholesale.

Myddleton House corner of Rosomon and Myddleton Street demolished 1972 Daily Chronicle

Rutland Place

Site of Rutland House Davenant

Sans Walk

The old network of passages.  Sans were a local family

Sheltered housingLevin Bernstein, 1995-6),

Hugh Myddelton School became ILEA Kingsway Princeton College.  named after the creator of the New River it was opened in 1893 under the 1870 Education Act, which introduced compulsory education and created School Boards financed from the rates. It opened as a Board School in 1874, in Bowling Green Lane. It was the such school opened by royalty, the Prince of Wales, with a key manufactured in Clerkenwell. it accommodated 2000 children, and offered free meals. It thus became a show school. now only the junior school operates, The school is on the site of the Clerkenwell prisons, and is bounded by the prisons'-outer walls, and below the ground are the cells of the House of Detention which were used as air-raid shelters during World War II. It is a massive three decker by  T.J. Bailey's built on an H-plan, with yellow terracotta decoration. The lower halls have vaulted aisles, with classrooms off them. the top hall has a mansard roof on iron trusses. There was a separate cookery and laundry building in an Annexe of 1902, built as a Special Girls' School.

School Keeper's House, three storeys, brick and stucco; formerly the prison governor's house. The boundary wall incorporates part of the prison wall.

Clerkenwell Bridewell: In 1615 a 'House of Correction' for the county was built on garden ground on the south part of the area of the school, to ease the over- flowing London Bridewell. It thus became known as the ‘Clerkenwell’ or ‘New Bridewell’ or the 'New Prison'. One inmate was Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine, who preached against the Act of Uniformity, in 1669. By the late 17th century crime had so increased so much that this prison inadequate. its conditions were increasingly bad and when the new House of Correction was built in Coldbath Fields it became redundant and was demolished in 1804.

Second New Prison was built as an overflow to Newgate, forming a House of Detention for those awaiting trial. The most notorious inmate was Jack Sheppard, who escaped from several London prisons including this. The prison was enlarged in 1774-5 and a gate built facing Sans Walk, roughly on the site of the present school gate. In 1818 it was almost rebuilt on more modern lines covering the whole site including houses, and the former Quakers' Workhouse. the high wall was then built at this time. It all cost £35,000. 

House of Detention. In 1845—6 the New Prison was demolished and rebuilt on the lines of Pentonville, by the County Surveyor William Moseley. It was a prison for both men and women. By William Moseley, whose basement survives beneath. It had prison cells radiating from a central hall with cast-iron columns. The former female corridor is accessible; roofs of shallow brick arches; warders' hall and clerk's office with granite columns.

Was Shorts Buildings

Scotswood Street

Was Newcastle Street. Features in films 'About a Boy’

Sheltered housing 1995

Sebastian Street

Was previously Upper Charles Street. Northampton Square's original six intersecting streets were mostly renamed in the rationalisation of London names in 1935.  Upper Charles Street became Sebastian Street after Lewis Sebastian, another Polytechnic Benefactor, one-time Master of the Skinners' Company on whose adjoining land it stood and Chairman of the college Governors until 1901.  This has at least survived, though many of its houses (1803-7) have been demolished.  Pre-1814 it was Taylor’s Lane.

Sekforde Street

Sekforde Elizabethan from Woodbridge. This street, the most distinctive in the area, was laid out across the Sekforde Estate on its rebuilding in the 1820s. The fairly modest houses are distinguished by the terrace’s elegant curve, varied doorways, and the copings with brick diglyphs, a rare feature in local building. The high curving brick wall (1828) formed part of the perimeter of Nicholson's Distillery. In Sekforde Street is the building where Charles Dickens had his bank account. His books are alive with references to Islington - Fagin taught Oliver Twist to pick pockets just off Farringdon Road

Myerson’s Ironworks with facade in the Greek style. Near the St john Street end of Sekforde Street: unfortunately demolished in the 1970s.

8 John Groom of the Crippleage

25 and 26 a panel infilling in 1985/6 as flatted houses, although for some reason not in the idiom of the street, is nonetheless a fair approximation to the domestic style of the New River estate.

Finsbury Savings Bank by a local architect.  Was on corner of Jerusalem Passage. Overwrought building – the splendid embossed lettering holds the Savings Bank building together  (1840) forms an attractive eye-catcher from St john Street; designed by Alfred Bartholomew (1801-45), who was mainly an architectural writer and journalist, son of a Clerkenwell watchmaker. The Savings Bank originated in 1816 at the NE corner of Jerusalem Passage.  A festive stucco front in the spirit of Barry's Pall Mall Italian Renaissance club.

Houses - Simple but nicely detailed three-storeyed terrace houses in between some rebuilt in facsimile by Pollard Thomas & Edwards after Islington had acquired the run-down estate in 1975.

Sekforde Arms

Wall of Nicholson’s Distillery 1820s terraced copy with brick Diglyphes

Seward Street

Before nineteenth century mound of earth called Mount Mill. Chapel and windmill, battery and breastwork in civil war. Levelled to make a Physick Garden on the north side. St.Luke’s burial ground.  Managed by the Vestry of St.Luke’s

South side St.Bartholomew's burial ground

Leopard 1833

22 Henry Cox, 1853.

Seymour Close?

Skinner Street

Built on Skinners' Company land, which was leased, to the New River Co. in order to store pipes. The Skinner Street Estate weas built 1968. Features in films 'Alfie’.

Skinners Well

Public library, Baroque Jacobean with an angle tower, brick building in Contrast to the early nineteenth century houses, demolished 1967, first library in the UK to have open access shelves details,

41 Godwin

35-45 Houses an isolated c18 group, straight-headed windows of rubbed brick, but much altered.

Charles Townsend House

Joseph Trotter Close

Michael Cliffe House

Patrick Coman House

Spa field Street

Was part of Yardley Street

Spa Fields

Public garden in open fields between Bowling Green Lane and New River Head. Grounds of Ducking Pond House and the Pantheon Tea Rooms.  The Fields were approached through an alley in 1895 at the back of cottages of Exmouth Street. 1816. Became the core of an area for rebuilding by Finsbury Borough, interrupted by the war. Fields, their hollows filled with springs and ponds. Here unsophisticated summer amusements took place, from rough-and-tumble fist-fights and cudgel-play to bull-baiting, fairs, and 'frightful grin' contests between old men. Not surprisingly the fields became a haunt of footpads, and link-boys were hired to light theatre-goers from Sadler's Wells back to the streets of Bloomsbury. Spa Fields were the scene of popular protest meetings during the depression and unemployment following Waterloo. In December 1816 a peaceful crowd awaiting 'Orator' Henry Hunt was purposely stirred up by a group of agitators to attempt an insurrection. Some marched to Clerkenwell and the City to raid gunsmiths' shops, intending to assault the Tower, but were dispersed after a scuffle with a hastily gathered force. 

Playground opened 1936, by Chairman of the L.C.C.  Fields managed by L.C.C.

Burying ground 1 3/4 acre and gravelled. Lay out by consent of the freeholders. 1780 brick walls. 8,000 bodies in 50 years. Marquis of Northampton drill ground for the Middlesex R.V.  1886 public garden ghoulish stories of the place. In the 1780s land was leased from the Northampton estate for a Nonconformist burial ground, and within half a century had been so indiscriminately filled with graves that it was estimated to contain 8000 bodies, nearly four times what it could decently hold. Ghoulish disclosures were made of the repulsive details, for like Bunhill Fields and most London churchyards it was still in use. Only after sensational publications, powerful local agitation and a petition to Parliament were burials stopped. In 1886 the two acres were convened to a public garden.

The Pantheon and Spa Fields Chapel. Duck-hunting was pursued in Spa Fields at one of the local 'ducking-ponds'. In 1770 Thomas Rosoman removed a small tavern named Ducking Pond House and let the land to the builder of the Pantheon, one of the last and least successful places of its kind in the area. The fashion for which it sought to cater was really past, and condemned for 'infamous company' it was closed in 1776. Soon after, it became a chapel for the pious Lady Huntingdon's Methodist 'Connection'. The extraordinary domed building, copied from the much grander Rotunda in Oxford Street (and a long way after the Pantheon in Rome) was said to hold 3000 persons, having two huge circular galleries

Sadler's House part of Spa Green Estate

Spa Green Estate

Site of Islington Spa.  Opened by Bevan on 26/7/1946, Finsbury Borough Council ambitious rebuilding scheme. Lubetkin and Tecton with Ove Arup. Most innovative public housing in England with many novelties –monolithic box structure, refuse system, aerofile roof profile, etc.  Incomparable modernists. This is the finest of the estates successor firm of Skinner and Lubetkin. The clearance area by the 1930s Plan, an ambitious scheme for borough-wide rebuilding, which was halted by the war.  The original plan proposed a spine of eight-storey blocks ranged along Rosebery Avenue, with lower housing complete with parks and amenities.  First plans were made in 1937 by Tecton, then also busy with the Finsbury Health Centre.  Their revised and reduced scheme of 1946 for the Estate was built in 1946-50.  Three blocks of flats, n two of eight storeys, one of four.  The lower one is on a curving plan, which does much to humanize the group and tie it in with its surroundings.  Executive architects were Lubetkin and Skinner, the structural engineer, was Ove Arup.  The flats were the most innovative public housing in England at the time, with many novelties, both structural  -an early example of monolithic box- frame construction of in-situ concrete, the first Garchey refuse disposal system in London - and social the ingenious aerofoil profile of the roof canopies on the tall blocks, designed to channel wind through the clothes-drying areas.  The elevations too depart from the monotony of standard pre-war flats.  The tall blocks, Wells House and Tunbridge House, are planned as a pair, with their bedrooms facing inward towards a landscaped area.  The outer sides are deliberately livelier: plain brick-clad vertical panels, containing the living-room windows are divided by a syncopated rhythm of inset balconies with grey ironwork against inner walls painted Indian red.  Fanciful curved canopies to the central porches and the curved ramps on the inner sides are typically wayward Lubetkin touches.  The four-storey Sadler House has a different version of rhythmic facade patterning, with alternating balconies contained within a tile-faced frame.  Refurbishment in 1978-80 by Peter Bell & Partners included extensive retiling and restoration of much of the original colour scheme.  Later decorative iron grilles; lathe lift extension to Sadler House was added in 1987

Greenwood House

Sadler House. Different version of rhythmic façade patterning

Wells House. Planned as a pair with Tunbridge House. Bedrooms facing in to a landscaped area

Tunbridge House.   Pair with Wells House

Tiverton Mansions

Spencer Street

Name relates to the Northampton Estate family ownership

St James Close

Three Kings. near Lenin's office. 18^{th .}   site of hostelry of nunnery.  Features in films 'Dance with a Stranger’ as the Magdala.

St John Street

Ancient thoroughfare leading from Smithfield to Islington and the north. Built to replace Roman routeThe long climbing length of St John Street was for long regarded as the first part of the Great North Road, a circumstance which dates from the days when the drovers came this way, bringing their cattle to Smithfield to feed the population of the great city. Road to St.John's priory. Used to transport market garden produce. The New River crossed it. The ground level begins to descend to the 50-foot terrace level of the City. Because of its heavy traffic, in the 19th century it contained 15 taverns on the east side and 8 on the west. Until about the 1820s the built-up area ceased at Percival Street, and beyond this was known as St.John Street Road.

1 Hicks Hall.  Sir Baptist Hicks was a wealthy and influential silk-mercer of Cheapside.  He was knighted early in the seventeenth century, subsequently made a baronet and finally a peer, Viscount Campden.  He was appointed Lord Mayor.  In 1609 he bought the manor of Campden in Gloucestershire.  He died in 1629.  Before the reign of James I Middlesex magistrates habitually administered justice in a tavern-room near Smithfield.  The growing inconvenience of this led to their obtaining from the King land north of the market with licence for a permanent building, leaving space for a carriageway on either side.  Here Hicks at his own expense built a Sessions House of brick with stone dressings, and this was opened in January 1612, named Hicks Hall in his honour.  It contained a room where bodies of criminals were publicly dissected.  Famous trials here included that of the 29 regicides (1660) who had affirmed the death sentence on King Charles I.  The Hall, dating from about 1610, was partly intended for the use of the justices at Sessions and partly as a Bridewell, or house of correction.  It fell into ruin and By 1777 was much decayed and, rather than rebuild so near Smithfield a new one was erected at Clerkenwell Green and the old hall demolished in 1782 and replaced in 1780 by a new Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green.  No trace of Hicks's Hall now remains although F E Baines states that ‘a wall tablet still indicates in some detail the site'.  It stood just north of Smithfield Meat Market at the point where St John's Lane branches from St John Street.  Its persistence a seemingly undistinguished point in the City, as the place from which measurements of the northern roads were made is at first surprising.  The demolition of the Hall in 1780 made little difference to its importance as a reference point. This was the more infuriating to explorers who more often than not, failed to find the site of the former landmark; in 1840 for example, a Barnet schoolmaster Jedediah Jones, who was researching on milestones in the London area, gave up in despair his attempt to pin-point the site of the Hall.  Its site was never built over, and remains open as the widest part of St John Street.  The traditional road to the north, whose starting point has long been placed at Smithfield in the City of London, and which leaves the Capital via Islington, climbing the North London heights at Highgate to Finchley.  But the classic used by all the road books of the coaching age, was Hicks's Hall.  Hicks's Hall. The most important of the ten or so points in London from which were measured the Great Roads of Britain.

1, plain apart from some polychrome brick and a panel with the address.

3 Built as a butcher’s shop and offices by W.Harris 1897.  More flamboyant Tall Free Gothic gable facing Smithfield, and a skyline embellished by quirky chimneys and flourishes.                             

11 Stephen Bull Restaurant, 1992 Morrison.  Whose sentiments are at odds with the theatrical place making often embedded in interior designers. As Bob Allies commented. 'We've avoided doing things if driven by fashion.' All of which makes the restaurant the more remarkable. It strives substantiality and to employ language of space, light and simplicity plus some strong colouring demanded. Bull's demonstrates a consistent layered and interpenetrating components and volumes affecting architectural detail. You see it in the contrived volumes of entry passage, and suspended mezzanine; in the strong patches of wall colouring; in the metalwork details of the security gate (becoming an A+M trademark) and the slim flatness of the hand railing. Minimalism is offered as considered refinement rather than a reductive influence.

11-13, a site long empty, rebuilt 1987 as offices by Campbell, Zogolovitch, Wilkinson & Gough.

13-19 Meat store

18-20, a late c19 warehouse with hoist between two big Gothic arches, and an oculus in the gable above.  Patrick Donovan Late 19^th

22 is a tiny two-bay c18 house; redbrick with flush windows; note the 2nd-floor window's unusual fluted architrave.

24Italianate warehouse ingeniously opened up, with c19 Italianate front of three bays, was ingeniously converted in 1986 by D. Y. Davies Associates: the ground floor was partly opened up, exposing the iron structural columns; a passage leads through to glazed showrooms in a bridge over the yard behind

24a back land warehouse.

26 Farriers with ceramic horses.  Stephen Bull restaurant c19

30a dairy built by George Waymouth. Dairy scenes on ceramic lozenges

34/36 Farmiloe. Striking Victorian frontage. Lead and glass manufacturers. An Italian Renaissance 'palace' 1868 by Isaacs, an especially striking Victorian frontage; eclectic Italianate with busy stucco dressings.  Four storeys, with ornate cornice and decoration over the round- headed first-floor windows.  The plainer c19 buildings which follow make an effective foil. The crescent shaped block has a fine Victorian facade with offices and showrooms at the front and a warehouse behind. Amongst other things the firm traded in lead glazing and the manufacture of leaded cathedral lights. Inside, the warehouse has closely spaced cast iron columns so as to bear the weight of lead once stored there. It stands as a reminder of a once important London industry.

38-40 Vic Naylor. Features in films 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’,’The Mean Machine’.

40 -42, brick, four storeys; brick

44-46 1877 stucco with row of six arched first-floor windows.

57 White Bear 1899, one of the now few pubs, with a fine brick frontage and stone dressings, in a florid 17th-century Dutch style.  A highlight.  Terracotta panels and curved gable

69-73 good group with a nice shop front.  Late c1 with a good early c19 Ionic pilastered shop front

71 Stephen Bull's Bistro

72, an early c 19 survivor with first- floor windows under arches, suggest show much of the street must have looked in the early 19th century

78 fine Gothic warehouse 1886.  Probably John Lawson brass founders.  Five storeys, with three storeys of loading bays contained within a Gothic arch with traceried top lights.  Now offices,

80-88 suggests how much of the street must have looked in the early 19th century.

80 good first-floor ceiling, with a new entrance reached down a passage.

82-84, earlier c1 altered, 

86-88 Café Lazeez. passage through to Hat and Mitre Court early 19^{th  .} Features in films ‘The Criminal’.

89 Gedge & Co., 1885

90 is dated 1926; tall and narrow, with windows grouped in a frame.

94-100 Stepney Carrier Company Garage

99 elaborate free classical with curved gable, one of a group of narrow frontages in the stretch leading up to Clerkenwell Road.  This was laid out in 1870s; contemporary with it are the SE and NE comer blocks, with moderate Italianate trimmings.

103 Bros. Castings ltd. castings and precious metals.

115-121 Mallory Buildings.  Replaced slum properties 1906.  Effete courts around the edge of St John's Square, 1906.

122 Lee clock maker early c19 with nice shop front.  Domestic survivals

137-157 stretches from Percival Street to Sebastian Street a bold 3 storey composition in red brick, which looks c 1910

145-157 tall ungainly 1970s offices.  Better balanced.  

148-154 four-window office range.  In red brick and terracotta

156 –162 Allied House.  HQ of Allied Brewers, the largest in Europe. In 1970s including wines sprits etc. 1961 merger of Tetley Walker, Ind Coope and Ansells also Harveys, Showerings of Babycham, Britvic, Coats, Gaymers Whitways etc. and two Dutch companies - d'Organjeboom and Rude. 8 breweries in all in 1970s.  Brewery offices.  With rusticated brick ground floor with an archway; splendid Rococo-inspired metalwork on the timber gates. Terracotta panels between the two upper floors.  Behind, a wedge- shaped counting house and office, 1876, restrained classical, but with whimsical Moorish doorcase.  Vast fermenting House and offices, Tuscan-pilastered.

158-173 faience faced simple classical 1920s offices for Pollards.  Showroom and factory by Malcolm Mans.

181-185 some of the sequence of Nicholson’s Distillery.  18^th closed c. 1970, mostly of c. 1873-four storeys, grey brick with windows, cornice and segmental pediment one centre bay on a corner.

187-191 low archway through to Hayward’s Place

201 Nicholson’s Distillery Buildings 1828, austere and grand

236 industrial building used by City University.  1860s

238 Building which used to be the George and Dragon.  Tiles, George 'Finch Marylebone' in the outside stonework. 1889 rebuilt 1901 

376 Barnes enamellers

370, was formerly the Clown Tavern,

Barclay’s Bank built as London Joint Back 1871.  First more sober dated 1871, by Lewis Isaacs, a proud stone- faced palazzo, four storeys, elaborately detailed, with bowed comer oriel.

Bull Yard site of Richard Burbage theatre and pit.  Corner of site of Nicholson’s was theatre. Allen and Pepys, Used by the Queen's Men. Very vulgar audience. Survived the Civil war and Cromwell. First to reopen in the restoration with 'Alls lost with lust'

Cannon Brewery on this site from mid c18; much rebuilt in 1893 by Bradford & Sons, damaged in the Second World War and closed in the 1960s.

Charles Townsend House.  Called after member of Finsbury MB and Labour Party 

Clumsy pastiche of George terrace 1980 replaces Myerson’s Ironworks

Connaught Buildings, for City University with lecture theatres, offices etc., in a converted industrial building.

Cross Keys with stone in the wall about Hicks Hall

Crown and Woolpack collection of jugs and cups became Japanese Canteen. A policeman hid in a cupboard to spy on one of the meetings of Lenin and Trotsky Unfortunately he didn't understand Russian

Eagle Court cleared for building in the 1980s boom,

Emberton Court

Empress of Russia. named after Catherine the Great. 

Finsbury Estate 20^th.  The last of Finsbury's major rebuilding schemes, completed only in 1968, after the borough had become part of Islington.  By C. L. Franck of Franck & Decks, successor to Emberton, Franck & Tardrew.  Four housing blocks, freely grouped to the realigned sweep of Skinner Street; two blocks of four storeys, one of nine and one of twenty-five.  The taller blocks have reinforced Concrete frames, and are in shades of grey, with blue spandrel panels to the tallest.  The different buildings interlock to a greater extent than in the firm's earlier work, a characteristic of the three- dimensional planning current in the 1960s.  A covered car park is included, and also a Library crisply black and white, with a -two-storey glazed front respecting the line of St John Street.  There is a vista through the ground floor of the tower block beside it, but the bulk of the car park compromises the view.

Flats Tall LCC flats over shops, five storeys and attics in austere grey and yellow 

Gilbert & Rivington printers

Goose Yard

Gun Alley

Hicks Hall demolished in 1780 but little difference to its use as a datum point, often not clear where it was.  Baptist Hicks was a silk mercer, 17th century, a knight, from Campden, A great man and lord mayor. Replaced by new sessions house. Plaque on a wall about it. Where St John's Lane branches to St John Street. Great North Road where distances of the mail coaches were measured from. First bit of Great North Road. Used particularly by the cattle drovers.  Where distances of the mail coaches were measured from.  Family house, 1868, Powler

Institute eclectic baroque, 1894-6.  Exceedingly successful example of the neo-French 16th century of the moment with an appreciation of a playful enrichments

Library - Finsbury Reference Library.  Local history section. 1965 part of the surrounding estate. Intended as central library for Finsbury.   By C. L. Franck, 1965-8. The two-storey curving front respects the line of the street, emerging from beneath a tower block. Precast units in black and white, with large glaze entrance to a broad foyer; a public hall, children’s library and the main library behind, the latter given character by generous window and suspended barrel ceiling. Replacing the library in Skinner Street of 1890 by Karslake Mortimer.

Mulberry Court

Northampton Institute.

Peel Meeting House

Scholl's head office

St John of Jerusalem. On site of old Cannon Brewery. Part of Ind Coope Head Office. Name from the order of St John. Brewery building is a landmark.

St.John's Mews

Tunbridge House part of Spa Green Estate

St.Helena Street

Part of the Wilmington Square area - Cromwell criticised the builders of this "handsome assemblage of edifices" for allowing it to be "nearly environed with streets of a most mean and narrow character", especially an alley between 35 and 41 feet to the north, "between the rear-yards of one line of houses and the little front gardens of another ... a waste of the intermediate ground which so alarmed its proprietor, that he has since (1826) erected another row of houses ... between the former ones"  - probably St Helena Street.  In time parts of Clerkenwell, with alleys and mean infillings, became one of the worst Victorian slums, especially St Helena Street, whose houses were actually back-to-back, was among the most notorious.

St.James Walk

Was previously called Hart Alley and when it was partly built up post Restoration it was known for obvious reasons as New Prison Walk. It was renamed in 1774 and called New Walk.  Most of the houses are from that date and part of the Sekforde estate housing developed in 1827.  The leases granted then led to extensive rebuilding. Features in films 'About a Boy’.,

Clerkenwell Parochial Sunday School 1828 built on the site of an earlier one of 1809, and a charitable infant school opened in the same house (1831).  The architect was William Lovell, a Pentonville surveyor, and in 1858 the house was raised by one storey by William Pettit Griffith.  Griffith's father John Griffith lived in St John's Square.

St.John’s Lane

This was the main approach from the City to the Priory of St John of Jerusalem, across the open plain of Smithfield ('smooth field').

36 High on the wall near the south end of the street, is a cross, believed to indicate that the site was once property of the Order of St John. There is also a parish boundary plate dated 1797.

28 near the Gate, next to Passing Alley a stone inscription reads: 'this building was partly destroyed by German aircraft on the 18th December 1917. Restoration completed 1919'.

The Baptist's Head: A tavern owing its name to the mediaeval priory formerly stood on the east side of the lane, opposite the north side of Albion Place. Here chained prisoners in convoy from the Sessions House to Newgate Gaol were allowed to halt and drink a stoup of ale. When the inn was demolished in the 1890s a fine late Elizabethan fireplace was removed to St John's Gate

St John's Gate – On of the most distinguished buildings, and almost the only one to survive until our times, was Prior Thomas Docwra's handsome gatehouse of 1504, opening towards the City, still very much in the Gothic style and resembling a college gateway.  It was the main gate to the Priory of St.John.  Built by Prior Thomas Docwra in 1504. For the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, better known as the Knights Hospitallers, an order of chivalry founded late in 11th century at Jerusalem. Its headquarters were later moved to the island of Rhodes and then to Malta (1530-1798).  The priory, built about 1148, soon after the establishment of the order, was burned down by Wat Tyier's rebels (1381). Site went to Henry VIII at Reformation, used as a storehouse and blown up by Duke of Somerset. Stone used for his palace in the Strand, Mary I restored the church. Under Elizabeth used for play rehearsals. Buildings given to the Duke of Northumberland, some kept by the Crown as a store. Became a chapel for William Cecil, various other owners. Hogarth's father's coffee shop in the gateway. Johnson lived there. Became a watch house and the Old Jerusalem Tavern, council office of the masons. 1845 dangerous structure restored, 1877 1931 back to the Order of St. John, by then Protestant - Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. St John's Ambulance launched 1958. The room over the gate was once occupied by Edward Cave, the founder 1731 of the Gentleman's Magazine, to which Johnson and Garrick subscribed. It continues to be known as the Council Chamber, and contains 15th-century altar-paintings looted from the priory church at the Dissolution and rediscovered in 1915, and interesting relics of the Knights Hospitallers. The annexe on the south-east of the gateway was added in 1903 by J. Oldrid Scott. On the north side of the gatehouse are the arms of the order and Prior Docwra restored. . The main entrance to the former Priory was built in 1504 by Sir Thomas Docwra, last Prior but one before the Dissolution. Under Queen Elizabeth I the Priory buildings were used as the office of the Master of the Revels, and later the Gate was for many years the home of the Gentleman's Magazine, whose editor Edward Cave was visited here by Dr Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick and many others. It subsequently became a watch-house, a tavern and the offices of a Masonic order. In the 1840s the stonework had become so eroded that demolition was threatened, but it was saved and restored by a local architect, William Pettit Griffith. In 1874 the Gate was re-acquired by the modern Order of St John to become their headquarters. The Perpendicular-style addition on the south side, designed in 1903 by John Oldrid Scott, contains the Order's Chapter Hall, offices. Gatehouse to the inner precinct, built 1504 by Prior Thomas Docwra, had a chequered career after the Dissolution; in the c18 it was offices and printing works for the Gentleman's Magazine, in the c19 the Old Jerusalem Tavern. 1874 it became Headquarters and Museum of the revived Mo Venerable Order of St John. Restored in 1846 by W.P. Griffith, 1873-4 by R. Norman Shaw, and then from 1885-6 by.  Scot who was involved in a ten-year programme of restoration, adaptation and building, including new offices to the SE (1901-3), and new Chapter House (1901-4). The gatehouse has an archway with room above, flanked by four-storey blocks. These have main room on each floor with garderobe projection and square stair-turret. The dressings are of Kentish rag, much restored, with inner walls of brick; those within the archway have some brick diapering. Archway with star-shaped tierceron vault main window above of three lights, battlements of 1846 with additions of 1892-3. Stair-turrets with small Perpendicular doorways, reset to allow for the raised ground level. Scott additions 1901-3 are in matching Perpendicular, with a broad doorway planned for ambulances. The interiors are largely in Scott's Neo-Tudor, with plenty of panelling. His Chapter Hall has big Perpendicular fireplace windows with heraldic glass, and a grand timber ceiling with central lantern rising above supported by well-carved stone angel corbels. On the same level is the Council Chamber in the room above the archway. This has a fireplace of c. 1700, panelling 1900, and more heraldic glass 1911 by Powells. Roof with lantern of 1885-6 inserted above early ci6 trusses with coarse openwork panelling. In the wing a late c17 closed-string staircase with bulbous balusters; pretty plaster motifs on the soffit, added in the l860s. On the second floor a fine late c16 stone fireplace, from nearby Baptist's Head, formerly the town house of Sir Thomas Forster. Tapering pilasters, lintel carved with fruit, deer and other animals. The wing stair-turret has its original timber newel stair. It leads to Shaw's library, with big Tudor fireplace dated 1874.

Dundee Buildings

Eagle Court Board School 1874

St.John’s Lane

Board School 1874, extended 1894. Plain, two L shaped blocks, tall chimneys and gables.

St.John’s Square

St John's Square was in origin no more a true 'square' than was Charterhouse and both grew up on the site of monastic foundations.  The Priory founded in the 12th century, as English headquarters of the Knights of St John or Knights Hospitaller, eventually comprised a massive church, a great hall and Prior's lodging, and several smaller buildings.  Its main entrance was on the south, a towered gatehouse opening on the area north of Smithfield.  In spite of the empty courtyard implied by Hollar's etching of 1661, the Priory enclosure now outlined by St John's Square must from early days have contained tee-standing and lean-to buildings, as well as gardens and plots.  The Great Hall, more than 100 feet long, with a grand staircase, stood at the enclosure's North -East angle immediately south of it the church, in its entirety, must have extended well across the court n, and a good way down.  At the Priory lived two Priors, one of the English Langue of the Order, the other of Clerkenwell who ran the church; also the Preceptor or administrator.  There were a number of knights; some resident, others visiting the city on Order business, or Bounding the Court besides three Chaplains and 15 other clergy.  Royalty and nobility took up the right to hospitality.  Other residents were the Keeper of the Keys, and certain guests, who were entertained at the Prior's table.  Humbler but vital members of the permanent community included the cook and servants, dispensary workers, a janitor, a laundress -one of the few women - attorney and his clerks, and the Procurator-general's staff.  Outdoors were a brewer, millers, a pig-keeper, and slaughterer.  It was a populous and busy establishment.  Important Royal or state visits were made to the Priory, when its courtyard was hidden by monarchs and high prelates.  One such occasion was in 1185, in the reign of Henry II, when the Order's Grand Master Roger des Moulins, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, were there during this visit the Patriarch himself consecrated the Priory's new church with its circular nave.  Not many years later, in 1212, King John was the Prior's Lenten guest, and on Easter Sunday he knighted Prince Alexander of Scotland, son of King William the Lion - who later became King Alexander II.  Of the buildings round the courtyard, most had been destroyed in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, when the then Lord Prior, Sir Robert Hale, was the particular object of revenge by Jack Straw and his followers.  He was beheaded by the mob at the Tower of London, and the great Priory Church and other buildings burnt.  During the next century and a half, however, the Priory was substantially restored and beautified, and he original circular church replaced by a new one with a rectangular nave.  Indeed »y 1540 the Priory was at a pinnacle of wealth, splendour and power, and besides the handsome church the courtyard contained the Grand Prior's and Sub-Prior's edgings, dormers for priests and yeomen, and an armoury, distillery, counting-house, slaughter-house, laundry and other offices, and a schoolhouse.  Dotted about were a wood yard, orchard, and gardens with a fishpond, and a burial ground.  Some locations can only be matter for conjecture.  Once the predators moved in much of the priory was dismantled.  By the 1550s King Henry's successor Protector Somerset had ordered the church nave to be removed and the stones used for his own new palace in the Strand, Somerset House.  Chancel and crypt, however, survived, serving in turn as chapel, library and wine-cellar, until in 1723 they were restored by a merchant named Simon Michell for use as a parish church for the new parish of St John, Clerkenwell.  The new church was the occasion of great opposition from the old, St James's, so that St John's never became completely independent and did not control its own rates.  Michell, a JP, was in fact very unpopular, and on his death his coffin was stoned.  Monastic properties after their dissolution were usually shared between rapacious couriers, who often built themselves fine mansions on the site, and this was the immediate fate of the rest of St John's Priory.  Queen Elizabeth I's Master of the Revels was soon housed in the main buildings, as was, under Queens Mary and Elizabeth, Sir William Cordell, Master of the Rolls.  In the reign of Charles I came-Lord Burleigh, and several knights and widowed ladies, such as Sir Francis Lovel Sir Thomas Pelham, and Lady Sekforde.  Later was Sir William Fenwicke, a Parliamentarian and member of the Long Parliament.  Noble inhabitants in Charles II's reign included Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle, one time Ambassador to Muscovy and Scandinavia; Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, whose distinguished political career ended with his implication in the Rye House Plot and Horatio, 1st Baron Townshend.  The fashionable world, however, was moving westwards to the restored Court at Whitehall, and the square's population, although still well-to-do, became more broad based.  Well into the 18th century it continued an expensive area to live.  Only after the turn of the century, with the sharp rise in population, was its status among the well off threatened by the creation of more modern residential areas such as the New River Estate.

20A large house on the inner, SE corner of the passage, shown in Storer's 1828 engraving of St John's Church, was occupied in 1816 by the Finsbury Savings Bank (then no.), until its removal in 1840 to the building in Sekforde street which still bears its name.

21-24 the distinctive character of the Square and surroundings had now long been industrial, ranging from watch- and clockmakers and ancillary craftsmen to printers, engravers and paper firms.  Later came platers, gilders, and other non-ferrous metal workers, and Smiths themselves were to transfer to the latter capacity, moving from the clock making corner to the opposite range: (nos.21-24, now 49-52).

27 with a front of 1876 by R. Norman Shaw for Sir Edward Lechmere.  Red brick, five storeys, with two levels of dormers.  Linked to the priory by an addition of 1903.                               

33-38 Clerkenwell Green Association Workshops

36-44 Bishop Burnet's House 36 and later 44, was the house of the famous Bishop Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715): a rambling two-storeyed, three-gabled mansion "lighted in front by 14 square-headed windows", its forecourt planted with trees and shrubs, and with large gardens behind.  Steps led up to a large entrance portal with a carved entablature borne on Tuscan columns.  Inside, the rooms had handsome chimneypieces carved in relief, one containing a grate with a bas-relief dated 1644, of Charles I riding over "the Spirit of Faction" - a prostrate female - surrounded by pillars, bay wreaths, scrolls and a crown.  Two lead cisterns belonging to the house, dated 1682 and 1721, survived at least until the 1860s.  Burnet, a prolific author, notably of the History of the Reformation in England (1679-1714), and a History of his Own Time (1724-1734), was in 1689 appointed by William III to the Bishopric of Salisbury, but after active participation in politico- religious factions he retired to a quiet life in Clerkenwell, though his continued friendship with great men such as the Dukes of Marlborough and Newcastle the latter a Clerkenwell neighbour, drew many listeners to his Sunday evening lectures here.  The most notable event of Burner's occupancy was during the Sacheverell riots of 1710, when the Bishop witnessed the mob pretending support for Tories and High Church in their destruction of the contents of the former Priory church, because e t was then used as a Dissenting chapel.  Burnet died at his house, almost pen in hand, on 17 March 1715, and at his burial at the church of St James's, the ill-disposed mob threw din and stones at his hearse.  Late in the 18th century Burnet's house was occupied by Dr Joseph Towers (1737-99), a humble Southwark bookseller's son who became a printer, bookseller, dissenting minister, and honorary Edinburgh LLD (1789).  He was a prolific writer of tracts, compiled a British Biography, and contributed to Biographica Britannica.  Towers, who preached at Newington Green Chapel, was arrested in 1789 as a free-thinker, but his; powerful connections secured his release without trial, and he died in St John's Square possessed of many honourable friends.  Burnet.  The square's 18th-century prosperity was undermined when City merchants built new houses farther north, in rural surroundings within sight of the villages of Hampstead and Highgate, and the old mansions became multi-occupied tenements.  Many Tudor or Jacobean houses survived, in decay, until early or even mid-Victorian times.  Already in 1817 the Gentleman's Magazine had illustrated Burner's former house as divided into two such tenements, with the addition of first-floor bay windows; and a double row of small lodgings had been built in the one-time back garden approached through an arched passage known as Ledbury Place beside the former mansion's front door.  The south half of the house was occupied by the parish clerk and undertaker, the north by a "Hearth Rug manufactory.”  By 1859, when Pinks was writing, the large, high rooms had themselves been partitioned to form 23 mean dwellings for families and small manufacturers - shoemakers, box-makers, frame- makers, stay-makers - and the original staircases had been replaced.  The back gardens filled with the poor cottages, and even the forecourt by small shops. 

36A has a defaced date plaque of 1850 giving the builder's name, James Brown

45 adjoining Burnet's was a similar mansion belonging to John and Theodore Clarke, printers, sons of the Rev Adam Clarke, who was Professor of Greek at Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College.  He was born in Londonderry of English parents, and worked closely with John Wesley, by whom he was ordained in 1782.  While visiting London he used to lodge with his sons here if Clerkenwell.  He died at Bayswater in the first cholera outbreak, but was buried of the grounds of the City Road Methodist Chapel, near to John Wesley       

47, early c18 refaced in the c19, stand on late c16 brick vaulted cellars with a four-centred arch, probably remains of post-Dissolution buildings constructed within earlier outer walls which may have belonged to the priory bell tower demolished in 1550.

47-52, a row of late 18th-century houses on the north side, gutted in 1987 for reconstruction as offices for Smith & Co. behind the facade, except in the cellars, where excavation revealed remains of limestone walls of St John's Priory.

48-52 Most houses built in the square in the 16th-18th centuries incorporated rubble from the Priory foundations, if not actual walls.  In 1845 the architect W P Griffith, an inhabitant of the Square who was commissioned to restore the then crumbling St John's Gate, recorded 7-foot walls with splayed window openings under the North range - possibly the base of the 300-foot-high church tower, as described by the historian Stow.  Cellars and basements of houses in this range coincided with foundations of the tower, of ashlar and chalk rubble core.  Excavations below the same buildings in 1986 (the present nos.) revealed well-preserved courses of limestone walls and fairly regular chalk blocks, and a doorway probably dating from approximately the beginning of the 13th century.  At the rear were well-preserved quoins within an original door, and windows, which may have included one that Griffith had found.  In 1862 Griffith noted that the arch of the new East-West main London sewer, which passed under the south of the square, had been partly built with stone from the Priory.  A typically utilitarian Victorian ^Approach to the then considerable surviving mediaeval relics.

49-50 Gregory was presumably the builder in 1781 (formerly nos.21-24) the NW corner - today the square's oldest surviving secular buildings.  Only facades remain

49-52 from the Gate and the main body of the church, the oldest relic was until 1986 the row of houses 49-52 occupied by Smiths, 49-50 late 18th century and 51-52, early 19th.  In 1986-8 these were gutted, leaving only the facade behind which the interiors have been reconstructed for offices, although in fact nothing original remained above ground level.  Excavations by the Greater London Archaeology Unit, as pan of a general historical research into the Priory's history, revealed a fair amount of the mediaeval structure among the foundations.  Smiths' original factory premises in the NE corner, on the site of Aylesbury House, were also gutted in 1989, when extensive archaeological excavations were made

51-52 was the home of the Finsbury Dispensary, founded in 1780 to relieve sickness among "the labouring and necessitous poor.”  In 1805 they removed to St John Street, and thence elsewhere before settling in Hayward's Place.  The St John's Square lease had run out, and rather than restore dilapidations, the owners rebuilt (1806).  This was the building used by Doves the printers as their offices.  Other printers also established themselves in this row, and later John Smith and Sons removed to the whole range.  The distinction in date is visible in the facades, which are all that remain only facades remain 1806-7.  Behind, all was rebuilt c. 1990.

52 was from 1757 for many years the printing works of Gilbert and Rivington, printers to the even older firm of Rivingtons the publishers.  Of this prolific family, with a dozen and more children in each generation from the early 18th century onwards, several sons entered either the publishing firm in St Paul's Churchyard or, later, the St John's Square printing office.  Alexander Rivington, founder son of Francis, the second-generation publisher, was famed as "Printer and Scholar,” and superintended the production of many learned publications.  He retired in 1868.  ' In the 1870s, after acquiring an extensive plant of Oriental type, Rivingtons became England's chief Oriental printers.  The firm removed in 1901 to their Little Sutton Street works, and subsequently became Clowes and Sons Ltd.

84, a later c 19 'flat iron' block, is topped off with attic workshop windows.

Chapel.  Beyond the Clarkes' house Wesleyan chapel was to be built in 1848, by a congregation, which had formerly met in nearby Wilderness Row.  It had a seating capacity of 1,300, and cost £3,800, and was designed by James Wilson of Bath in Decorated Gothic style, with a four-light window on its main east front towards the square.

Coach and Horses survives as a 1960s rebuilding.  Now a modern pub has a long history, having been rebuilt more than once.  In 1785 one April morning it was totally burnt out - astonishingly leaving unscathed the timber houses on either side, separated only by narrow alleyways.

Crypt of St John's.  The crypt has its gruesome effigy of Sir William Weston, the last Prior. The King's Master of the Revels was ensconced here in Elizabethan times. It was his job to license plays before they were performed - an early censor - and many of Shakespeare's and Marlowe's plays were licensed here. Later still, it was the home of one of the first British magazines, the Gentleman’s Magazine, under the editorship of Edward Cave, and has connections with Goldsmith and Garrick, and  Dr Johnson. This was one of the places where "Scratching Fanny,” the supposed Cock Lane ghost, claimed to display itself in 1763, but in this case failed to materialise.  The mysterious noises were eventually exposed as a fraud practised by the young daughter of William Parsons, officiating clerk of St Sepulchre's, who was gaoled for a his part in it, but had meanwhile cleaned up a small fortune from the curious crowds who flocked to the area to be entertained by this nonsense - including Johnson and Walpole, who like many others were disappointed of the sensation.  "Scratching Fanny's" coffin in the crypt was shown with many others to interested visitors, well into the 19th century.

Shop everything else was rebuilt in the late 19th century or later.  One of the oldest surviving buildings is the shop, date-plaque 1856, at the corner of Albemarle Way

Gate House, a glass and tile egg box replaced an 1849 Methodist chapel in the Gothic style demolished as redundant in 1957

Heritage Centre

House adjoining the SW corner was in the late 18th century the property of Mr Gabriel Gregory, carpenter, who in 1780 obtained permission from the Paving Commissioners to remove the North Postern in order to rebuild his house, thus leaving the south entrance to this narrow passage "open from the ground to the sky".  Accordingly the two gates were demolished and the passageway left open, as it is today.

Jerusalem Court, narrow and winding, was entered from the east side of the square by an archway, and incorporated pan of other ancient mansions, cut off from light by houses in Albemarle Street (now Way) to the south.  Rather improvidently, tall model dwellings were erected on the north side of this Court: "very unhealthy,” observed a Special Committee in December 1888, "without through ventilation, and such as should never have been built.”  Inspectors and medical officers referred the case, and half a dozen others, between Sanitary Committee and Vestry, making recommendations, while the wretched inhabitants still endured the abominable conditions.

Little St John's Square continuing westwards, beyond these relatively humble properties we reach further grand houses.  The odd extension, or "little square", at the north-west corner of the enclosure came into the hands of Dudley Lord North, through his son John's first wife, hence was sometimes known as "North's Court".  In 1708 this property was described as "a pretty area of new brick buildings, lately erected", and "a set of fairhouses, making three sides of a square" (that is, as an extension of the main 'square' presumably on Lord North's property.  Two of these were offices of Dove's, the printers (no.22 and later 21)

Memorial Garden.  Lord Mottistone paid. Garden of Remembrance on site of chapel. Outline of the church still in St John’s square. Site of church marked in bricks in the pavement. Round nave of a military order.

Methodist chapel demolished replaced by Gate House

Museum of the order of St.John.  The Museum in the gatehouse preserves many carved fragments, especially from the ornate late c12 chancel, and from large oriel windows of the late c15 or early c16. In the early c16, prominent members of the Priory staff had houses in the outer precinct; from one of these may come terracotta fragments, possibly of continental origin, found in excavations in Albion Place in 1990-4.

Penny Bank Chambers (1879), part of the Clerkenwell Road scheme, was built as a good example of model dwellings: it was restored as craft workshops in 1975.                                                  

Princess Alice pub, called after the disaster

Priory Church was left a shell by incendiaries in 1941, its 18th-century interior destroyed.  It now has a reconstructed facade containing a narthex in front of its 18th-century west front, and a plain interior within three later 15th/early 16th-century walls.  Only the 12th-century crypt was untouched by bomb

Site of St.John’s Priory.  Occupies the site of the courtyard of the priory. North postern until 1780. Sum given by Henry VIII to attack the Turks at Rhodes in 1182. Priory of St.John founded 1140 on land from Briant. Founded by Jordan Briset, Augustinian order of the Knights of St. John. They had a hospital for the sick in Jerusalem with lots of wounded crusaders in it. Lots of them joined the order with the black cross on a white background. Theoderic came to London with lots of knights and marched through the city with banners and spears to Clerkenwell - red cassock and white cross as military dress. As soldiers they undertook privateering activities and captured Rhodes, which was their headquarters. The Clerkenwell church had the round nave of a military order in 1522 Sulieman the Magnificent had captured Rhodes and the Knights had fled to Malta, so the London monks went there too. 1540 dissolved and the Prior died of a heart attack. The Duke of Somerset blew up the tower and used the stone to build Somerset House in the Strand. Crypt of St John

Smith & Co., makers of clock components (founded 1780), established their factory in 1812 on the site of another fine mansion, birthplace in 1727 of John Wilkes, the politician.  The firm, now non- ferrous metal Stockists,

St John's Gate, 1845 then a tavern, came under threat and was declared unsafe.  The architect W P Griffith luckily intervened to save it, and a substantial restoration was undertaker, including the creation of a new set of fake crenellations for the parapet.  In 1874 the Gate was, as we have seen, re-acquired by the revived Order, later the Most Venerable Order of St John, and has since served as its headquarters and (later) also as its Library and Museum.

St John's Square evolved from the inner courtyard of the priory; part of the court was regrettably lost to Clerkenwell Road, which now cuts it off from the medieval gatehouse in St John's Lane.  The priory buildings, used by the Office of Revels in the c16, began to be replaced by individual houses from c. 1630.  By the mid c19 these housed numerous specialized craftsmen, especially jewellers, watchmakers and printers.  The side of the square still has a pleasing c18 appearance.  A small open space, cut through by Victorian Clerkenwell Road, succeeds the mediaeval St John's Priory court surrounded by peripheral buildings. Of these only St John's Gate and the shell of the church remain above ground. Many of the Priory buildings survived until at least the late 17th century, occupied by members of the nobility. Large private mansions then replaced them, e.g. Bishop Burner's house on the west side, swallowed up in 1879 by Clerkenwell Road. From there in 1710 during the Sacheverell Riots, Burnet witnessed the Ann-Dissenting mob sacking St John's Church, at that" time used as a Presbyterian chapel.  Tudor old road started here and up.  Old Road to York Road, Maidenhead Lane.  37 years before 1826.  Wesleyan church, Gothic next to the gateway given to the London Mission Centre after 50 years.  Area of the court of the priory

Near the gate stands an old-world smithy; Smithfield's horse-drawn traffic provides plenty of work

St. John's Church 1185, consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.  1140 and 1180.  Destroyed in 1380 during the Peasants Revolt.  Rebuilt on the site of the priory church perpendicular. In 1723 and given a new west front and cupola. The parish church for Clerkenwell until 1931, then became the St.John's area church, bombed out in 1941 and now a simple hall inside. Church very dramatic quality unsurpassed. W.Taylor. St.John the Baptist. Altar. Plate, monuments. Paintings taken during the dissolution are back. Modern looking church. Many monuments.  Parts of the choir walls were incorporated in the 18th-century building; the original church had a round nave (as usual with the Order of St John) the outline of which is marked on the ground in the Square. In 1931 the church reverted to the order, but it was very severely damaged in 1941 by incendiary bombs. Rebuilding was begun in 1955 to designs by Lord Mottistone, and includes a public garden surrounded by a memorial cloister. Below the chancel survives the original Crypt, is a major 12^th treasure, the three west bays of which are pure Norman work of about 1140, while the two east bays and the side chapels were completed about 1170. . The nave of the Priory church has been twice destroyed. Its original circular nave, burnt out in 1381 during the Peasants' Revolt, and now marked by a double row of cobbles, was replaced in Perpendicular style to a rectangular plan. After the English Order's suppression in 1540 it served various uses, including as a private chapel. In 1723, restored at the expense of Simon Michell, it was given a new West front and a cupola, and used as a second parish church for Clerkenwell until 1931, when the modern Order of St John acquired it as their Priory church. The building with its elaborate Georgian galleries and fittings was entirely burnt out by incendiary bombs in 1941, and was subsequently restored as a simple hall church. The original crypt, however, has withstood fires, wars and bombs and is one of London's very few surviving 12th-century`buildings.  The exterior gives little sign that the crypt is one of  London's major c12 treasures. It lies below a choir, which was rebuilt in 1721-3 as a plain Georgian parish church, reusing parts of the medieval outer walls. After gutting in the Second World War the church was restored and extended in 1955-8 by Seely & Paget, and one sees first their one-storey Neo-Georgian elliptical narthex enclosing a new entrance for the crypt, and an early c18 wall visible above, of red brick with stone pilasters. The part of the medieval church has disappeared; it consisted in the c12 of a circular nave, inspired by the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, as was the practice of both this Order and the Templars. This was replaced by a more conventional aisled rectangle before 1381, when the church was sacked during the Peasants' Revolt. Both replacement nave and a massive tower added c. 1500 were destroyed by Protector Somerset after the Dissolution, to provide building material for Somerset House, leaving only the choir standing. Inside the narthex, a 020 double stair, intended for processions, descends to the crypt. On each side is visible the start of the curved c12 wall of the round nave, with bases of two c12 internal pilasters. The crypt is of two dates. The unaisled mid-c12 part has three bays with simple rib vaults and plain transverse arches, and a fourth bay where only springers to the vault survive. The ribs appear to have had applied plaster enrichment with chevron, originally painted red. The late c12 enlargement (probably complete at the consecration of 1185) added two bays, which extend transeptally for one bay on one side and two on the other.  These parts have the more elaborate mouldings of the late c12: triple-shafted responds, ribs with triple rolls, the centre one keeled, and transverse arches with pronounced angle rolls, transept is a vaulted chamber, from which the early c12 exterior wall is visible: ashlar-faced with pilasters with chamfered bases. The crypt was restored and refitted by J. 0. Scott in 1900-1 and 1904-7. Font Octagonal on a renewed quatrefoiled base. From the Preceptory at Hogshaw, Bucks. – Altar Frontal, embroidered with figures in ovals, Italian c1, brought from Florence. – Stained glass early c0, by Nicholson. - Monuments Sir William Weston, Prior of St John, 1540, emaciated corpse wrapped in a shroud and placed on a flat rush mat; a fragment of a larger tomb whose Gothic canopy is known from drawings. - Knight of St John, assumed to be Juan Ruiz de Vergara, proctor of the Langue of Castile in the Order of St John, originally in Valladolid Cathedral.  Given in 1914. Alabaster.  Recumbent effigy with sleeping son or page. Of a quality unsurpassed in London or England. Convincingly attributed to the Castilian sculptor Esteban Jordan. The pedestal was designed by C. M. 0. Scott, 1916.    The post-war church has a frugal whitewashed aisleless interior. At the end, responds of former aisles: late c1, with keeled shafts, four major, eight minor, important evidence of Transitional Gothic forms in London. Perpendicular windows. Two corbels high up relate to the former c18 gallery. Reredos.  Two big carved corsoles and a panel with cherubs' heads.  Early c18 doorway. In the Museum, two fine painted wings from late c15 Flemish altarpiece, formerly in the Priory church. The area of the church was laid out as a memorial garden after the war, approached through a Tuscan archway below a caretaker's flat. On the side of the church, blocked openings are visible between stone buttresses restored in 1907-8.  Some decoration, perhaps from the time of the early c16 Docwra Chapel which stood near the church. A cloister arcade. In its centre a Crucifixion by Cecil Thomas, 1951 with flat terminal panels in an Eric Gill tradition.

The Knights Hospitallers' Priory of St John, a wealthy establishment which became head of the Order in England, was founded c. 1144 by Jordan Briset or Bricett, a Suffolk landowner who held property in Clerkenwell.  Its precinct, covering about six acres, was bounded by Turnmill Street, Cowcross Street, St John Street and Clerkenwell Green. Within this, an inner precinct was entered by the gatehouse in St John's Lane, leading to the church in the present St John's Square the two brutally separated since the 1870s by Clerkenwell Road.  Gateway and church are the chief survivals, but scattered evidence of medieval foundations has been found beneath buildings in and around the square

Wesleyan Chapel, untouched by the 1879 roadworks, was burnt out in 1941 in war damage, temporarily reopened in 1949, but finally closed and demolished in 1957.

Wilkes's House Possibly a little to the east of Aylesbury House was one owned by a rich maltster, Israel Wilkes, father to the celebrated Radical politician John Wilkes, who was born here in 1727.  House and business were inherited by John's brother Heaton, who or before 1747 built a distillery adjoining it to the east.  John Wilkes is known have visited his brother's house as Alderman, at least in 1770.  From 1783 until 1810 the tenant was Francis Magniac, a famous merchant and goldsmith, and Colonel of the Clerkenwell Volunteers during the Napoleonic Wars With Daniel Beale who traded with China in musical automata and fancy mechanical clocks.  Later the premises became a warehouse for Dove's, the printers, whose offices and printing works were in the range of houses at the opposite corner of the square Actual ownership of the mansion and ground passed in 1793 to the Walpole family.  Eventually the house was demolished and the property acquired by J Smith and Sons, another clock making firm.  John Smith had begun as a manufacturer of watch and clock glasses, but in 1845 extended to actual clock making and built here the largest clock factory in Clerkenwell.  All branches of craftsmen were employed and all manufacturing processes covered, from brass founding to clock making and from seasoning timber to clock-case making.  Next door to Smith's the newly founded British Horological Institute, briefly had its offices in 1859, before moving to purpose-built headquarters in Northampton Square

Tompion Street

Was Lower Smith Street.  Became Tompion Street, appropriate enough for the area, though now a token name, being mostly destroyed in the war, and given way to topographically unrelated Council blocks.  Northampton Estate development.

Topham Street

Triangle

Maisonettes 1970s for the GLC. Overbearing. Replaced low rent scheme for the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, Compton Dwellings 1872.

Tysoe Street

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area, which had previously been used for meetings.  Peculiarity in the diagonal entry, whose line was determined by one of the network of old field-paths crossing New River land.  When bricks and mortar superseded fields, the new Clerkenwell street pattern crystallised the line of six old paths converging on what became the junction of Rosoman and Exmouth Streets.

Three Crowns. Supposed to be called after James I who united three crowns.

Upper Rosoman Street

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area which had previously been used for meetings

Vineyard Walk

Attempt to grow grapes. Then a pleasure ground 'Mont Plaisance'

Wakley Street

8 National Children's' Bureau

Walmsley Street

Northampton Square's original six intersecting streets were mostly renamed in the rationalisation of London names in 1935.  Lower Charles Street became Walmsley Street, after Dr Robert Walmsley d.1924, first Principal of the new Northampton Institute; but it disappeared under the 1966 building extension Lower Charles Street was originally an earlier lane Taylor's Row, 1792-4, renamed in 1814.

Warner Street

Coldbath fields. Huskisson and Towers fine chemicals

Chiappa building there with signs up. Empty

Warner House

Coach and Horses neo Jacobean 1900 – site of Hockley in the Hole Bear Garden.

Whiskin Street

Wilmington Square

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area, which had previously been used for meetings.  Wilmington Square was originally to have extended to Margaret Street; some houses appear in 1818 map as "building.”  Cromwell notes in 1828 that it was still unfinished, and presumably for financial reasons would be "completed in a form more circumscribed than was at first determined on, and with houses of a less lofty character" Accordingly the square was reduced in depth, with its north side built well short of Margaret Street, in 1829-31 Its style is simpler than the downhill south range, and of one storey less, achieving an equivalent skyline by a raised basement, above which is a pedestrian terrace adjoining the centre garden.(It could not be served by a road, for the road now ran behind the terrace. The west side was completed, though hardly occupied, by 1829, but is already shown in the 1828 map.  Curtailment of the square meant that it was tucked away in what was a backwater - until 1970s traffic management included it in a main lorry route.  Wilmington Square has come through war and social change not entirely unscathed. The square belongs to the group with 'unrelated terraces', like Canonbury.  Except for the slightly higher ground, and the reconstructed corner, all are of four floors plus basement.  The earlier side is fairly standard, stuccoed ground floors with circular-headed windows.  The somewhat heavy quality of this terrace is a reminder of what must have been the oppressive effect of Holford Square.  Back gardens disappeared long ago, when Wilson's John Street, incorporated as a terrace into Rosebery Avenue in the 1890s, and damaged in the Second World War, was rebuilt in the 1950s as Council flats.

1 end house sports a pediment.  Most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

1-5 is individual.

6-7 in the centre have balconies with continuous anthemion motif, nos.

8 door now recessed.

8-11 have been reconstructed laterally since the war, damaged in the war have been rebuilt and combined laterally, with a single front door.

10 1835 the Rev. W J Hall, whose book of psalms and hymns sold 4 million copies, lived here

1-12grand south terrace appeared only in 1824.  Much the most elaborate on the South side, all ground floors stuccoed and with circular-headed windows. The three centre houses and one at either end slightly advanced, rusticated, and with circular-headed first-floor windows as well.

12 is canted out to adapt to the diagonal entry of Tysoe Street.  In the late 1830s Wilson, its builder, occupied this house.  Oddly it had only a parapet with a wreath, reconstructed 1989 with a very basic pediment and, alas, no wreath, but a small pediment on the centre block, adorned with crossed laurel branches, harmonises this lopsidedness.  The stringcourse is raised to the base of the second-floor windows.

13-14. 1825, are distinguished from 15-21 only by their balconies.  Below the bedroom floor is a cornice, but no string course.  Panels inset below the ground-floor windows bring their bases down to threshold level.  Appeared only in 1824.

15-21 appear in Horwood's 1818 map, as "building"

18-21 have an interlaced design.  Now joined horizontally

20 The east side early became offices, and in 1888 Aubrey Beardsley was working in the office of the District Surveyor here.

21 the door and hallway extend to Merlin Street.  Front door double-panelled with circular mouldings, railings halberd with urn terminals.  Most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

22-24 destroyed in the 1930s for rebuilding as part of the austerely impressive Expressionist Police Flats block

25 On the end wall of blind windows break up the brickwork expanse. Most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

25-37, its entity as a 'terrace' is marked only by slightly advancing end houses and distinguishing them with round-headed first-floor windows.  Along its high pedestrian walk, has only three floors and basement, and like the other side has panels below the windows, and double-panelled doors, though without the circles.  Windows have individual balconies; some on the ground floor have window guards.

27 Herbert Spencer had run an office as a railway engineer here, quitting it for philosophy when the firm derailed.

31Its entity as a 'terrace' is marked only by slightly advancing the centre

37 most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

38-39, the short range north of Attneave Street, were completed only in 1840, and in the 1960s were condemned as unsafe and rebuilt by the Council approximately in facsimile with a single central front door.  Tactful rebuilding flats behind replica fronts matching the square.  The centre not filled in until 1841.

40-47 approximately balancing the opposite nine of 13-21,

40 most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.  The chief difference from the E side is the stringcourse between first and second floors.  Nos.

Gardens.  Managed by the vestry of Clerkenwell.  In 1895, when the neighbourhood had long been densely populated.  Lord Compton in the name of the Marquess of Northampton presented the square gardens, covering almost an acre, to Finsbury Vestry for public use.  With seats and flowerbeds it soon became an attractive and much needed small park.  This was at a time when its "uninteresting" early-19th century architecture was dismissed by contemporaries as the "hideously inartistic style of that period"

Wilmington Street

Another parcel, which belonged to the Northampton Estate, built up piecemeal 1819-31 by a builder, John Wilson.  11 squalid courts which developed on the Northampton lat between Wilmington Square and the Lloyd Baker Estate was cleared in the 1920s

Woodbridge Estate

A surprisingly complete early c19 enclave.  It belonged to the Sekforde Charity, used also to endow almshouse at Woodbridge, Suffolk, and was laid out from 1827 by C. Cockerell, surveyor to the charity, and his assistant.  Most of the building took place in the 1830s-40s.  Two new streets, Woodbridge Street and Sekforde Street, replaced a warren of small buildings that had grown up within the outer precinct of the nunnery.  The Sekforde Estate/ Woodbridge Estate was owned by Sekforde, Elizabeth Cooper and Master of the Guard of Recruits, by Christopher Saxon, Elizabethan surveyor.  There is an almshouse in Woodbridge where he was buried.  The Estate was built and the mansion demolished 1767.  Almshouse sundial in the six bits of 60 year lists, 1826 no act for leaves. Revenue of estate intended for the aged poor in Woodbridge. Developed the streets around.

Woodbridge Street

Woodbridge House in the angle of Woodbridge and Sekforde Streets.  The Sekforde (Woodbridge) Estate This land was owned by Thomas Sekforde, an Elizabethan lawyer and Master of the Coun of Requests. He was a patron of Christopher Saxton, the great Elizabethan surveyor and mapmaker. Sekforde retired about 1581 to an estate in Clerkenwell whose revenues he bequeathed to an almshouse he founded in his native town of Woodbridge, Suffolk, where he was buried in 1588. The estate was subsequently built over and the large mansion demolished, and in 1767 the almshouse governors divided the land into six pans on 60-year-leases. In 1826 a private Act of Parliament was secured for granting new 99-year building leases. Sekforde Estate was bounded by St John Street, Aylesbury Street, St James's Walk, Corporation Row and the wall of the House of Detention. Early lessees included two large distilleries, one of them Nicholson's (founded 1815), which in 1970 vacated the St John Street premises. The high boundary wall in Woodbridge Street dates from 1828. Woodbridge House, which still has the look of a small country mansion, backs on to the angle of Woodbridge and Sekforde Streets. Built on one of the original plots, it belonged at one time to George Friend, a gentleman-dyer to the East India Company, who erected his dye-houses nearby. The Clerkenwell Vestry Clerk, William Cook, acquired the property in 1807 and, hoping to renew the lease, removed the timber dye-houses and rebuilt the mansion for £4000, only to have a further lease refused. From 1848-70 the Finsbury Dispensary operated here: it had been founded in 1780 to provide free medicines for the poor and was housed variously in St John's Square, St. john Street and King Street. Woodbridge House's odd situation backing on to the corner was caused by the lay-out of Sekforde and Woodbridge Streets in 1828 Much of the NE range of Woodbridge Street, which had become ruinous or even destroyed, has been successfully reconstructed in facsimile by the Borough Council, and the other houses sensitively restored. The western leg of the street, long gutted for industrial use, has been restored behind the facades.

Yeoman's House is a private development of offices and units in a yard behind this range.

Old Woodbridge Chapel. built by Independent Calvinists in 1824 and in 1833 became it Clerkenwell and Islington Medical Mission, In  1898 it was bought by Water Cress and Flower Girls Mission – which became John Grooms.  It has a simple brick exterior, the front with round-arched upper windows, in keeping with the contemporary housing of the Sekforde Estate Galleried interior, reconstructed in the c19, now floored.  Features in films 'About a Boy’.,

Used to be pub called Noah's ark

Bank

Red Bull Theatre, contemporary with Shakespeare's Globe and Edward Alleyn's Fortune Theatre, once stood in Red Bull Yard, on the corner site of Nicholson's premises. Alleyn was among those who acted at the theatre, and Pepys is known to have visited it.

Wyclif Street?

Was Lower Ashby Street.  Northampton Estate.  Partly survives.  It was named after Castle Ashby, the Earls' Northamptonshire seat, and its eastern half.  Is now plain Ashby Street, while the western portion was renamed Wyclif Street in 1935.

35-36 British Horological Institute.  From 1860 -1978 rebuilt were the headquarters of the Institute, founded in 1858.  In this building, signals from Greenwich Observatory were received twice daily. The Institute removed in 1978 to Upton Hall, Newark.

Vicarage.  Built on the site of the Northampton Manor House, survives, serving for St James's.    

Wynyatt Street

Leases dating from 1800.

Moorgreen House

Southwood Court

Yardley Street

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area which had previously been used for meetings

Old peoples flats behind Victorian frontage.

Wilmington Arms

Agdon Street

Was called Woods Close. People used to wait for an escort into the city here

Albemarle Way

General Monk brought Charles II to the throne. A late 17th-century street largely rebuilt in mid-Victorian times, and named after the Cromwellian general, George Monck, Duke of Albemarle. Notable residents of the street were Carr's assistant, Samuel Ware (1781- 1860) and William Hone, probably identifiable with the champion of Queen Caroline and author of The Everyday Book

2, although refronted, still retains behind the later facade its 18th-century staircase and upstairs parlour, with a pedimented chimneypiece, doorcase, and wainscoted walls.  At the beginning of the 19th century James Carr, architect of St James's Church and later his son and successor in practice Henry, lived here (before 1905 numbered 12). A c19 front.  Skeletons uncovered during excavations under in 1989 suggest that one burial ground for the Priory of St. John was south of the church, while bones near the church were possibly from the Prior's own burial ground.  Evidence of the priory's eventual expansion beyond its walled precinct was revealed by excavations during the same season at the south end of St John's Lane, of late mediaeval foundations and more pans of skeletons.

5 Stuart Devlin Silversmith

Amwell Street

Developed as part of the New River Estate.  1820s. Named after the Hertfordshire springs which feed the New River.  Close to the headquarters of the New River Company.  Developed from the 1820s.  Streets with agreeable terraces with stuccoed ground floors.  Many doorways with fluted quarter-columns and pretty curving light patterns characteristic of the earlier c19. Downhill from Claremont Square, has terraces with small shops many with good c19 shop fronts. The west side of Claremont Square, Myddelton Terrace (1821), was also part of a longer road, created from the old-field path to Clerkenwell.  It was later renamed Amwell Street. . Chadwell Mylne himself laid out the handsome suburb on the Company's land north of New River Head.

Clerkenwell schools, parochial, 1828 modest and cheap.  Designed by Chadwell Mylne and John Blyth. Eleven bays in minimal Gothic two storeys. Built on New River land.

St.Peter and St.Paul, 1853, Commissioners RC. By John Blyth for members of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion; R.C. from 1847. Sober Italianate front with central Venetian window, interior with galleries on thin iron columns, with ornate Gothic iron railings. Post-war stained glass of saints.

Fountain Pub, Dirty Dick mirror gives pub another name

9 Home of Aveling, portrait painter

13 Bowman and Flood Ltd., non ferrous foundry

42 Lloyds Dairy.  From 1914, tiled interior. Timber corner shop with fine lettering.  An early corner shop that was run by members of the Lloyd family until after 2000.

69 was 2 and previously 25 Myddelton Terrace one of Cruickshanks homes.  He was Dickens' Illustrator.

71 was 23 1834, removes next door one of Cruickshanks homes

Charles Allen House

Arlington Way

Arlington House, New River Co. flats

19 Divertissement

Ashby Street

Was previously Upper Ashby Street. Some remaining properties of the Northampton Estate.  Partly survives.  It was named after Castle Ashby, the Earls' Northamptonshire seat, and its eastern half.  Upper Ashby Street, is now plain Ashby Street

Attneave Street

Sherston Court

Aylesbury Street

Marks the boundary of the precinct of St. Johns.  Which covered the whole area.  The street owes its name to a post-Dissolution mansion, which belonged to the Earls of Aylesbury but had become tenements by the early c18.  A 17th mansion, which was part of the priory buildings.  The Earls of Aylesbury one of the noble families, which acquired and built on its lands.  The house of the Aylesburys until 1706.

Aylesbury House The whole monastic property was the subject of a grant by James I in 1607, defined  "the scite or house of the late Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, &c, having therin one great mansion, and one great chapel, &c, containing by estimation 5 acres", which the King bestowed on a gentleman named Ralph Freeman.  It subsequently • passed to Sir William Cecil (1629?), Earl of Exeter, and then by the marriage of the Earl's daughter, to the Bruce family, Earls of Elgin (1641), in whose possession it remained until 1706.  One of this family, who became Earl of Aylesbury, adapted the old Priory church for use as a family chapel.  A large mansion, at least partly from Priory buildings, was created immediately north of the church, probably for Lord Aylesbury, with a doorway communicating from the north aisle to the house.  It was certainly known as "Aylesbury House", and stood in a courtyard enclosed by iron gates, extending on both sides of the church.  In 1989 excavations revealed parts of walls, evidently from this house, based on mediaeval foundations; also some of the undercroft or Priory vaults.  The noted cabinetmaker Giles Grendey (1693-1780), who made fine furniture for Longford Castle, Kedleston had a house here. 

16 site of Bull's Head, Britton's House

Vast dominating premises of E.Pollard, shop fitter and joiner.  It is now dominated by the vast former premises of E. Pollard & Co., shop fitter and joiner, 1912-26

51, late c18, has a genuine workshop window in the middle floor 

Back Hill

Features in films 'Mona Lisa’.

4 Presbytery and offices to St. Peters church 1865-6, Italianate.

Berry Place

Bakers Row:

On 1690 map

Baker’s Yard.  Warehouses redeveloped. Redeveloped by Kinson Architects, 1988; three-storey warehouses in pale brick; a blue comer column between each garage and doorway adds some character

Berry Street

Bowling Green Lane,

Depressing Victorian contrast – in 1675 there were two bowling greens shown on Ogilby and Morgan's map

16-17handsome four storeyed factory 1877 for William Notting, printer and type founder.  Buff brick segment-headed windows; red brick and terracotta trimming

Industrial dwellings, 1874

10 Board School. 1873  by Robson, picturesquely asymmetrical.

Vast car park along Farringdon Road

Catherine Griffiths Court – low folksy housing

Brewhouse Yard

16 BDP Studiosin old brewery buildings.  Original glazed brick and vaulted ceilings.  Gallery, and café.  Brewery. 1728, became Allied Breweries

Briset Street

Now re-named after the benefactor of St John's Priory, and formerly called Berkeley Street after the Berkeley family whose large Tudor mansion, long ago destroyed, stood on the comer facing St John's Lane. Sir Maurice Berkeley was Standard-Bearer to Henry VIII, Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth, and ancestor to the Earls of Berkeley. In the 19th century this neighbourhood consisted of crowded, narrow courts, densely populated by the very poor.

16 A single house with its original former shop-front survives at what was the entrance to Berkeley Court.

Corner site with St John's Lane was rebuilt as offices 1987 architects EPR Partnership

17 Rowley and Parkes clock maker

Britton Street

Formerly Red Lion Street, developed in 1719 by Simon Michell, a rich local magistrate, on land originally belonging to St John's. It was occupied by well-to-do City merchants. In 1937 it was renamed after John Britton (1771-1857), a local draughtsman and topographer.  approached by narrow lanes and passages. Has the best-surviving c18 houses in this area.

14

22

24 Reconstructed facade of Booth's Gin Distillery.  The early-20th-century arcaded Renaissance front, with sculptured frieze, of Booth's Distillery, by E. W. Mountford, architect of the St John Street buildings of the City University, monumental 1903 re-erected from its former site in Turnmill Street rather meaninglessly here in 1975 as a condition of the demolition of the original building.  The granite ground-floor arches are original, the brick upper floors facsimile reconstruction, incorporating F. W. Pomeroy's attic frieze of carved panels showing gin-making processes.  An archway leads through to a late c20 courtyard: behind the frontage are plain council flats and private offices, built by YRM, who took over the redevelopment of the site, building their own offices across the small yard at the back in 1973-6.  These are in their impeccable sleek and anonymous style of the time: a red steel frame with glazed bands, two storeys above recessed ground floor, overlooking St John's Gardens

27, 28, and 30-32.  Good door case

27-32 c18 houses on the w side, ^H partly rebuilt

28, 30-32 clockmakers' attic workshop windows

36 early nineteenth century like New River estates.

44, on the comer of Albion Place, offices and flat designed 1987 by Piers Gough, of Campbell, Zogolovitch, Wilkinson & Gough, make the most of the corner site: gabled, but its flattened planes creating a hexagonal effect, accentuated by the 'latticed' glazing of the windows.

54 probably original, with a fine door case.  18^th red brick houses with carved door brackets.  Clockmakers’ attic workshop windows

55 early 19th century in the style much used in New River Estate houses.  Refronted in the early c19, has good shop front.

56 clockmakers' attic workshop windows

57 18th century, reconstructed.

59 also a good doorcase.  Note cock-eyed window lintel caused by subsidence.  18^th red brick houses with carved door brackets

Janet Street Porter’s House.  A piece of whimsy, a private house with top-floor studio, by CZWG, 1987.  Successfully eye-catching, but the motifs fail to coalesce: strident lozenge windows with large lattice panes and a forceful purple pantiled roof overpower the quiet buff and brown brick walls.

Jerusalem Tavern. Where Britton worked - this is Britton of Britton and Brayley.  18^th building but only a pub since the 1990s

St John's Garden Burial Ground of St. John's.  Was previously Benjamin Street Burial Ground. Well-planted and much needed small park.

Brooke’s Market?

Open square and back of redeveloped Prudential building

16 1900 Austrian looking

Chadwell Street

Developed as part of the New River Estate.  1820s. Named after the Hertfordshire springs which feed the New River.  Close to the headquarters of the New River Company.  Developed from the 1820s. Streets with agreeable terraces with stuccoed ground floors.  Many doorways with fluted quarter-columns and pretty curving light patterns characteristic of the earlier c19

Mount Zion Chapel

Providence Chapel

Angel Baptist Chapel. 1824. Contemporary with the New River Estate. Calvanistic Methodists.  Stucco front with central pediment and Ionic porch.

Clerkenwell

‘Clerkenwell’ c.1150, ‘Clerkenewella’ c.1152, ‘Clerekenewelle’ 1242, ‘Clarkynwell’ 1551, that is 'well or spring of the scholars or students', from Middle English ‘clerc’ and ‘welle’. In  early Latin sources from c.1145 the well or spring is referred to as ‘fons clericorum’. There is vivid corroboration of the etymology in William FitzStephen's account of London in 1174, in which he describes scholars and youths gathering at this and two other wells  on summer evenings. 

Clerkenwell Company made emergency repair parts for printing trade, there and elsewhere Martin? 90% work in London, food packing labels, die stamps 95%, lot of rush jobs Martin? Operatives' wives made artificial flowers and mantles as outworkers for City firms 1860s Centre for machine tools.

Stedall Machine Tool Co., importing machine tools from the Continent, 300-400 machines in stock for early delivery Churchill Co., last century, importing US machine tools

1837 growth area for colour printing, use of wood block and copper plate, lithostone or zinc plate, involved in hand processes, precision trades typical of Clerkenwell

Finsbury. 1898 factories and workrooms with over 100 workers in clothing trades, millinery, mantles lingerie and neckwear, 1800 woodworking and ready made furniture, Electroplate and enamellers, 1950s, with bulk of work sub-contracted to other London manufacturers GUS and GUM parcel facilities here and Woolworth's

Clerkenwell Close

The close, originally part of St Mary's Nunnery, was by the 16^th  and 17^th  filled with houses with gardens. The establishment of many craft industries in Clerkenwell changed the ownership of these houses. cottages were built at the corner opposite the Horseshoe, popularly known as 'weavers' cottages' but actually watchmakers' or jewellers' accessories workshops, with characteristic 'studio' lighting on the top floor. Over the years these were became ruinous and were demolished. Features in films 'A Fish Called Wanda’.

14-18 are rebuilt in Victorian style, though not in facsimile.  Since the mid-1980s the Close has had an effective face-lift.  Tactful, bland mixture of 19^th offices and warehouses.  Refurbished and rebuilt in 1985-9

27-31 Clerkenwell Workshops, four- and five-storey warehouses converted to small workshops in 1975, some of the first to challenge the post-war policy of replacement Clerkenwell industry by housing.  This sturdy and colourful bright range was built in 1895-7 for the London School Board by the works department, under T.J. Bailey, as the Board's central store 'Furniture', 'Stationery' and 'Needlework' appears in little cartouches over the entrances.  Blue brick ground floor with segmental windows; three upper storeys with red brick pilasters.  This was an early sign of revival for the decayed area.

36-41, slightly east of this, in 1987 pan of a large mediaeval building with chalk and ragstone walls was found, with an adjoining courtyard. The Observatory. Flashy offices

42-46, mediaeval floors and hearths, possibly part of kitchens, were excavated in 1986-7.  Intended as replicas of demolished clockmakers cottages.  Unconvincing detail.

47-48 late 18th-century pair with double- pitched roof, have been salvaged from ruin and restored.  The nunnery had been transformed after the Dissolution into Newcastle House, occupied in the c17 by William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle.  This was demolished c. 1793 and replaced by terraced I houses from which these houses survive.  Converted to flats in 1991 by Hunt Thompson, with new flats behind. Newcastle House.  A rather forbidding mansion with an entrance court and two wings, built over the nunnery ruins which until the late 18th century 1753 could still be seen. Here lived William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, a devoted Royalist who fought for King Charles I, and his eccentric second wife Margaret Lucas, the blue-stocking authoress. A descendant married George Monck, Duke of Albemarle, who also lived here. By degrees noble residences were abandoned as their owners followed the Court westwards, and Newcastle House was occupied by a cabinet-maker before being demolished in c 1793. On its site was built Newcastle Place — itself long since demolished — a row of substantial houses by James Can, architect of St James's Church.

54-56 early 19^th

Cromwell House built by the rich Challoner family of the City and later said to have been occupied by Oliver Cromwell.

The Observatory.  One jarring note in this area, at the corner of Newcastle Row; flashy offices with a parade of mirror glass a crude Neo-Deco detail, 1987-8 by Peter Tiggs Partnership. London Ecology Centre Exhibitions and events concerned with the environment of the city.

Crown Tavern, 1815, collection of clocks in restaurant a clock with connections with the Rye House Plot.  Stucco- trimmed, c. 1860. Features in films 'Suzie Gold’.

Horseshoe Pub.  From 1833 from 1747, supposed to be a tunnel to the prison for the hangman's drinks. 18^thhouse at the back of it. Air of a village corner tavern contributes, with the unexpected windings of the narrow street, to the Close's still surviving atmosphere.  Modest c19 pub built out in front of an older building.

Comoys Briar Pipe Manufacturers 1879-1937,

Peabody Buildings high blocks (1884). An American philanthropist, George Peabody (1795- 1869), founded a housing trust on the lines of 'Model Dwellings' companies, with which the Victorians attempted to combat the fearful slums brought by rapid industrialisation. Usually even the few shillings' rent were then beyond the means of all but those regularly employed, and the poorest still endured life in stinking courts and alleys like the rabbit-warren behind Turnmill Street and Cowcross Street

St.James’ Church.  Built 1788-92, by James Carr, a local architect and builder. It is on the site of the choir of the Nunnery.  In 1656 the parish bought the church and the avowdson but the old church was demolished in 1788 and there is a model of it in the vestry – with a real clock in it. This church is a stock-brick box with a stone tower topped by a balustrade and vases and with an obelisk-like spire. Inside a curved end is underlined by the gallery, which is reached by two staircases.  In the early 19^th  upper galleries were added for the charity school children. The church was restored by Blomfield in 1883-4, but many Georgian furnishings remain. The font is carved rosewood, c. 1820. There is an an 18^th  communion table with-bowed front and wrought-iron rails.  Also 18^th churchwarden’s pews and box pews in the gallery. There is a mahogany organ case with feathery palm leaves and an important organ of 1792 by George Pike England. The Royal Arms in Coade stone are over the nave door, with an early 18^th  statue of St James, from a poor box. There is a stained glass window of the Ascension by Alexander Gibbs, 1863, with large coloured figures.  Beneath the tower are two charity boards, a bell ringers’ board about Westminster Youths, 1800 and amonument to the victims of the Fenian riots, 1867. There are vestry furnishings for the church officers and the local corporation. Monuments: a brass of John Bell, Bishop of Worcester, 1556; Elizabeth, Countess of Exeter, 1653; Elizabeth Partridge 1702, with bust and putti ; Henry Penton 1714, wall monument with obelisk; Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, 1715, tablet with books and scrolls, and a black marble floor slab; Thomas Crosse 1712, by Roubiliac; a wall monument with two busts.  There are also monuments from the old nunnery.  Features in films 'About a Boy’, ‘Love, Honour and Obey’..

Nunnery. The north west end of the entrance wall outside the church are remains of the old nunnery.  It was the Benedictine Nunnery of St.Mary founded in 1140 by Jordan Briset and dissolved in 1539. Augustinian canonesses. fragmentary traces of column-shafts and bases of the old nunnery cloister and the position of the north door into the nave which were excavated in 1975.  In the garden the corner of a mediaeval building was found which was part of a range of buildings north of the cloister.

St.Chads well 1822.

Churchyard managed by the Vestry of Clerkenwell

Clerkenwell Green

A misnomer, as no 'green' has flourished here for 300 years, though in its aristocratic 17^th days it was bordered with trees. City knights and aldermen had houses here and Isaak Walton lived here after retiring from his City linen-draper's business. In the 19^th Clerkenwell became heavily industrialised, densely populated, and poor, and the Green became a centre for protest meetings, especially by radicals and unemployed, and was regarded as 'the headquarters of republicanism and revolution'.  Here Dickens’ Oliver Twist watched the Dodger.  There are some trees, but it is now urban and commercial.  Features in films 'A Fish Called Wanda’, ‘Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence’

Clerkenwell Sessions House.  The Former Middlesex Sessions House which has been the  London Masonic Centre since c. 1980. Built 1779-82 by Thomas Rogers, Surveyor to the County of Middlesex, and altered by the County Surveyor, Frederick  Pownall in 1859-60. It has a Palladian front with decorative reliefs by Nollekens of Justice and Mercy. The square central hall with a circular dome is original, but the gallery, central staircase and lantern to the dome are by Pownall. He kept the Court Room ceiling. Before 1613 the justices met at The Castle in St John Street. Then Baptist Hicks built a hall for them, called Hicks Hall and this used as  was the Sessions House until 1779 when a row of old buildings on the west side of Clerkenwell Green was removed and this new building was erected at the County's expense. It includes a Jacobean fireplace and Hicks’ portrait taken from Hicks Hall. By 1860 even this building was too small and it was enlarged. In 1919 the courts moved to Newington Causeway and the building was converted to office use. it remained empty for some years until it was acquired by a Masonic foundation, and restored in 1979. Features in films 'I Believe in You’.

12—14 shop fronts have some good high-Victorian decoration.  Characteristic warehouses of 1878, builder T.E.G. Charming, with plenty of jolly terracotta and curved shaped gables enclosing large Gothic arches.

15-17, reconstructed from ruins in 1986, unfortunately replaced a pretty Regency pillared shop-front with a timid echo.  Facsimile late Georgian shop fronts, eighteenth century houses, 15 Longcluse clock dial painter 

16 has a good early c19 shop front with Ionic columns, re-erected in 1978

18-19 Klamath House 1990 by Huckle, Tweddle Partnership; a sleek stone front with modish features: angled balcony, centre window stepping out in width, stair-tower with playful small window shapes.

29 a former public house of c. 1860, with narrow arched triplet windows on the top floor below bracketed eaves

31 mannered classical building of 1911. It has a narrow stone frontage with long thin windows.  Included in a development of 1984-6, which was designed to convey the small-scale 18^{th –}19^th  variety that once existed here - flats and workshops with brick and rendered fronts with a variety of curved and angled bays.

31a Features in films 'Love, Honour and Obey’.

37a Marx Memorial Library Built 1738 by James Steer as a Welsh Charity School. - for the children of poor Welsh residents of London – which moved to Gray's Inn and the building became in turn a coffeehouse, shops, and a radical club. It was much altered in the c19; but the front elevation was restored to a semblance of its simple c18 appearance in 1969. It was used for radical meeting from 1872, when it became the headquarters of the London Patriotic Society, and by the socialist Twentieth Century Press from 1892 to 1922. Lenin had an office here in 1902-3. In the first-floor library, is a large forceful 1930s mural, in fresco, by Jack Hastings, pupil of Diego Rivera, depicting 'The Worker of the Future upsetting the Economic Chaos of the Present', including portraits of Marx, Lenin etc. Leon Trotsky, used to pore over the radical books while Lenin edited the journal, Iskra.here.

Charitable infant school in the same house

Clerkenwell Parochial Sunday School

Clerkenwell Protestant Sunday School on site of earlier school of 1801,

Horse and cart

Site long left empty was rebuilt in 1987 by Islington Council, as a flat-and-workshop complex of lively design.  Excavations here in 1984 revealed a mediaeval tenement basement, which were within the precinct of St Mary's Nunnery and probably rented out.

Telephone box

Working Men's Club

Clerkenwell Road

Built by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1878 to link New Oxford Street and London Docks. It was opened by Hogg, Chair of the Metropolitan Board of Works.  The Middle level interceptor sewer passes beneath beneath it  part of it is shown as ‘Passing Alley’ or  ‘Pissing Alley’ on the Roque map. It also incorporated Wilderness Row and some of Charterhouse Grounds. several narrow streets and alleys west of St John Street were destroyed – like Liquorpond Street. Warehouses, offices and a tram route were built along the new street.  Features in films 'Mona Lisa’.

102- 108 Columbia Gramophone Co.

122 Shop front 19^th

18 Hugin House

29 Elson silversmith

49-53 Red House

55-57 36

57-18c facades of Booths Distillery, recalled from Turnmill Street

60 Marshall silver repairs

74 William Phipps spoon silversmith

84 flat iron building on the corner

Cavendish Mansions 1882

Corner are Holborn Offices

Duke of York. Debased classical pub elevation

Griffin Pub, site of Reid's Griffin Brewery LE Reid's bottle labels on the walls

Hat and Feathers  pub.  Alsopps mirror.  1860 by Hill & Paraire, with ornate stuccoed front and a good bowed corner.    Listed Grade II,

Holborn Union Offices, 1886.  Board of Guardian’s Offices.  1885-6 by H. Saxon Snell & Sons, a symmetrical classical block in blue and orange brick.     The present Council offices.  During a short period when Finsbury and Holborn were jointly administered for local government purposes: a palatial brick frontage — ironic in view of its original use which has responded well to cleaning.

Holborn Town Hall, demolished .A substantial brick-and-stone pile was erected in 1878-9- for Holborn District Board of Works to exploit recent road improvements. Designed by the Board's surveyor, Lewis Isaacs, and Henry Louis Florence in an eclectic classical style, it boasted the unusual juxtaposition of a lavish double-height hall over a municipal stone-yard. It was sold in 1906 to pay for the new town hall and was demolished in the 1960s.

Kipp House

Mountford House

Penny Bank chamber with coin design on the walls.  Penny Bank Gallery. Converted for Association of Craftsmen 1879-80 by Henman & Harrison. Traditional crafts. These are towering model dwellings sparsely decorated with bands of tiles bearing the name of the National Penny Bank, founded 1875, and modelled on the Yorkshire Penny Bank, where amounts as small as one penny could be deposited.

Plaque about bombing blocked by German airship

St Peter's. A mission church for the poor Italian community living around Saffron Hill.  Built in 1862-3 by John Miller Bryson, probably influenced by more ambitious but unexecuted plans of 1853 by Francesco Gualandi.  It has a tall narrow two-bay front and an entrance of two arches. The upper parts date from 1891 by F. W. Tasker built in  brick and stone.  Before Clerkenwell Road was built it was intended to provide a grand facade to Herbal Hill. It has a slarge and impressive interior like an Italian basilica. In 1885-6, the walls and ceiling were painted by Arnaud and Gauthier, from Piedmont.  There is a painting of the Annunciation, signed by Bon Einler1861.  There are also four Italian Baroque terracotta statues of evangelists, apparently brought from the Manchester exhibition of 1857. Every year on the first Sunday after July 16 there is an Italian sagra around the church. The fete involves a procession through the streets to mark the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  Caruso and Gigli once performed on the church steps on some Sunday mornings. Features in films 'Mona Lisa’,’Queen of Hearts’..

Victoria Dwellings

Coldbath Fields

Was a path going to the river Fleet, name probably ironic,

Well in the fields

Coldbath Fields Prison, 1794-1887, built by Howard as a experiment in strong discipline Tristan treadmill

Apple Tree pub, 1720 on the same site in the eighteenth century, Parcels run to the north from 1887. Strong man of Islington Topham prisoners from Coldbath Fields there

Coldbath Square

Cold Bath cured nerve disorders there from 1697-1870

Coldbath House

Compton Passage

Church School

Compton Street

Name relates to the Northampton Estate family ownership

Terrace remains from Northampton Estate developments.  Modest, some houses only one bay wide.

St Peter and St Paul R.C. School, remodelled 1968-71 by Farrington, Dennys &-Fisher

Cornwall Place?

New River and Treasurer.

Corporation Row

Was once called Cut Throat Lane. It long marked London's most northerly built-up limit. Its name derives not from the City but from a 'corporation' or union workhouse, built in the fields about 1662 for a union of metropolitan parishes. It stood at the NE corner of the present Hugh Myddelton School grounds.

35-43 Early Georgian terraces

NW corner bowling green

Mulberry garden pleasure ground opened in 1742 on east side, became an exercise ground for the Clerkenwell Volunteers

Clerkenwell Bridewell

Adjoining was a large bowling green, from which the neighbouring lane was named.

Mulberry Garden, one of Clerkenwell's many pleasure grounds, was opened in 1742, laid out in avenues and gravel-walks, and providing entertainments such as an orchestra, refreshments, skittles and fireworks. It was fashionable, but apparently not long-lived. Later, during the Napoleonic Wars, its ground was used for exercising by the Clerkenwell Volunteers.

The Quaker Workhouse, a large quadrangular building, was taken over about 1692 by the Society of Friends for their own poor members and for a charity school. By 1774 part of the building had become tenements. In 1786 the Quaker Workhouse removed to land off the present Rawstorne Street, and the old building fell into ruin. It was demolished in 1805, and the Paving Commissioners took part of the site for widening Corporation Row

New Prison Wall. A tablet on the inner side of the north wall, between the two gates, commemorates the site of the explosion in the wall of the prison.  in 1867 an attempt was made to free Fenian prisoners Burke and Casey who were awaiting trial by blowing up the north precinct wall. the leader, and as a result 15 people were killed and forty or so seriously injured. Michael Barrett, the instigator, was hanged — the last person in England to do so in public. The bomb planted was between the gates marked ‘Infants’..

Crawford Passage

Before 1774 it was called Pickled Egg Walk

Cockpit

Cruikshank Street

Amwell House.  Lubetkin.  Two-storey added by Skinner, Bailey & Lubetkin in 1956-8

Bevin Court.  1952 by Lubetkin after Tecton had left.  Form of the old Holford Square.  On the site of the bombed Holford Square of 1841 the one major c20 addition: by Skinner Bailey & Lubetkin, i.e. part of the Tecton firm after it had split up.  The first design, which preserved the form of the old square, was rejected in favour of a cheaper solution of a seven- and eight-store Y-shaped block of 130 dwellings.  The wings have the distinctly Tecton surface patterning, achieved here through alternation - windows, textures, and access-gallery uprights - private balconies were too expensive.  The surprise is the stunning central staircase, one of the most exciting C20 spatial experiences in London Views out in different directions between the access points to each wing.  Mural in the entrance by Peter Yates.

Holford House.  Lubetkin a four-storey block of maisonettes, is part of the same scheme

Cyprus Street

Was King Street, 1880

Flats 1930s a group of Monson's flats,

The Trianglean overbearing brown brick cluster of maisonettes of the 1970s, by Clifford Culpin & Partners, for the GLC, with a monumental entrance under a high-level bridge.  They replaced an earlier low rent housing scheme, the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company & Compton Dwellings of 1872-6

Dallington Street

Was Allen Street, Dallington Master of Charterhouse

St.Paul's Buildings, Galactic House, Bailey Wood turners

Cavendish Buildings

Earlstoke Street

Now disappeared, had been Upper Smith Street.  Two Smith Streets were named after the 9th Earl of Northampton's wife Maria, daughter to a Wiltshire gentleman.  Disappeared under university extension, had been renamed Earlstoke Street in 1935, after Maria Smith's parental home,

Easton Street

Exmouth Market

1756, rural path called Bridewell. The south side was built in the 18th century as Braynes Buildings, looking out over fields towards Highgate. It was frequented by visitors to the spa-wells, but in 1818 the north side was also built up and the street re-named in honour of Admiral Pellew, Lord Exmouth. The houses are mostly original, though much altered.  Exmouth Street served as a main road connecting St John Street with westerly districts. On completion of the last stretch of Rosebery Avenue in 1892, application was made to allow costers — always unpopular with the authorities — to establish a street market here as its traffic was now diverted to the new road. It long remained a flourishing market. Of recent years, with falling population, and competition from the more conveniently-sited Chapel Market, its prosperity has declined, but attempts have been made to maintain it.

8 In the 1820s Joseph Grimaldi, the famous clown, lived here, one of his frequently-changed lodgings. 

32-34. a date-stone of 1765 with Brayes Building on the stuccoed front

43, first floor note curious 'rococo' plaster swags in canopy form.

55

56 plaque to Joseph Grimaldi. Which says  ‘clown, lived here 1818-1828'. Grimaldi, born in London, is said to be the greatest English clown ever. He was a master of song, dance, acrobatics, mime and an astute manager. He lived here for the last decade of an eventful popular and well rewarded life. Plaque erected 1989.

City Mansions

Holy Redeemer. Site of chapel built on site of Ducking Pond House for Huntingdon Methodist Connection in 1756. Demolished 1856 and replaced by the Italian church. On the site of Spa Fields Chapel demolished in 1886 when its lease expired. 1887-8 by J.D. Sedding, completed by H. Wibon, 1892-5. Not in their exuberant free Gothic mood, but a powerful Italian Renaissance design, exceptional among London's Victorian Anglican churches. The brick exterior hides a steel-framed construction. Tall front with round-arched doorway, boldly lettered frieze, and striped brick above with a circular window. Big deep-eaved pediment. Projecting campanile. They make bold use of tiles for stringcourses and arches. Inside, four groin vaults on an unbroken entablature, resting on giant Corinthian columns. Capitals carved by F. W. Pomeroy. Sedding planned frescoes, but these were not carried out. Behind the nave arcades, narrow aisles, and narrow, inorganically placed transepts.  Marble High Altar under a massive domed baldacchino, on the pattern of Santo Spirito, Florence. Behind it, Wilson's Lady Chapel, with altarpiece in pedimented Ionic frame. Large stone Font 1909 17th-century font came from St Giles's. Cripplegate and other furnishings by Wilson. Prince Consort's Organ from the Chapel Royal, Windsor, by Father Willis installed 1889. London's only church in Basilica style. Exceptional.  The foundation stone was laid by William Ewart Gladstone. It lends a Roman touch to this corner of Clerkenwell, enhanced by the cleaning of its West front in 1987 in advance of its centenary in 1988.   There is an unusual set of An Nouveau Stations of the Cross

Clergy house 1906

Church hall 1916, added by Wibon.

Street Market

Exmouth Arms named after Sir Edward Pellew, British nineteenth century Naval Commander made Viscount Exmouth

London Spa, tile work inside.   One of Clerkenwell's most famous resorts, opened about 1730 between the upper and lower parts of the later Rosoman Street. It was a re-discovered mediaeval well of chalybeate waters, advertised as curing every imaginable ailment. Other small spas and gardens (such as the New Wells), opening in the vicinity during the summer season were usually identified by their situation vis-a-vis the well-known London Spa. Entertainments included rope-dancers, fireworks, freaks, singers, operetta, and home-brewed ale, but the resorts were often reviled by moralists for their disorderly customers. In 1835 the London Spa was rebuilt as a tavern, and again about a century later. .1730 between top and bottom of Rosoman Street, rebuilt as a pub building of second Sadler's wells

Eyre Street Hill

Gunmakers Arms

Farringdon Lane

The continuation of the route out of Clerkenwell.  Formerly Ray Street.

City Pride pub was the White Swan changed by Fullers city and

30 Abbott House. Plaque about being opened by John Gerald??

16 Clerk’s Well of Hockley in the Hole.  Site of old healing well – all sorts of fairs and fun there. A kind of beer garden from Charles II's time. Butchers dog's competitions at Clerks’ Wells. Set up by churchyard in 1800 ‘clerks well’ as in ‘Clerkenwell’. In Tudor times there was a stream flowing through the nunnery grounds there. In 1673 it was turned into a well and given to the poor of the Parish of Clerkenwell but it was in fact leased to a brewer called John Crosse who enclosed it. Just putting a drinking fountain on an outside wall for the public. 1720 'excellently clear, sweet and well tasted'. In 1800 a pump was set up by what is now 16 Farringdon Street but the water started to fail and then the vestry closed it down because it was polluted. The well chamber was filled with builder's debris and built over. In 1924 16 Farringdon Street was rebuilt and the well was found again. The Council leased the building and forgot about it again a rectangular enclosure with some medieval ashlar wall; repaired with brick.  It was rediscovered in 1924, and identified as the well mentioned by Fitzstephen and Stow, which gave its name to the area.  It lay just outside the precinct wall of the nunnery.  Fitzstephen describes it as 'frequente scholars and youth of the City when they go out for fresh a summer evenings'. In 1924 workers uncovered the old well where the parish clerks performed their medieval 'miracle' plays.

Sacred wells used to run in the wall of the convent of Saint Mary Tudor brickwork.  1170 miracle plays

Plainerhouse, 1875,

Peabody buildings 1884

Peabody Terrace 1964

34 Warehouse 1875 for John Greenwich, watch and clock manufacturer with Gothic details and clock.  Most notable the tall gabled designed by Roy Plumbs, a prominent clock, and other appropriate decoration  - hourglass, scythe etc.- above the upper windows

Farringdon Road

This was built as an extension to Bagnigge Wells Road and previously it was part of Field Lane and Chick Lane which was a very rough area. The railway runs down the side and Farringdon Station and the goods yard covered the valley side.  Chick Field Lanes were demolished as were others like Coppice Row and Victoria Street.  It was called ‘Farringdon’ for Mayor Farndone who was a goldsmith. The Ward was called after him and ghe street after the ward. It has building on a grander scale than elsewhere in Clerkenwell and the printing industry, because of nearby of Fleet Street was prominent here.  Many buildings remain from this period although their use has changed and there are some buildings from the 1980s, although names and a few relics survive to give some inkling of the earlier history of the area. Features in films 'Alive and Kicking’.

14-16 plaque about Clerks' well

20 Smith New Court House along the curving sliver of land between road and railway, a flat canyon-like office frontage of polished granite, c. 1993 stepping up to a high tower at the comer of Cowcross Street.  Not an asset to the townscape.

75 indifferent with the usual polished granite uprights of c. 1990.  Then a long sequence of smaller groups of workshops and warehouses of the 1880s

77-79 warehouse with classical detail.  1880s

83-86 Associated Press

84-104 speculative group of 1872 by Plumbe, 1872-3, built as a speculation    Gothic arches to the top floor, lush capitals

91-93, c. 1930-5, stone-faced and quiet.

94, Quality Chop House, a rare survival of an early c20 working-class restaurant, much-refurbished 1980s but with some original fittings.  Much refurbished.

99-101 1887, slightly Gothic, with some black diapering.

103 premises for J. &R.M.Wood printing press maker.  Machine Hall behind with cast iron columns.  1865 by John Butler Machine hall behind with cast-iron columns.

Flats - on the large site at the corner of Clerkenwell Road by Chassay Architects, 1993-4, building up from four to seven storeys, constructed around a deep-plan concrete frame intended for offices, the change of use during construction a sign of the times.  Brick and rendered frontages, with glazed set-back top floor.

105-107 1887.  Are both dated 1887, slightly Gothic, with some black diapering.

106 Penny Black, was Clerkenwell Tavern, 1888 Pub in the 84-104 group

109-111 for William Dickens chromolithographer, Venetian Gothic palazzo.  1864 First large premises of colour magazine printing by Henry Jarvis, a splendid Venetian Gothic palazzo.  Red and black brick, with close-set Gothic arcades.

113-117premises for V.& J.Figgis, typefounders.  1864. 1875-6 by Arding & Bond.  The main building is of five storeys, with a sixth above a cornice; the windows of the four middle floors are enclosed in two series of giant arches; the whole is tied together by continuous rusticated brick piers.

119-141Guardian offices.  Built as a warehouse and converted to offices. An uncouth intruder. On the site of Corporation Dwellings built by Waterlow opposite Farringdon Road Buildings built by the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Working Classes.  Built as a warehouse c. 1976, and converted as offices for the Guardian by Elsom Pack & Roberts.  An uncouth intruder, six storeys of drab brown precast panels contrast tellingly with subtler articulation of the c19 buildings.

142-144 1950

143 offices and shops was site of grim Clerkenwell workhouse?

145-155 late 19^th commercial terrace, a good example.  A decently proportioned late c 19 commercial terrace.  A balanced design with slightly narrowed houses.  The others each have a ground-floor shop and three or four-light upper windows extending almost full width party walls.

150 Swinnerton

Car park vast multi-storey of the 1980s with bland arched frontage of red and yellow brick.

Catherine GriffCourt housing of the 1980s behind the car park, folksy brick

Bakers' Row

Betsey Pub was Betsey Trotwood and before that the Butchers Arms. in Pear Tree Court from 1686. Named after David Copperfield’s aunt.

Eagle where Lenin stayed gone

Farringdon Market on this area after it had been covered over, before that Fleet Market was on the edge of the stream

Flats on the corner of Clerkenwell Road. Intended as offices in the 1990s

Fleet Building, Telephone Exchange

Fleetway House HQ of Amalgamated Press, gone, IPC Magazines

Gazzano cafe

Line of Fleet, Last section of Fleet arched over in 1850s from Peter Street to Castle Street

Middle Row demolished 1867 sort of structure in centre of main road in lots of old towns, cf. Maidstone.

Red Lion Tavern with plank bridge over the Fleet,

Site of mansion of John Oldcastle, was a pub called Lord Cobham and then Sir John Oldcastle, gone by 1762

Faulkner’s Alley?

Finsbury

Vinisbir 1231, Finesbury 1254, Fynesbury 1294, ry 1535, that is 'manor of a man called Finn", from an Old Scandinavian personal name and Middle English bury. The area was once part of the marshy ground, later drained,  north of the City wall that gave name to Moorgate and Moorfields and on the mid-16^th century 'wood-cut map' of London Fynnesburie Field is still shown as open ground with horses, archers, and windmills. Finsbury Circus & Square were laid out as part of a new residential suburb between 1777 and 1817.

Friend Street

1786-1825 Friend's school, 1702

Hermitage Buildings

Gard Street

Garnault Place

23 Grimaldi

Gee Street,

Called after John Gee

Alfred Place

Cotswold Court

Parmoor Court

Sapperton Court

Gloucester Way

Goswell Road

Swallows

Saddlers’ Sport Centre for the City University. 1973.  Sheppard Robson & Partners, begun 1973. Like the nearby halls in Bastwick Street, faced in brown brick, with some close-set black mullions. Tough but decent, nicely finished, and less dour than the firm's main campus buildings.

Mount Mills, Windmill mount

Pheasant and Firkin, was the Old Ivy House

Carter Patterson, until 1948

132 Gordon's gin

135-137 grand six storey composition

Charles Green balloonist born there

77-81 Carter Paterson and Co.  The premises back from the road and approached by two gateways. Buildings substantially constructed of brick, concrete and iron and are 5 floors in height. They consist of cart area on ground floor, and stables and warehouse space on first floor, and stables and smithy on 2nd floor.. The carts bring in.goods collected in the City to the Bank on the ground floor, they are trucked across to carts waiting to receive them, which distribute them over London.

128 Carter Paterson and Co These premises cover a large area of ground and consist of a building of three floors used as Offices and open and covered yards with brick buildings used for receiving goods, and to some extent storing same, and stables, smithy, boiler and engine house and warehouse with grinding machine and chaff cutting machine. The goods taken were principally parcels. Over the smithy and boiler house is a stable for young horses and at the extreme East end of yard is another very large stable.

Great Sutton Street

Named after Thomas Sutton.  Narrow lined with late c19 factories and warehouses;

30a was built as a dairy by George Waymouth: dairy scenes on ceramic lozenges.

38 London Portable Gas Co. oil gas works.  Cylinders under patent of Gordon and Heard. 3.2.6. per 1000 cf. including collection and delivery and ornamental stands for holders. Some internal piping installed. Horsed vehicle delivery 7 miles from works. Royal Inst. Faraday discovered benzene through it. Ok as long as coal gas expensive but then went. 1827 Charter maybe. 1819-1834

52 Dancer inventor of microphotography

Hall Street

Peregrine House Features in films 'Susie Gold’.

Hayward's Place

Hardwick Street

Named after a Governor of the New River Company. Called after local ironmonger

1-5 refurbished 1920s warehouse

Haywards Place

1834, a humble terrace of six cottages — adorned with diglyphs even so—is at the end of Woodbridge Street opposite the chapel.  Much restored cottages for distillery workers

1-18 was Suffolk Street and site of Woodbridge Chapel.

5 and 6 reconstructed 1951 after war destruction.

Next door new warehouse for Croll meter factory in 1846.

Herbal Hill

1 an early c19 house.

Coach and Horses the comer of Warner Street, opposite huge warehouses, small and cheerful, busy Neo-Jacobean of 1900.  It is on the site of Hockley-in-the-Hole Bear Garden.

Hermit Street

Buxton House

Holford Road (not on az)

Hugh Myddleton Pub. After the New River's completion a handy tavern opened just opposite the Pond, appropriately named after Hugh Myddelton.   The Myddelton's Head, depicted in Hogarth's "Evening" as a wayside tavern, was much frequented by performers from Sadler's Wells. The Tavern was rebuilt in 1831 and stood at the southwest corner of a new paved terrace, Myddelton Place, along the east riverbank opposite Sadler's Wells.  Dinner with Babbage Hershel, Lubbock, Brunel etc. 1832

4 Baron Von Hugel

Holsworthy Square

Six storey tenements rehabilitated for St.Pancras Housing Association by Peter Mishcon in 1981-7.  Ingeniously replanned, with old staircases replaced by lifts and the exterior enlivened by elegant stairs and balconies

Inglebert Street

Provides a vista to St Mark's Church

Insurance Street

Jerusalem Passage

Site of Priory north postern until 1780. It connects the north side of the square with Aylesbury Street and hence with 12 Clerkenwell Green, and in the last century contained flourishing shops. Foundations of the mediaeval buildings survive in cellars below the passage. Corner by the old postern lived the 'musical small coal man' Thomas Britton (d 1714), a native of Northamptonshire who became a coal-dealer in Clerkenwell. He had a natural skill in chemistry, was a noted collector of rare books, and by his extraordinary musical talents gathered celebrated musicians and members of the Court as an informal musical club, held in the poky house above his shop. Jerusalem Passage.  A tavern, the St John of Jerusalem, occupied the corner of this site until 1760, when it was succeeded by a large charity school run by the parish until the lease expired in 1830.  The school then moved, and a row of shops then occupied the ground floor.

8 late c18,

9-10 c. 1830,

11 early c18

12 mid c18

Laystall Street

Plaque about Mazzini. From 1836 onwards, Clerkenwell was the home of Mazzini, the Italian revolutionary. It was also the first port of call for Garibaldi on his visit in 1836

Christopher Hatton Centre, old London County Council School, plaque up.

Leo Yard

Was Red Lion Yard

Little Italy

Area bounded by Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue – also known as Italian Hill.  Name goes back at least two hundred years. Church, shops and driving school.

Little St.John's Square?

North’s Court

21 & 22

49-52

Lloyd Baker Estate

The Lloyd Baker estate, whose three large fields formed a long parallelogram on the hillside between the Pentonville end of the New River estate and the Fleet valley by Bagnigge Wells, was owned by a Gloucestershire family.  In the time of James I Dr William Lloyd, Bishop of St Asaph, was one of the "Seven Bishops" who defied the King; Mary, the daughter of a descendant, the Rev. John Lloyd, married another clergyman, the Rev William Baker of Hardwicke Court.  It was their son, Thomas John Lloyd Baker, who in his father's lifetime actively undertook development of their London estate in the 1820s.  A plan of 1807 shows the three fields, two of them abutting on the east on New River land.  Hill Field contained two small reservoirs used by the New River Company; Robin Hood's Field also adjoined Lord Northampton's estate to the south, as did the third.  Black Mary's Field.  Black Mary's other side extended to Bagnigge Wells road, and housed a cow layer and other farm buildings.  The Lloyd Baker estate was planned from September 1818, placing it fairly early in the post-Napoleonic canon, but it was delayed by a trade depression, which slowed the taking up of leases.  The estate plan was drawn up by the family's elderly surveyor, John Booth

The Lloyd Baker estate owners resented the mean, shimmy alleys between it and Wilmington Square, and would not allow a connecting road between the estates.  To this day only a footpath from one comer of Lloyd Square links them.

Lloyd Baker Street

The estate’s first houses were in Baker Street - later renamed Lloyd Baker Street - appear in the rate books only in 1825.

The slope towards the Fleet River is very appealing with very special semi-detached villas. Was originally called Baker Street.  The houses also have windows framed by giant arches.

Union Tavern – was previously the site of the Bull in the Pound – a resort of vicious characters.

Lloyd Baker Street flats

1-50 1829 "Upper Baker Street,” which was later re-numbered consecutively as 1-50 (1836). 

13 YWCA Moved from Lloyd Square, which was the Sisters of Bethany.  Converted in 1962 from- former convent, a House of Retreat for the Society of the Sisters of Bethany first established at No. 7 Lloyd Square in 1866. By Ernest Newton, 1882-4, in robust Queen Anne-Board school style rather than Gothic, the effect diminished since alteration of the gables.  Small cloister with balustraded corridor on two side Chapel, now studio, rebuilt by Newton 1891-2; low aisle am high clerestory; free Decorator detail.  Boarded barrel roof.  Good Crafts screens; some stained glass

43 Warwick William Wroth, FSA, 1858-1911, eldest son of Rev Warwick Reed Wroth, was a distinguished numismatist at the British Museum, and also author of The London Pleasure Gardens of the 18th Century 1896.  The Rev Mr Wroth, had his vicarage here

Lloyd Square

Lloyd Square first appears in 1833, its progress especially inhibited by the cost of its larger houses, and of such additions as contributing to the central garden layout, which proved a financial embarrassment to some of the builders.  As a result, some were skimped in workmanship. The Lloyd Baker estate, whose three large fields formed a long parallelogram on the hillside between the Pentonville end of the New River estate and the Fleet valley by Bagnigge Wells, was owned by a Gloucestershire family.  In the time of James I Dr William Lloyd, Bishop of St Asaph, was one of the "Seven Bishops" who defied the King; Mary, the daughter of a descendant, the Rev. John Lloyd, married another clergyman, the Rev William Baker of Hardwicke Court.  It was their son, Thomas John Lloyd Baker, who in his father's lifetime actively undertook development of their London estate in the 1820s.  A plan of 1807 shows the three fields, two of them abutting on the east on New River land.  Hill Field contained two small reservoirs used by the New River Company; Robin Hood's Field also adjoined Lord Northampton's estate to the south, as did the third.  Black Mary's Field.  Black Mary's other side extended to Bagnigge Wells road, and housed a cow layer and other farm buildings.  The Lloyd Baker estate was planned from September 1818, placing it fairly early in the post-Napoleonic canon, but it was delayed by a trade depression, which slowed the taking up of leases.  The estate plan was drawn up by the family's elderly surveyor, John Booth, who submitted a plan for Lloyd Square in August 1828, and a year later objected to a contractor's proposal to build it in the style of Amwell Street, which would spoil the symmetry since two sides of the square had already been let in advance.  It was Booth's son, William Joseph (1797-1872), who took over as architect, aligning in a much more individual style than Amwell Street and other New River given the dimensions and shape of the estate, there was small scope for the space at the top end other than turn it into a 'square' - or rather, an open space bordered by houses.  Given, too, that the more common practice was to create a square surrounded by streets.  Lloyd Square is a 'square' as it were by necessity, because space would not allow the converging streets to continue to the top unless houses became almost back-to-back.  The Granville Square plan was here turned inside out, leaving the hilltop as garden ground, and making this end of Wharton and Baker Streets into 'Lloyd Square' with similar paired villas. Early residents of the estate were gentlemen, tradesmen, and small professionals - timber merchant, surgeon, watchmaker, solicitor, and house agent.  Furthermore, the family origin of the landlords led to a large number of Welsh inhabitants over the years.  The Lloyd Baker estate was almost unique in London in remaining in private hand until a very late date.  Miss Olive Lloyd Baker (1903-75), who inherited it from he father at the age of 13, maintained a personal interest in her 450 tenants, administering| her inheritance "like a feudal village".  At her death, rents were mostly below the normal but on the other hand, many houses had shared lavatories and 40 had no baths.  In 1971 Islington Council acquired 95 rather run-down properties on the estate (none in Lloyd Square), and by degrees rehabilitated them with the help of a GLC grant.  Other houses were bought by their tenants, or occupied under licence.  Lloyd Square was kept a leasehold.  The gardens too remained in private local ownership, maintained by the residents through a committee levying a rate, and the only private gardens in the area except for Charterhouse Square.  The peculiar history of this area has given it a strong village atmosphere, with feeling of closely-knit community, enhanced by traditional local shops in adjoining Amwell Street in the character of 'Village Street’.  The distinctive, if not unique streets of the Lloyd Baker estate play a set of variation on terrace and linked-villa theme.  Lloyd Square, at the top of the estate, exhibits the Greek influence of young Booth's early travels, especially in its pediments, and gives a trick effect of paired villas.  All are in fact linked by advanced porch entrances with flat pillars or half-pillars - coupled between two houses, each with a small room above.  Most of the fanlights survive, consisting of seven long cylindrical panes.  All windows are squared, with lying panes.  Some doorcases retain an original circular moulding at the corners.  Two widely spaced rooms on each floor are capped by a heavy cornice and, above, a plain 'pediment', and are sliced across by a broad stringcourse.  Chimneys are centred.  While not emulating the extraordinary owl-like, bespectacled effect of Lloyd Baker Street, whose windows are recessed behind huge arches with brick mouldings, Lloyd Square is distinctly unusual.  The square tilts slightly downhill, contributing to the rhythmic fall of the estate's two axial streets, Wharton and Lloyd Baker.  Internally the houses differ, but on plan, the stairs are generally placed centrally between two rooms

7 was the original Sisters of Bethany

11 -12 are eccentric

12 is really part of Lloyd Baker Street.

21, home of the actor and producer the late Denis Arundell.

24 Home of Poulton, jurist

Alexandra Club.  In 1880-82 a House of Retreat was built for the Sisters of Bethany, the designs of Ernest Newton; since 1966 this has been the Alexandra Club (YWCA). Its window design has a slight echo of the windows of the square's houses.

Archery field house.  Just below the NW corner of the square was a small circular pond, one of the New River Company reservoirs in Hill Field.  This was later drained and two large houses built on the site.  In 1883 these were demolished for the building of a new Spa Field Chapel, for the congregation of the old Exmouth Street 'Pantheon' chapel when was replaced by the Holy Redeemer Church.  By 1938 the chapel's congregation had dwindled away, and this too was demolished and the estate repossessed the site, under a clause of re-ownership should the 'cause' fail.  After the war   Archery Fields House a small block of flats was built on the site in mildly pastiche style.

Lloyd Street

Part of the Lloyd Baker Estate – family estate

Cable House

Lloyds Row

Hugh Myddleton School. Separate Nursery School similarly detailed to the main school. Mallory Buildings?

Called after one of the Knights buried in the church

Malta Street

Named after Hospital of Knights of Malta

St.Mary of the Cross, picturesque fountain 1863. Glass school and parsonage of 1870

Partridge Court, Retired home, local Partridge family

Crayle Court, London County Council, 1960

Manningford Close

Midway House

Margery Street.

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area, which had previously been used for meetings.  In time parts of Clerkenwell, with alleys and mean infillings, became one of the worst Victorian slums, and the Margery Street area.  Built up piecemeal 1819-31 and then cleared and rebuilt in the 1930s.  Another parcel, which belonged to the Northampton Estate, built up piecemeal 1819-31 by a builder, John Wilson.  11 squalid courts which developed on the Northampton lat between Wilmington Square and the Lloyd Baker Estate was cleared in the 1920s and replaced by Finsbury's most extensive inter-war housing.  Five- and six-storey flats of 1930-4 by E. C.P. Monson.  The conventional courtyard lay-out, with polite Neo-Georgian frontages but austere backs, should be contrasted with Tecton's work.

New Merlin's Cave

Bagnigge House

Charles Simmons House

Earlom House

Greenaway House

Gwynne House

Riceyman House

St.Anne's House. 'Very superior blocks of workers flats',

St.Helena House 'very superior blocks of workers flats',

St.Philip House

Spring House

William Martin Court

Mason's Place

Merlin Street

Merlin Street Baths

24 Charles Ronan House, flats for married police.  Expressionist red brick exteriors. More individual 1927-30, by G. Mackenzie Trench, architect to the Metropolitan Police.  A rare early example of flats for married policemen.  Five storeys, around a courtyard entered through large arches with tiled voussoirs.  Drab courtyard elevations with the usual access balconies, but expressionist red brick exteriors with strong verticals ending in blocky chimneys; no period features at all

Milner Street

St Simon Zelotes

Moreland Street

King's Arms

Finsbury Mission

Moreland School 1971 similar to Moorfields.

Mount Pleasant

Clerkenwell Hill circled by the Fleet River. Sarcastically called Mount Pleasant. Site of Cold Bath Fields Prison. Mount Pleasant itself was probably a heap of rubbish, which was sent to build Moscow in 1812. Previously Called Gardeners Fields, swampy. Before 1875 called Baynes Row and Dorrington Street. Once just a country track leading to the Fleet River. 

Cold Bath Fields Prison built 1794 and closed 1900. It was originally the Middlesex House of Correction with places for 1,800 convicts, the largest jail of its time. It was a very rough institution, known as the Bastille or the Steel.

Post Office Underground railway stables, maintenance depot, blind tunnel that was supposed to go up Cubitt Street and along the Fleet Valley. Was to be an extension to King's Cross, and to office in Mornington Crescent, never built

Post Office Sorting Office. By the Office of Works converting the Middlesex House of Correction. Huge Parcel Post Office built in 1900-34 and damaged in 1943. Largest of its kind in the world, with 91 acres of floor space, and about a million parcels every week. Visitors were shown the Sorting Offices and the Post Office Railway.  1934 by A. Myers of the Office of Works. Vast.  Refurbishment and extensions Watkins Gray International, 1996.

4 Grimaldi

47-53 Georgian terrace.  A surprising survival, a modest early Georgian terrace 47-49 is the least altered, with brick bands and cornice and ornamental window heads.  The plaque 'Dorrington Street 1720' seems appropriate but is not in situ; it comes from a street near Brooke's Market

Holiday Inn replacingMounbt Pleasant Hotel, a refurbishmentpfaRowtonHousxe.

Myddleton Passage

Benyon House

Worthington House

Myddleton Square

This is the largest square in the district barring the monumental Finsbury Square, in area just outstripping Charterhouse Square.  Arguably Islington's best, and chief adornment of the distinguished New River estate, it is contemporary with Wilmington and the last part of Claremont Squares.  Design and layout were by the Company's surveyor, William Chadwell Mylne (1781-1863).  Like the rest of the estate it covered former Priory of St John property, Commandry Mantells, and Tomlins remarks that its building, with the adjoining Upper Chadwell and River Streets, "completely obliterated all remembrance of the Mantells and their former lordly possessions.” Mantell is said to be a corruption of Mandeville, the name of a mediaeval proprietor who gave the land to the Priory of the Knights of St John. The Property of the Knights was commonly known as a Commandery. The exact site was a large field called Butcher's Mantells, between New River Yard and the "Upper Pond" where Claremont Square was built, lonely enough to be the night haunt of footpads.  From 1824 to 1829 the new square appears in Sewer Rate Books under the name Chadwell Square.  By 1827, 67 of its 73 houses are recorded, a number of them still empty. Although Myddelton Square is stylistically the most unified in the area, with all houses of four storeys and basements and all its tall drawing-room-floor windows framed in sunken panels, a few minutes' study will show as much variety in building decoration as other Islington squares.  For example, while all end houses have flanking porches each pair is different.  Not all houses are of the same size:  he west side has stucco door and window surrounds, and stringcourses: the houses are stepped upwards to take the slope.  The east side lacks string courses except

3-4 disappeared during the war, enlarging access to Myddelton Passage.

11a-12a the south side, where a pend was made through to back garden the flanking houses have been given small side porches, string course and full rustication where other houses have only horizontal channelling.

18-21 the corner houses a slightly larger, with larger doorways and their piano nobile window furthermore, are rather Frenchified in proportions and have margin panes – though not all survive.

30 Plaque.  The Rev Jabez Bunting (1779-1858), "second founder of Methodism, lived there from 1833 until his death.  He was appointed Senior Secretary of the Missionary So in 1833, and from 1834-58 was President of the Theological Institute.

33 -34 and 23-30 Flatted arches to the ground floor windows and front doors distinguish them.

39 home of Giffard, scholar

39 The Rev Robert Maguire (1826-96), who lived here from 1857-75, was a   cause celebre in 1857, when an overwhelming majority elected him minister I James's Church, Clerkenwell, after a prolonged and unseemly tussle her parishioners and Vestry on the right of appointment, and a knock-out contest her several clergymen.

42 Home to Ballard – Medical Officer of Health and early pollution inspector

43-53 Bomb damage during World War II destroyed houses.  On the north side.  On it now stands this range is an exceptionally early example of facsimile reconstruct which the New River Company undertook with satisfactory results in 1947.  The rebuilt houses are distinct from the originals lacking stuccoed ground floors and having very thin stringcourses and narrow win guards; most other houses have paired balconies.

45 commemorative plaque

5 home of actor, Dibdin.  Flat no 4 home of novelist B.S.Johnson.  The actor-playwright Thomas Dibdin, who when the square was first built lived near the SW corner, writes admiringly in his Autobiography published that year, that the area "not five years since, was an immense field, where people used to be stopped and robbed on their return in the evening from Sadler's Wells; and the ground floor

60 Fenner Brockway, the first Labour peer, lived at here from 1908-10.  A plaque unveiled (by himself) in 1975. He was a a peace campaigner and early supporter of colonial freedom. Lord Brockway, as he became, died in the late 1980s just short of his 100th birthday.

61 Richard Cromwell Carpenter (1812-55), District Surveyor for East Islington, architect of Lonsdale Square, lived here from 1836-42, until 1841 as "Esq. and in 1842 as "Architect" - a nice distinction.

65 Features in films 'The End of the Affair’.

9 home of Painter, Schmit

St Mark's Church. in the centre of the square. Built 1825-27 as a chapel of ease for Clerkenwell and it is like a Commissioners' church - "the usual Gothic box of the period" or “Joke Gothic”.It’s exceptionally solid 90-foot high west tower has a fine traceried and pinnacled porch in keeping with the scale of the square.  It is stock brick  but some of the stone came from Wanstead House.  The window tracery is of iron, not stone. It was designed by W. C. Mylne, Surveyor of the New River Estate.  It was reordered in 1873 by W. Slater to create a chancel; and reseated in 1879. Originally the church had a three-sided gallery, but after serious war damage, restoration left an always-bare interior barer still.  The east window showing the Ascension, with scenes of local events, was designed in 1962 by A E Buss, of Goddard & Gibbs. On the wall at the back of the Church is a plaque recording the death of Sir Hugh Myddelton on 10 December, 1631 with the words "Engineer, Goldsmith and Public Benefactor. He brought Fresh Water to London". Features in films 'The End of the Affair’.

Myddleton Street

Chadwell Mylne himself laid out a handsome suburb on the Company's land north of New River Head, with appropriate names.

50 Buchanan medical practise 1860s.

Hugh Myddleton Junior School. Among the most interesting. 1966 for ILEA. The angled across an incoherent cleared area between Spa Fields and Finsbury Estates. Attractive sturdy buildings, of brown brick with bold timber fascia, a departure from standard types Julian Sofaer for ILEA, 1966-70. The design makes much use of golden section proportions. The Infants' School has one-store-ranges formally arranged around a courtyard; the two-storey Junior School is linked to it, and also has a small courtyard.

Royal Mail Public House.

Mr. Turner, floor cloth and table cover, mfr, fire, building, factory, japan and store room used as a drying house

New River Head

Sir Hugh Myddelton's New River was completed in 1613. Its route from Amwell in Hertfordshire terminated with a reservoir on the high ground above Clerkenwell, later known as Spa Fields. The former ponds are still open spaces, the Upper Pond in Claremont Square is now a covered reservoir, and the inner and outer round ponds of c17 origin are now dry between Rosebery Avenue and Amwell Street. Some early buildings remain. New River Head was opened in 1613 by labourers walking round it. Pumps from old engine house of 1818 raised water to Claremont Square and Crouch Hill. In 1820 the company offices based here but were rebuilt by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1920. Now all private housing.

The Round Pond formed the nucleus of reservoirs to which the New River was channelled. The work was completed in 1613. From the circular "bason" or reservoir of 1613 water was conducted to a cistern thence to smaller cisterns, and finally distributed to the City by means of wooden pipes hollowed from elm-trunks. By the early 18th century the Round Pond was ringed by a much larger, irregular pool, and they were known as the Inner and Outer Ponds. The Round Pond was abandoned in 1914 and vanished under Water Board buildings, and much of its remaining original wall was destroyed in 1976 by the Thames Water Authority to make way for prefabricated offices and car parks. Much of the Pond's sloping revetments had survived undisturbed until then. Part still remains behind the main building on the north side

The Water House.  Sluice-house and offices. On the south rim of the Round Pond what came to be called the Water House was built in 1613-14.  The original brick buildings had a steep-pitched pyramidal roof and its upper storey partly carried over a colonnade –attributed by tradition to Inigo Jones. As well as a gallery above the cistern with stopcocks for the sluices, there was a counting-house, and was home to the clerk. A later Clerk, John Greene who married Myddelton's granddaughter, enlarged the building in the 1690s, when the Oak Room was created.   Subsequently much enlarged, it became home to successive Surveyors to the Company, notably Robert Mylne (1733-1814), but was demolished y the Metropolitan Water Board to make way for the offices opened in 1920.   In 1820, the Company offices moved from Dorset Street here and Chadwell Mylne made the necessary alterations. In 1902 the Metropolitan Water Board took over the New River Company's premises and in 1913 decided to rebuild them entirely.  This ended in the obliteration of the Water House and the destruction of almost the entire Round Pond. Delayed by the First World War, the new offices designed by Austen Hall were opened in 1920, on a reorientated axis, largely covering the drained Inner Pond. The new building did, however, incorporate the Oak Room, rebuilt to face west at an angle of 90° to its former axis.  In 1987 the TWA moved to Reading, and the future of the building, and of the New River itself, came under review.

Wind pump.  Circular brick base c. 1708, now with conical roof for pumping water to the Upper Pond.   It was replaced by a horse. Water was pumped to Claremont Square by a six-sailed windmill designed by George Sorocold. As wind-power proved unreliable, and the mill was damaged by storms, two horse-gins were substituted in 1720. The brick windmill tower remained a landmark for many years and its lowest storey remains to day.

There were two c19 boiler houses.

Engine House. In 1767 an atmospheric steam engine was installed by John Smeaton, in a tall brick engine-house. This engine was at first not completely successful and was rebuilt, and replaced by one more efficient. Two Boulton and Watt beam engines were installed in 1808, for which the engine-house was enlarged - the extensions are still distinguishable – with a tall chimney, which remained until 1946. Water was thus supplied to Holborn, Islington, and Holloway.

Devil’s Conduit In the area of the former inner pond. Rather confusingly re-erected in 1927. It served originally as an extension to the White Conduit, which supplied the Greyfriars.  Handsome 14th-century stone cistern - popularly known as the Devil's Conduit - removed here in 1927 from Queen's Square, Bloomsbury.

c20 buildings of the Metropolitan Water Board facing Rosebery Avenue were converted to flats in 1997-8.

Headquarters Offices.  by H. Austen Hall, 1914-20; Neo- Georgian, with a formal entrance to Hardwick Street and angled wings and an added top storey. The Interior circulation area leads to the Oak room board of 1696-7, reinstalled from the previous offices on the site. It has sumptuous plasterwork and carved panelling, some of the best of its date in London. The ceiling is oval with a painted medallion of William III and allegorical figures, by Henry Cooke, within lushly modelled wreath and borders; charming small plaster panels of rural scenes. The fireplace is flanked in the grand manner with two big Corinthian half-columns; the high-relief watery and fishy subjects flanking the royal arms on the over mantel are carved with all the exquisite realism of the Gibbons tradition, and must surely be by him. Carvings over doors and windows as well. Now flats. Features in films 'The Innocent Sleep’.

Laboratory building by John Murray Easton of Easton & Robertson, 1938, built on a curve, with continuous first-floor windows. At the end a semicircular glazed projection for a staircase, especially handsome inside, with a blue ceiling with figure of Aquarius by F. P. Morion, and original light fittings. One of the most pleasing structures of its date in London.  Meter testing department extended in 1920s. New laboratories on site of first filter beds.  Electric pumps put in 1950. Pipes which brought water from Stoke Newington used to connect King George and William Girling reservoirs.  Seal of the Metropolitan water Board bearing the same motto as on the seal of the New River Company, which it absorbed, and two hands on either side represent a boy pour water and a girl holding a hose-pipe. On a publication by the M.W B in 1953 an old man appeared in place of the boy. The eight drops of water represent the eight water companies which formed the M.W.B. now flats.

Research Building added by Howard Robinson in 1938.

Reservoirs built in 1709. 17th and eighteenth century ponds. In the early eighteenth century the round pond had another pond inside it. 1976 vetements were moved for a car park.  Behind the main building is the old floor of the inner pond.

Surroundings – in 1898 New River Head was surrounded by the Company’s fields. Almost the only buildings within a quarter-mile radius apart from Sadler's Wells and Myddelton's Head, were an old farm-house (Laycock's, by Goose Yard), the cottages then newly encroaching on Islington Spa gardens, and terraces along the east side of St John Street.

Ring Main Shaft.  The new London water ring main passes under this site at about 45 metres underground. Construction site and access shaft. The ring main connects to these shafts at a depth of 40m

Newcastle Row

1, which has a lively blue striped-brick ground floor and projecting eaves in sympathy with nearby buildings.

Northampton Estate

Developed in the early c 19 on land around the Manor House belonging to the Earl of Northampton, which survived until 1869.  The names Compton Street and Spencer Street recall the family ownership.  Watch and clock making spread to this area from Clerkenwell, and during the c19 specialist small-scale industries proliferated.  By the c20 the minor streets had become notoriously slummy; hence the extensive rebuilding

Northampton Road

Was previously part of Rosoman Street. Thomas Rosoman was the builder of the second Sadler's Wells. It is called Northampton because the manor of Clerkenwell was a possession of the Compton family of Compton Wynyates, the head of which became Marquess of Northampton in the eighteenth century.

London, Metropolitan Archive, previously Greater London Record Office in the building since 1986. It was the large former printing works of the Temple Press, built 1939 by F.W.,Troupe and converted in 1984 to house the G.L.C. Archive and Library and remodelled by Bisset Adams.. 13 miles of books on London plus documents and of photographs.

Northampton Buildings stood, On the east side, bounded by Rosoman Street/Corporation Row/Goode Street, from 1892 to 1978 of the Artisans, Labourers and General Dwellings Co. After their demolition, the site remained open and derelict like a travesty of the old grottoes and tea gardens, which since 1984 are more appropriately recalled by an ornamental park and a playground.

35 In 1813 the Finsbury Dispensary was then the top house of the street opposite the London Spa. It contained remnants of a 'grotto garden’, which had been one of the minor showplaces about 1780.

Northampton Buildings of Artisans Labourers and General Dwellings, now Playground

Thomas Wethered

English Grotto Gardens in north east corner of Lower Rosoman Street

Mulberry Garden

35 Daily Chronicle start of News Chronicle

Northampton Tabernacle

35 Finsbury Distillery garden there

Small reservoir. At the corner of the street opposite the London Spa, to which it was at one time connected by water-wheels turned by waste water from the River Head.

Surprise

23

Northampton Square

Northampton Estate was built up on land around the Manor House, which belonged to the Earls of Northampton.  Their titles are reflected in adjoining street names. Square laid out in 1805. A former pipe- field belonging to the New River Co. was cleared of its mass of wooden pipes to form the site of the Square. The Spencer Compton family, Earls and later Marquesses of Northampton and owners of Canonbury Manor, also held land in Clerkenwell.  Northampton 'manor house' remained the family's town house until the late 17^th century, but at some time between 1677 and 1708 they removed to Bloomsbury Square in the general westwards exodus of the aristocracy from Clerkenwell - because of the lure of Whitehall and, to some extent, pressure on Clerkenwell property from City merchants and craftsmen after the Great Fire of 1666.  At that time the mansion's surroundings were known as Wood's Close estate a rural area extending beyond the intersection of Percival Street and Corporation Lane, which was then the limit of St John Street.  Northampton Square was laid out about 1805   its earliest leases dating from 1806-10.  Paving requests start in 1805.  The square's plan incorporated six radial streets, finished about 1815-18, all given Northampton family names.  In shape the square might almost be represented as a lozenge or diamond, with its four corners at the points of the compass, Like many other parts of Clerkenwell the square was before long occupied by master tradesmen and others in the clock and watch-making industry, and already by the 1830s and '40s back premises were becoming infilled by substantial workshops and even small houses for humbler residents.  This juxtaposition may have been Cockerell's policy, such as he had already adopted in the Foundling Hospital Estate, and certainly the Northampton estates did allow for occupation by a wide range of social classes.  Northampton Square continued 'respectable' until about 1900, but long before that the short leases had begun to fall in (late 1870s onwards), and buildings began to be split into tenements, while few repairs were carried out.  Shoddy workshops and hovels were run up in intervening and rear spaces, and the whole area had deteriorated into slum.  Compton was much perturbed by this evil, and even before he succeeded to the estate as 5th Marquess, he instituted improvements.  The most notable contribution to the area was the founding of a new adult education institute in 1896, appropriately named after his family.  The surviving houses are extremely pretty.  Unlike other squares, they have semi- J circular sunk panels on both ground and first floors; a continuous dentil moulding runs below the attic floor, and most doorways retain similar mouldings. 

Northampton House which before 1802 was a private asylum. It had been mansion of the Earls of Northampton on being vacated by its noble owners, at some date before 1728 became a private madhouse; a fate which befell a number of other great houses round London.  For some time it was run by Dr James Newton, a herbalist, who laid out the grounds as a botanic garden, where in 1730 a rare white lily, growing a 'cluster of roots' from the top end of its stalk, was recorded.  Of the inmates, the most notable was perhaps Richard Brothers, a religious fanatic.  A former naval lieutenant, he was first reduced to the workhouse after squandering his pay in disputing the qualifying oath, and then, believing himself a heavenly prophet.  In 1817 Northampton House became a young ladies' boarding academy, and in the 1850s, "Manor House School,” for boys.  It was finally demolished in 1869 to make way for a church.  The site was presented by the 3rd Marquess. 

Northampton Polytechnic/City University The Northampton Institute was originally a branch of the City Polytechnic In 1907 it attained independent existence as the Northampton Polytechnic Institute, and it expanded steadily, acquiring new annexes and facilities, especially in engineering, technical trades and chemistry.  In 1957 it became a College of Advanced Technology, and in 1966 was further upgraded as the City University.  The architect E L Mountford, who also designed Battersea Polytechnic, here in 1896 made imaginative use of an odd asymmetrical site - Baroque executed with Rococo flair.  At the NW corner a low wing tapers to a point with turret and cupola above, abutting on the large main building with its curly gable ends.  The assertive entrance tower, topped with a heavy-looking tempietto, is almost overshadowed by its supporting bracket buttresses, the striped drums and parapet below, and the chiming clock projecting over St John Street.  North of the entrance, the hall block is fronted with a row of pillar-like buttresses; the longer frontage southwards to Wyclif Street combines French Renaissance and Queen Anne features.  Not least of its remarkable decorations is the sculpture by P R Montford above the entrance, of figures symbolising science, agriculture, etc.  In 1966, after the college achieved university status, it was unfortunately considered necessary to sacrifice the whole north end of Northampton Square for new buildings 1966-70, by Sheppard Robson & Partners.  This large addition cut across the top corner in a straight line, obliterating two streets, and a small wing projected forward at the end.  The addition effectively turned the college buildings back to front, with the older buildings now partly used for administration, and main lecture-rooms, and students' corridors entered from Northampton Square.  City University.  The historic nucleus is Northampton Institute built in 19^th as part of estate improvements. Was an important technical institute built in 1896 by E. W. Mountford, but extended several times since It filled an awkward site with a public hall, offices and swimming pool.  Completed in 1898. Bombed and some replacements.  City University. So named from 1966.  It fills an awkward triangle between St. John Street and Northampton Square with public hall offices, workshops and swimming bath. E. W. Mountford won a competition in 1893; the building was completed in 1898. Red brick with lavish stone dressings. An exceedingly successful example of the neo-French c16 style of the moment with its fresh and playful enrichments. At the comer, for example, a picturesque composition in three dimensions: a pert little turret with its cupola, a big bold curved gable higher up, and a lantern tower as a final flourish. The main front is asymmetrical but with a central tower.   Doorway with lively figure-frieze by Paul Montford below. A Baroque curved-up broken pediment. Windows partly French c16 partly Queen Anne. Many alterations: internal courtyard built over at basement level by 1901; five-storey extensions into it, 1909. After war damage the great hall on the St John Street front was rebuilt within existing walls, the gym to its E replaced by a five-storey block (1952-8), and the swimming pool at the Northampton Square comer was reroofed. The main campus buildings by Sheppard Robson & Partners 1971-9, adjoin the Institute cutting brutally across the comer of the square and the site of Charles Street. Tough exposed concrete and dark brick, as used in their earlier university buildings but here there are no alleviating open courts or greenery, and the heavy masses do little to lift the spirit. Circulation at first-floor level. The buildings include library, students' union, refectories, lecture theatres and laboratories etc. The Centenary Building was converted from High Voltage Laboratory to lecture theatres in 1993-4.

St.Peter’s church. dismissed by Pevsner as "quite uncommonly ugly, had a high tower and was intended to be transeptal, though the transept was never completed.  Apart from its vast size, one of its chief features was the series of bas-relief panels on the exterior depicting historic martyrdoms.  There were statues of the chief martyrs in niches at the tops of the buttresses, and inside the church, tablet!  Along the walls listing 66 English martyrs from the Wycliffites onwards.  The church was heavily damaged in the Second World War, and eventually demolished in 1956, when the parish was reunited with St James's, Clerkenwell.  It was replaced by a sadly, unmemorable row of shops and flats, and Wyclif Court, a 14-storey Council block.

New River Company Behind the manor house had been a pipe-field covered with New River wooden water pipes, and their replacement by underground iron pipes enabled the release of such sites for building.

Market in the first half of the 18th century a market for the sale of sheepskins was held in the area between Northampton House and Percival Street, The Skinners' Company owned land immediately west of St John Street.  From 1792 part of the same site was used for the parish 'Greenyard', a pound for stray animals.  The Skin Market ceased about 1815, when the site began to be built over by Market Street and small lanes, all long ago disappeared.  The Council flats, Brunswick Close, adjoining Northampton Square, now cover the area.

The gardens.  Lord Compton, well before he succeeded as 5th Marquess (1897), not only made ground available for the new Northampton Institute, but also had already opened all the square gardens to the public.  1886 he conveyed  Northampton and Wilmington Square gardens to the Vestry as a gift, the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association having offered to run them for the benefit of the poor.  The Marquess's daughter, Lady Margaret Graham, had formally opened the gardens in July 1885, and at the same time a fountain for local use was erected by Charles Clement Walker, Esq., JP, of Shropshire, in memory of his mother who was long a resident in the parish.  The estate remained in the Northampton family's hands until 1949.  Was the garden of the London mansion of the Crompton family? Donation to mother of Walker, JP.  Built in 1830 on the site of a pipe field belonging to the New River Company.  Managed by Vestry of Clerkenwell

11-12 George Baxter (1804-67), who invented the "Baxter print,” a method of oil colour picture printing, and had business premises part of the destroyed range from 1843-60.

18-21 eccentric numbering, extending back into Sebastian Street, has two bays of blind windows - one with a Royal Insurance plate - a handsome back addition; its doorway, in the street.  He also an elaborate fanlight and fine Ionic/composite half-columns.

18-35 survive. This row, the longest, has a variety of good door pilasters, notably

22 double-fronted but with front door asymmetrically placed,

22-25 are unequal in size,

26, the largest with four slightly crowded bays, even has an overhead lamp bracket. The house is oddly cut off at an angle due to the angle of entrance of humble Tompion Street - of which a single small house survival attached to its grander neighbour

27 fames Clarke Hook, RA (1819-1907), portrait, historical and marine painter, admired by Ruskin, was born here and educated at the North London Grammar School, Islington. He studied at the British Museum and the Royal Academy, where he exhibited very successfully; a Radical and keen Methodist.

28, pilasters actually composite half-columns.

29, with pilasters, also has lion masks.

3-25 narrower than the rest, necessitating slim windows and panes.

35 British Horological Institute

36-29 houses are 3-storey with attic and basement, all with balconettes, and a row of characteristic workshop windows in the attics of testify to earlier. Use of some of the houses.

Bessemer lived in Northampton Square,

Brunswick Close on the site.  Development replacing slummy Northampton Estate properties in the 1950s. Three fourteen storey slabs. By Lubetkin’s assistant Franck.  1956

Brunswick Court

South corner house belongs to Sebastian Street, its fenestration, and other features slightly raised above its neighbours.  It is also the only house who circular-headed window has radial astragals, the rest, surprisingly in such a graceful setting, having the simplest type of uncompromising straight verticals.

Owen’s Row

The line of the New River. A short cul-de- sac terrace beside the Empress of Russia pub, and by a small shrubbery.

2-5 humble Georgian terraces

Optics Dept of City University in 1963 buildings, which were once part of Dame Alice Owen's Girls School.

Paget Street

Pardon Street

Was Clark Street. Site of Pardon churchyard and chapel, dates from Black Death

Passing Alley

Features in films 'The Criminal’

Pear Tree Court

A large area of Peabody housing, built in 1883 to house over four hundred people displaced by clearance of the overcrowded small courts hidden behind the houses.  A surviving c1 8 house is just visible at the back. A haunt of Oliver Twist and the Dodger.

Students halls of residence for City University

Large area of Peabody housing

Peartree Street

St.Paul's Church, bombed

Percival Street

Named after Spencer Percival

Brunswick Close Estate swept the old pattern away.  1956-8 Embenon, Franck & Tardrew.  Three bold fourteen-storey slabs, rising from leafy gardens, on a staggered plan to allow for maximum light levels.  Exposed reinforced concrete construction, with small projecting fire escape staircases ornamenting the top four storey flats.  The westernmost block has shops facing St John Street, and originally had an open way through it, a Corbusian concept which recurs in the firm's other Finsbury estates

Earnshaw House, Thomas Earnshaw, pioneer chronometer 1949

Grimthorpe House

Harold Laski House

Tompion House, Thomas Tompion watchmaking pioneer

Pickard Street

Kestrel House

Pine Street

Used to be Wood Street

Finsbury Health Centre, 1935-8 by Lubetkin and Tecton, their first public commission. One of the key buildings to demonstrate the relevance of the Modem Movement to progressive local authorities. This was the first achievement of the 'Finsbury Plan', the borough's effort, inspired by Alderman Harold Riley and Dr Katial, Chairman of the Public Health Committee, to create better living conditions for its overcrowded residents.  It has an H-shaped plan, which is two-storeyed with a pan-basement floor, and a central entrance set in a gently curving projecting wall of glass blocks, between splayed wings. It has the Borough arms over the entrance. The formality is tempered by a roof terrace to the centre, the name above in typical 1935-40 lettering. The walls are faced with cream tiles and there are glass panels and metal windows. A floating effect is achieved in the 'flashgap' - a recessed plinth between the walls and the ground, which is typical of Lubetkin. The light and airy entrance hall is given character by its curved glass wall, and originally had Gordon Cullen's health education murals on the rear walls, with a large map of London in the centre but some original furniture and light fittings remain. The lecture theatre has a curved back and a curved concrete roof. Consulting and treatment rooms are divided by partitions in the wings, where extra space and light fills the corridors. Repairs by Avanti Architects, in 1994 restored part of the exterior to its original appearance. This included asphalt reroofing, new tiles on the left-hand entrance wing, new thermolite glass panels, and the restoration of the original colour scheme of blue and terracotta to the painted concrete.

Finsbury Maternity and Child Welfare Centre

Rawstorne Street

Part of Frog Lane. The old road from London to Highbury.  The Land is part of the Brewer’s Estate let to them by Dame Alice Owen in 1613.  The Knights Hospitaller founded a hermitage in another field on Goswell Fields - the triangle between St John Street, Goswell Road and Rawsthorne Street. Here in 1610 were built almshouses for ten poor women of Islington and Clerkenwell, a chapel, and a school for poor children of the district, all by Dame Alice Owen, who had been enriched by the death of three City husband, in 1613 she conveyed the land in trust to the Brewers Company who administered the charity.

Railway tunnel between Farringdon and King's Cross blown up by bomb 10/40

Brewers Buildings. 1871. Some blocks refurbished 1968

48 St. Mark's National Schools

Amateur Theatre

Ray Street

Was Rag Street, supposed to be a mill site. Also  it was Hockley in the Hole because it was down by the river and because a lot of rough young people used to socialise there.

Ray street crossover. Tunnel below Metropolitan. Lines across widened lines. 1863 rebuilt 1960 widened lines 1860 to allow Metropolitan. Trains over old lines others go under. Eastern end mouth is 16ft lower than Metropolitan tracks and dip under the Metropolitan tracks and go onto the south side of the other lines. Metropolitan tracks went across the widened lines by a wrought iron bridge, which acted as a strut between the walls, which the cutting called Ray Street gridiron, renewed in 1892, and 1960.

Tubinsiation of the Metropolitan Railway after 1860 between November 1860 and May 62. 29 ft wide 59 ft deep. Fleet River in a pipe loft diameter. Tunnel is built on rubble in the river bed but after 1862 flooded to 10 ft. joined by the River of the Wells

Metropolitan Horse Trough

Paupers Burial Ground  was on the west side

Coach and Horses– on the site of the establishment where all the fights and drinking took place.

2

River Street

Chadwell Mylne himself laid out this suburb on the Company's land north of New River Head, with appropriate names. Features in films 'Doctor in the House’.

Rosebery Avenue

Named after Lord Rosebery, Chairman of the London County Council who officially opened it in 1896.  it has been originally planned by the Metropolitan Board of Works. The northern end comes from existing streets but the southern end was new. In the 18^th  there were small roads north of the New River Head.  In the Clerkenwell area new Victorian roads were built over available open space, incorporating existing lanes, which were widened.  The road’s  massive bridges and towering blocks obscure the steep drop to the Fleet Valley and there are 14 arches over the Fleet River. It crosses  Spa Fields, past Sadler's Wells to St John Street in the gap left by the New River between St John's Terrace and Myddelton Place. most of the buildings opposite New River Head were demolished including Eliza Place, the Sir Hugh Myddelton Tavern, and Deacon's Music Hall. At the southern end printing and publishing offices opened , trees were planted, and a new Town Hall and Fire Station were built, and there is even a tiny park - Spa Green which was created from four separate plots.  Among the demolitions was Cold Bath Fields Prison and Mount Pleasant Post Office was begun and surrounded with working-class flats.  There was regeneration in the 1990s to designs by Peter Mishcon. Features in films 'Mona Lisa’.

1-2 Ginnan

133-159 sleek and bold by John Gill Associates, 1987-9, is feebly postmodern, with brick triangular oriels with a tall glazed frontage and transparent curved stair-tower behind.

143 Kempson and Mauger enamellers

143-147 Edison

161 refurbished 1920s warehouse given a neat new steel fire escape to provide a focus at the back.  All by Troughton McAslan, 1989-91.

40 A brick house, which is a remnant of Cobham Row.  In 18^th the street went around the ‘cold bath’.  A three-storey brick house.  Cold bath commemorated in the name Coldbath Square.

44 Fire Station.  L.C.C 1911. F. T. Cooper of the LCC Fire Brigade Branch. Large, quite plain eighteen-window front, but with nice Arts and Crafts details and railings

58-66, striped brick, with two sets of hoist doors.

90 Rosebery Hall

Barnstaple Mansions

Bell

Bideford Mansions

Braunton Mansions

Cavendish Mansions.  Grim looking blocks.

Finsbury Town Hall.  An eclectically styled building, on a triangular island site,  built as the Clerkenwell Vestry Hall in 1894 to replace the old parish watch-house of 1814 and enlarged by the new Borough of Finsbury in 1899.  Site at a spot where six roads met, also opposite the London Spa but the first phase at the same time as the completion of Rosebery Avenue which it fronts.  Lord Rosebery was the local authority chair who also opened the building. It is built mainly of red brick with elaborate rubbed-brick and Ancaster-stone dressings. The architect was Charles Evans Vaughan who won the competition held in 1893. The interior was remodeled by E.C.P. Monson in 1928 but kept the original public hall on the first floor which is most notable for elaborate Art Nouveau detail and the winged female figures holding the electric light fittings... Outside is a lantern and a fanciful glass and iron street canopy. The blunt-ended rear is more Baroque; with a pediment with female figures; and carved frieze above the first floor. The Council chamber was converted in 1975 to a mental health day centre. There were further alterations in 1985.

Flats, tall mansion flats of 1892, with crow stepped gables and decorative Renaissance friezes.  Less frugal in appearance than Rosebery Square although they were intended as low-rental accommodation by their developer, James Hartnoll.

Garden with War Memorial, 192l by Thomas Rudge, a bronze angel of Victory on a tall granite pedestal which bears a plaque showing 'Finsbury rifles attacking ‘Gaza'; two other plaques have disappeared.

Greenwood House

New River Walking up Rosebery Avenue, the pavement in front of Sadler's Wells Theatre follows the former course of the New River. The water ran here in an open channel until 1891 when Rosebery Avenue was constructed and the channel was replaced with an iron pipe.

Rosebery Court.  1989. By Kinson Architects, part of the Baker's Row site prestige offices six storeys with some fancy Mackintosh-inspired Arts and Crafts detail.

Sadler's Wells Theatre.  Is it the sacred well for the Penton Hill? The fashion for combining medicinal waters with entertainment was launched by the discovery in 1683 of two chalybeate springs in Thomas Sadler's garden near the New River Head. Sadler's Wells, and its rival the Islington Spa on the other side of the River, opened at much the same time. Sadler already ran a music-house, and in 1765 this was rebuilt by Thomas Rosoman on more ambitious lines as a theatre: it survived, with frequent alterations, until 1928.  Public breakfasts and noon-tide dancing were the rage, and 'exceptionable or improper characters' were rigidly excluded. It was Mr.Sadler’s wooden music house. The New River, fringed by poplars, enhanced the area. New Tunbridge Wells or Islington Spa, opposite the Wells, enjoyed its dizziest fashion in the 1730s when royally discovered it and the Court flocked here daily. In 1765 a theatre replaced the Music House. A decline in fashion from the 1770s led to a dismantling of the Spa and despite its occasional revival, houses began to encroach. At the theatre Debden’s spectacles used water from the New River reservoir. The gardens, much curtailed reopened in 1826, but in 1840 the old coffee-room was finally demolished and the ground completely built over. Grimaldi, the famous clown, played between 1818-28. 18 were killed in a struggle over the fire alarms. Samuel Phelps produced thirty-four of Shakespeare's plays in 1844-63 as well as concerts acrobatics and performing animals, aquatic spectacles — using an understage tank filled from the New River reservoir - opera, melodrama and burlesque. After Phelps it declined to inferior music hall and then a shabby cinema.   It was rebuilt in 1931 by Frank Marcham as a home of popular opera in north London 1931 with Lilian Bayliss modelled on the Old Vic as 'a theatre for the people'.  It quickly regained its place in Londoners' hearts and the ballet company achieved an international reputation under Ninette de Valois. The theatre has since been the venue for visiting companies. The spa-well survived until this century entered from a house bearing its name since preserved in the theatre. The theatre was rebuilt as a major dance theatre through Lottery funding. 1997-8 by RHWL. Exterior by Nicholas Hare Associates. The wedge-shaped site is enclosed by tall, plain brick walls. At the end is a big glazed foyer with giant video screen. Auditorium seating 1,500; special attention to disabled access. A well survives beneath the present building. – Noel Coward was the last person to drink from it.

Spa Green.  A minute public garden made up of the remnants of the space left by the demolition of buildings for Rosebery Avenue. The north end marks the approximate site of Islington Spa.  One piece of this space came from the New River Co. and was surplus land of theirs - Pipe Fields, used to store pipes. Opened 1895, 3/4 acre.  War memorial 1921 with Victory on a pedestal.

Tall mansion flats 1832.  Less frugal in appearance than Rosebery Square

The Metropolitan Local Management Act creating the Metropolitan Board of Works in the 1850s also conferred wider powers on parish vestries.  Civic awareness brought into existence crusading newspapers such as the Clerkenwell News (1855) and Islington Gazette (1856). The former, precursor of the Daily Chronicle, started at 35 Rosoman Street in the one-time home of the Finsbury Dispensary.  With increasing circulation it moved in 1862 down the road to Myddelton House, a new building on the corner of Rosoman and Myddelton Streets and opposite the London Spa. When this was demolished in 1972 an older building was revealed behind. Nothing now remains. The paths intersecting the open fields belonging to the New River Company all became built up as streets: Tysoe Street, Amwell Street, Garnault Place.

Viaducts – hidden from view in Rosebery Avenue itself.  Pretty. Built 1890 by Westwood Baillie.  Flies over Warner Street cast iron on brick jack arches; pierced trefoil balustrades

Rosebery Square?

Model dwellings, Hartnoll buildings now St.Pancras HA.

Rosoman Place

Features in films 'Alfie’.

Rosoman Street.

Thomas Rosoman was the builder of the second Sadler's Wells. He also built a row of 'good houses' in 1756 along this rural path, previously known as Bridewell Walk. Overlooking fields, it became a favourite suburban retirement for prosperous City tradesmen. Spa-wells and gardens proliferated here, but in the late 18th century the vogue for spas declined, and the street was built over.  Not a single house survives of 18th-century Rosoman Street, which by the 1930s had deteriorated into slum tenements with shops below, and was demolished wholesale.

Myddleton House corner of Rosomon and Myddleton Street demolished 1972 Daily Chronicle

Rutland Place

Site of Rutland House Davenant

Sans Walk

The old network of passages.  Sans were a local family

Sheltered housingLevin Bernstein, 1995-6),

Hugh Myddelton School became ILEA Kingsway Princeton College.  named after the creator of the New River it was opened in 1893 under the 1870 Education Act, which introduced compulsory education and created School Boards financed from the rates. It opened as a Board School in 1874, in Bowling Green Lane. It was the such school opened by royalty, the Prince of Wales, with a key manufactured in Clerkenwell. it accommodated 2000 children, and offered free meals. It thus became a show school. now only the junior school operates, The school is on the site of the Clerkenwell prisons, and is bounded by the prisons'-outer walls, and below the ground are the cells of the House of Detention which were used as air-raid shelters during World War II. It is a massive three decker by  T.J. Bailey's built on an H-plan, with yellow terracotta decoration. The lower halls have vaulted aisles, with classrooms off them. the top hall has a mansard roof on iron trusses. There was a separate cookery and laundry building in an Annexe of 1902, built as a Special Girls' School.

School Keeper's House, three storeys, brick and stucco; formerly the prison governor's house. The boundary wall incorporates part of the prison wall.

Clerkenwell Bridewell: In 1615 a 'House of Correction' for the county was built on garden ground on the south part of the area of the school, to ease the over- flowing London Bridewell. It thus became known as the ‘Clerkenwell’ or ‘New Bridewell’ or the 'New Prison'. One inmate was Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine, who preached against the Act of Uniformity, in 1669. By the late 17th century crime had so increased so much that this prison inadequate. its conditions were increasingly bad and when the new House of Correction was built in Coldbath Fields it became redundant and was demolished in 1804.

Second New Prison was built as an overflow to Newgate, forming a House of Detention for those awaiting trial. The most notorious inmate was Jack Sheppard, who escaped from several London prisons including this. The prison was enlarged in 1774-5 and a gate built facing Sans Walk, roughly on the site of the present school gate. In 1818 it was almost rebuilt on more modern lines covering the whole site including houses, and the former Quakers' Workhouse. the high wall was then built at this time. It all cost £35,000. 

House of Detention. In 1845—6 the New Prison was demolished and rebuilt on the lines of Pentonville, by the County Surveyor William Moseley. It was a prison for both men and women. By William Moseley, whose basement survives beneath. It had prison cells radiating from a central hall with cast-iron columns. The former female corridor is accessible; roofs of shallow brick arches; warders' hall and clerk's office with granite columns.

Was Shorts Buildings

Scotswood Street

Was Newcastle Street. Features in films 'About a Boy’

Sheltered housing 1995

Sebastian Street

Was previously Upper Charles Street. Northampton Square's original six intersecting streets were mostly renamed in the rationalisation of London names in 1935.  Upper Charles Street became Sebastian Street after Lewis Sebastian, another Polytechnic Benefactor, one-time Master of the Skinners' Company on whose adjoining land it stood and Chairman of the college Governors until 1901.  This has at least survived, though many of its houses (1803-7) have been demolished.  Pre-1814 it was Taylor’s Lane.

Sekforde Street

Sekforde Elizabethan from Woodbridge. This street, the most distinctive in the area, was laid out across the Sekforde Estate on its rebuilding in the 1820s. The fairly modest houses are distinguished by the terrace’s elegant curve, varied doorways, and the copings with brick diglyphs, a rare feature in local building. The high curving brick wall (1828) formed part of the perimeter of Nicholson's Distillery. In Sekforde Street is the building where Charles Dickens had his bank account. His books are alive with references to Islington - Fagin taught Oliver Twist to pick pockets just off Farringdon Road

Myerson’s Ironworks with facade in the Greek style. Near the St john Street end of Sekforde Street: unfortunately demolished in the 1970s.

8 John Groom of the Crippleage

25 and 26 a panel infilling in 1985/6 as flatted houses, although for some reason not in the idiom of the street, is nonetheless a fair approximation to the domestic style of the New River estate.

Finsbury Savings Bank by a local architect.  Was on corner of Jerusalem Passage. Overwrought building – the splendid embossed lettering holds the Savings Bank building together  (1840) forms an attractive eye-catcher from St john Street; designed by Alfred Bartholomew (1801-45), who was mainly an architectural writer and journalist, son of a Clerkenwell watchmaker. The Savings Bank originated in 1816 at the NE corner of Jerusalem Passage.  A festive stucco front in the spirit of Barry's Pall Mall Italian Renaissance club.

Houses - Simple but nicely detailed three-storeyed terrace houses in between some rebuilt in facsimile by Pollard Thomas & Edwards after Islington had acquired the run-down estate in 1975.

Sekforde Arms

Wall of Nicholson’s Distillery 1820s terraced copy with brick Diglyphes

Seward Street

Before nineteenth century mound of earth called Mount Mill. Chapel and windmill, battery and breastwork in civil war. Levelled to make a Physick Garden on the north side. St.Luke’s burial ground.  Managed by the Vestry of St.Luke’s

South side St.Bartholomew's burial ground

Leopard 1833

22 Henry Cox, 1853.

Seymour Close?

Skinner Street

Built on Skinners' Company land, which was leased, to the New River Co. in order to store pipes. The Skinner Street Estate weas built 1968. Features in films 'Alfie’.

Skinners Well

Public library, Baroque Jacobean with an angle tower, brick building in Contrast to the early nineteenth century houses, demolished 1967, first library in the UK to have open access shelves details,

41 Godwin

35-45 Houses an isolated c18 group, straight-headed windows of rubbed brick, but much altered.

Charles Townsend House

Joseph Trotter Close

Michael Cliffe House

Patrick Coman House

Spa field Street

Was part of Yardley Street

Spa Fields

Public garden in open fields between Bowling Green Lane and New River Head. Grounds of Ducking Pond House and the Pantheon Tea Rooms.  The Fields were approached through an alley in 1895 at the back of cottages of Exmouth Street. 1816. Became the core of an area for rebuilding by Finsbury Borough, interrupted by the war. Fields, their hollows filled with springs and ponds. Here unsophisticated summer amusements took place, from rough-and-tumble fist-fights and cudgel-play to bull-baiting, fairs, and 'frightful grin' contests between old men. Not surprisingly the fields became a haunt of footpads, and link-boys were hired to light theatre-goers from Sadler's Wells back to the streets of Bloomsbury. Spa Fields were the scene of popular protest meetings during the depression and unemployment following Waterloo. In December 1816 a peaceful crowd awaiting 'Orator' Henry Hunt was purposely stirred up by a group of agitators to attempt an insurrection. Some marched to Clerkenwell and the City to raid gunsmiths' shops, intending to assault the Tower, but were dispersed after a scuffle with a hastily gathered force. 

Playground opened 1936, by Chairman of the L.C.C.  Fields managed by L.C.C.

Burying ground 1 3/4 acre and gravelled. Lay out by consent of the freeholders. 1780 brick walls. 8,000 bodies in 50 years. Marquis of Northampton drill ground for the Middlesex R.V.  1886 public garden ghoulish stories of the place. In the 1780s land was leased from the Northampton estate for a Nonconformist burial ground, and within half a century had been so indiscriminately filled with graves that it was estimated to contain 8000 bodies, nearly four times what it could decently hold. Ghoulish disclosures were made of the repulsive details, for like Bunhill Fields and most London churchyards it was still in use. Only after sensational publications, powerful local agitation and a petition to Parliament were burials stopped. In 1886 the two acres were convened to a public garden.

The Pantheon and Spa Fields Chapel. Duck-hunting was pursued in Spa Fields at one of the local 'ducking-ponds'. In 1770 Thomas Rosoman removed a small tavern named Ducking Pond House and let the land to the builder of the Pantheon, one of the last and least successful places of its kind in the area. The fashion for which it sought to cater was really past, and condemned for 'infamous company' it was closed in 1776. Soon after, it became a chapel for the pious Lady Huntingdon's Methodist 'Connection'. The extraordinary domed building, copied from the much grander Rotunda in Oxford Street (and a long way after the Pantheon in Rome) was said to hold 3000 persons, having two huge circular galleries

Sadler's House part of Spa Green Estate

Spa Green Estate

Site of Islington Spa.  Opened by Bevan on 26/7/1946, Finsbury Borough Council ambitious rebuilding scheme. Lubetkin and Tecton with Ove Arup. Most innovative public housing in England with many novelties –monolithic box structure, refuse system, aerofile roof profile, etc.  Incomparable modernists. This is the finest of the estates successor firm of Skinner and Lubetkin. The clearance area by the 1930s Plan, an ambitious scheme for borough-wide rebuilding, which was halted by the war.  The original plan proposed a spine of eight-storey blocks ranged along Rosebery Avenue, with lower housing complete with parks and amenities.  First plans were made in 1937 by Tecton, then also busy with the Finsbury Health Centre.  Their revised and reduced scheme of 1946 for the Estate was built in 1946-50.  Three blocks of flats, n two of eight storeys, one of four.  The lower one is on a curving plan, which does much to humanize the group and tie it in with its surroundings.  Executive architects were Lubetkin and Skinner, the structural engineer, was Ove Arup.  The flats were the most innovative public housing in England at the time, with many novelties, both structural  -an early example of monolithic box- frame construction of in-situ concrete, the first Garchey refuse disposal system in London - and social the ingenious aerofoil profile of the roof canopies on the tall blocks, designed to channel wind through the clothes-drying areas.  The elevations too depart from the monotony of standard pre-war flats.  The tall blocks, Wells House and Tunbridge House, are planned as a pair, with their bedrooms facing inward towards a landscaped area.  The outer sides are deliberately livelier: plain brick-clad vertical panels, containing the living-room windows are divided by a syncopated rhythm of inset balconies with grey ironwork against inner walls painted Indian red.  Fanciful curved canopies to the central porches and the curved ramps on the inner sides are typically wayward Lubetkin touches.  The four-storey Sadler House has a different version of rhythmic facade patterning, with alternating balconies contained within a tile-faced frame.  Refurbishment in 1978-80 by Peter Bell & Partners included extensive retiling and restoration of much of the original colour scheme.  Later decorative iron grilles; lathe lift extension to Sadler House was added in 1987

Greenwood House

Sadler House. Different version of rhythmic façade patterning

Wells House. Planned as a pair with Tunbridge House. Bedrooms facing in to a landscaped area

Tunbridge House.   Pair with Wells House

Tiverton Mansions

Spencer Street

Name relates to the Northampton Estate family ownership

St James Close

Three Kings. near Lenin's office. 18^{th .}   site of hostelry of nunnery.  Features in films 'Dance with a Stranger’ as the Magdala.

St John Street

Ancient thoroughfare leading from Smithfield to Islington and the north. Built to replace Roman routeThe long climbing length of St John Street was for long regarded as the first part of the Great North Road, a circumstance which dates from the days when the drovers came this way, bringing their cattle to Smithfield to feed the population of the great city. Road to St.John's priory. Used to transport market garden produce. The New River crossed it. The ground level begins to descend to the 50-foot terrace level of the City. Because of its heavy traffic, in the 19th century it contained 15 taverns on the east side and 8 on the west. Until about the 1820s the built-up area ceased at Percival Street, and beyond this was known as St.John Street Road.

1 Hicks Hall.  Sir Baptist Hicks was a wealthy and influential silk-mercer of Cheapside.  He was knighted early in the seventeenth century, subsequently made a baronet and finally a peer, Viscount Campden.  He was appointed Lord Mayor.  In 1609 he bought the manor of Campden in Gloucestershire.  He died in 1629.  Before the reign of James I Middlesex magistrates habitually administered justice in a tavern-room near Smithfield.  The growing inconvenience of this led to their obtaining from the King land north of the market with licence for a permanent building, leaving space for a carriageway on either side.  Here Hicks at his own expense built a Sessions House of brick with stone dressings, and this was opened in January 1612, named Hicks Hall in his honour.  It contained a room where bodies of criminals were publicly dissected.  Famous trials here included that of the 29 regicides (1660) who had affirmed the death sentence on King Charles I.  The Hall, dating from about 1610, was partly intended for the use of the justices at Sessions and partly as a Bridewell, or house of correction.  It fell into ruin and By 1777 was much decayed and, rather than rebuild so near Smithfield a new one was erected at Clerkenwell Green and the old hall demolished in 1782 and replaced in 1780 by a new Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green.  No trace of Hicks's Hall now remains although F E Baines states that ‘a wall tablet still indicates in some detail the site'.  It stood just north of Smithfield Meat Market at the point where St John's Lane branches from St John Street.  Its persistence a seemingly undistinguished point in the City, as the place from which measurements of the northern roads were made is at first surprising.  The demolition of the Hall in 1780 made little difference to its importance as a reference point. This was the more infuriating to explorers who more often than not, failed to find the site of the former landmark; in 1840 for example, a Barnet schoolmaster Jedediah Jones, who was researching on milestones in the London area, gave up in despair his attempt to pin-point the site of the Hall.  Its site was never built over, and remains open as the widest part of St John Street.  The traditional road to the north, whose starting point has long been placed at Smithfield in the City of London, and which leaves the Capital via Islington, climbing the North London heights at Highgate to Finchley.  But the classic used by all the road books of the coaching age, was Hicks's Hall.  Hicks's Hall. The most important of the ten or so points in London from which were measured the Great Roads of Britain.

1, plain apart from some polychrome brick and a panel with the address.

3 Built as a butcher’s shop and offices by W.Harris 1897.  More flamboyant Tall Free Gothic gable facing Smithfield, and a skyline embellished by quirky chimneys and flourishes.                             

11 Stephen Bull Restaurant, 1992 Morrison.  Whose sentiments are at odds with the theatrical place making often embedded in interior designers. As Bob Allies commented. 'We've avoided doing things if driven by fashion.' All of which makes the restaurant the more remarkable. It strives substantiality and to employ language of space, light and simplicity plus some strong colouring demanded. Bull's demonstrates a consistent layered and interpenetrating components and volumes affecting architectural detail. You see it in the contrived volumes of entry passage, and suspended mezzanine; in the strong patches of wall colouring; in the metalwork details of the security gate (becoming an A+M trademark) and the slim flatness of the hand railing. Minimalism is offered as considered refinement rather than a reductive influence.

11-13, a site long empty, rebuilt 1987 as offices by Campbell, Zogolovitch, Wilkinson & Gough.

13-19 Meat store

18-20, a late c19 warehouse with hoist between two big Gothic arches, and an oculus in the gable above.  Patrick Donovan Late 19^th

22 is a tiny two-bay c18 house; redbrick with flush windows; note the 2nd-floor window's unusual fluted architrave.

24Italianate warehouse ingeniously opened up, with c19 Italianate front of three bays, was ingeniously converted in 1986 by D. Y. Davies Associates: the ground floor was partly opened up, exposing the iron structural columns; a passage leads through to glazed showrooms in a bridge over the yard behind

24a back land warehouse.

26 Farriers with ceramic horses.  Stephen Bull restaurant c19

30a dairy built by George Waymouth. Dairy scenes on ceramic lozenges

34/36 Farmiloe. Striking Victorian frontage. Lead and glass manufacturers. An Italian Renaissance 'palace' 1868 by Isaacs, an especially striking Victorian frontage; eclectic Italianate with busy stucco dressings.  Four storeys, with ornate cornice and decoration over the round- headed first-floor windows.  The plainer c19 buildings which follow make an effective foil. The crescent shaped block has a fine Victorian facade with offices and showrooms at the front and a warehouse behind. Amongst other things the firm traded in lead glazing and the manufacture of leaded cathedral lights. Inside, the warehouse has closely spaced cast iron columns so as to bear the weight of lead once stored there. It stands as a reminder of a once important London industry.

38-40 Vic Naylor. Features in films 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’,’The Mean Machine’.

40 -42, brick, four storeys; brick

44-46 1877 stucco with row of six arched first-floor windows.

57 White Bear 1899, one of the now few pubs, with a fine brick frontage and stone dressings, in a florid 17th-century Dutch style.  A highlight.  Terracotta panels and curved gable

69-73 good group with a nice shop front.  Late c1 with a good early c19 Ionic pilastered shop front

71 Stephen Bull's Bistro

72, an early c 19 survivor with first- floor windows under arches, suggest show much of the street must have looked in the early 19th century

78 fine Gothic warehouse 1886.  Probably John Lawson brass founders.  Five storeys, with three storeys of loading bays contained within a Gothic arch with traceried top lights.  Now offices,

80-88 suggests how much of the street must have looked in the early 19th century.

80 good first-floor ceiling, with a new entrance reached down a passage.

82-84, earlier c1 altered, 

86-88 Café Lazeez. passage through to Hat and Mitre Court early 19^{th  .} Features in films ‘The Criminal’.

89 Gedge & Co., 1885

90 is dated 1926; tall and narrow, with windows grouped in a frame.

94-100 Stepney Carrier Company Garage

99 elaborate free classical with curved gable, one of a group of narrow frontages in the stretch leading up to Clerkenwell Road.  This was laid out in 1870s; contemporary with it are the SE and NE comer blocks, with moderate Italianate trimmings.

103 Bros. Castings ltd. castings and precious metals.

115-121 Mallory Buildings.  Replaced slum properties 1906.  Effete courts around the edge of St John's Square, 1906.

122 Lee clock maker early c19 with nice shop front.  Domestic survivals

137-157 stretches from Percival Street to Sebastian Street a bold 3 storey composition in red brick, which looks c 1910

145-157 tall ungainly 1970s offices.  Better balanced.  

148-154 four-window office range.  In red brick and terracotta

156 –162 Allied House.  HQ of Allied Brewers, the largest in Europe. In 1970s including wines sprits etc. 1961 merger of Tetley Walker, Ind Coope and Ansells also Harveys, Showerings of Babycham, Britvic, Coats, Gaymers Whitways etc. and two Dutch companies - d'Organjeboom and Rude. 8 breweries in all in 1970s.  Brewery offices.  With rusticated brick ground floor with an archway; splendid Rococo-inspired metalwork on the timber gates. Terracotta panels between the two upper floors.  Behind, a wedge- shaped counting house and office, 1876, restrained classical, but with whimsical Moorish doorcase.  Vast fermenting House and offices, Tuscan-pilastered.

158-173 faience faced simple classical 1920s offices for Pollards.  Showroom and factory by Malcolm Mans.

181-185 some of the sequence of Nicholson’s Distillery.  18^th closed c. 1970, mostly of c. 1873-four storeys, grey brick with windows, cornice and segmental pediment one centre bay on a corner.

187-191 low archway through to Hayward’s Place

201 Nicholson’s Distillery Buildings 1828, austere and grand

236 industrial building used by City University.  1860s

238 Building which used to be the George and Dragon.  Tiles, George 'Finch Marylebone' in the outside stonework. 1889 rebuilt 1901 

376 Barnes enamellers

370, was formerly the Clown Tavern,

Barclay’s Bank built as London Joint Back 1871.  First more sober dated 1871, by Lewis Isaacs, a proud stone- faced palazzo, four storeys, elaborately detailed, with bowed comer oriel.

Bull Yard site of Richard Burbage theatre and pit.  Corner of site of Nicholson’s was theatre. Allen and Pepys, Used by the Queen's Men. Very vulgar audience. Survived the Civil war and Cromwell. First to reopen in the restoration with 'Alls lost with lust'

Cannon Brewery on this site from mid c18; much rebuilt in 1893 by Bradford & Sons, damaged in the Second World War and closed in the 1960s.

Charles Townsend House.  Called after member of Finsbury MB and Labour Party 

Clumsy pastiche of George terrace 1980 replaces Myerson’s Ironworks

Connaught Buildings, for City University with lecture theatres, offices etc., in a converted industrial building.

Cross Keys with stone in the wall about Hicks Hall

Crown and Woolpack collection of jugs and cups became Japanese Canteen. A policeman hid in a cupboard to spy on one of the meetings of Lenin and Trotsky Unfortunately he didn't understand Russian

Eagle Court cleared for building in the 1980s boom,

Emberton Court

Empress of Russia. named after Catherine the Great. 

Finsbury Estate 20^th.  The last of Finsbury's major rebuilding schemes, completed only in 1968, after the borough had become part of Islington.  By C. L. Franck of Franck & Decks, successor to Emberton, Franck & Tardrew.  Four housing blocks, freely grouped to the realigned sweep of Skinner Street; two blocks of four storeys, one of nine and one of twenty-five.  The taller blocks have reinforced Concrete frames, and are in shades of grey, with blue spandrel panels to the tallest.  The different buildings interlock to a greater extent than in the firm's earlier work, a characteristic of the three- dimensional planning current in the 1960s.  A covered car park is included, and also a Library crisply black and white, with a -two-storey glazed front respecting the line of St John Street.  There is a vista through the ground floor of the tower block beside it, but the bulk of the car park compromises the view.

Flats Tall LCC flats over shops, five storeys and attics in austere grey and yellow 

Gilbert & Rivington printers

Goose Yard

Gun Alley

Hicks Hall demolished in 1780 but little difference to its use as a datum point, often not clear where it was.  Baptist Hicks was a silk mercer, 17th century, a knight, from Campden, A great man and lord mayor. Replaced by new sessions house. Plaque on a wall about it. Where St John's Lane branches to St John Street. Great North Road where distances of the mail coaches were measured from. First bit of Great North Road. Used particularly by the cattle drovers.  Where distances of the mail coaches were measured from.  Family house, 1868, Powler

Institute eclectic baroque, 1894-6.  Exceedingly successful example of the neo-French 16th century of the moment with an appreciation of a playful enrichments

Library - Finsbury Reference Library.  Local history section. 1965 part of the surrounding estate. Intended as central library for Finsbury.   By C. L. Franck, 1965-8. The two-storey curving front respects the line of the street, emerging from beneath a tower block. Precast units in black and white, with large glaze entrance to a broad foyer; a public hall, children’s library and the main library behind, the latter given character by generous window and suspended barrel ceiling. Replacing the library in Skinner Street of 1890 by Karslake Mortimer.

Mulberry Court

Northampton Institute.

Peel Meeting House

Scholl's head office

St John of Jerusalem. On site of old Cannon Brewery. Part of Ind Coope Head Office. Name from the order of St John. Brewery building is a landmark.

St.John's Mews

Tunbridge House part of Spa Green Estate

St.Helena Street

Part of the Wilmington Square area - Cromwell criticised the builders of this "handsome assemblage of edifices" for allowing it to be "nearly environed with streets of a most mean and narrow character", especially an alley between 35 and 41 feet to the north, "between the rear-yards of one line of houses and the little front gardens of another ... a waste of the intermediate ground which so alarmed its proprietor, that he has since (1826) erected another row of houses ... between the former ones"  - probably St Helena Street.  In time parts of Clerkenwell, with alleys and mean infillings, became one of the worst Victorian slums, especially St Helena Street, whose houses were actually back-to-back, was among the most notorious.

St.James Walk

Was previously called Hart Alley and when it was partly built up post Restoration it was known for obvious reasons as New Prison Walk. It was renamed in 1774 and called New Walk.  Most of the houses are from that date and part of the Sekforde estate housing developed in 1827.  The leases granted then led to extensive rebuilding. Features in films 'About a Boy’.,

Clerkenwell Parochial Sunday School 1828 built on the site of an earlier one of 1809, and a charitable infant school opened in the same house (1831).  The architect was William Lovell, a Pentonville surveyor, and in 1858 the house was raised by one storey by William Pettit Griffith.  Griffith's father John Griffith lived in St John's Square.

St.John’s Lane

This was the main approach from the City to the Priory of St John of Jerusalem, across the open plain of Smithfield ('smooth field').

36 High on the wall near the south end of the street, is a cross, believed to indicate that the site was once property of the Order of St John. There is also a parish boundary plate dated 1797.

28 near the Gate, next to Passing Alley a stone inscription reads: 'this building was partly destroyed by German aircraft on the 18th December 1917. Restoration completed 1919'.

The Baptist's Head: A tavern owing its name to the mediaeval priory formerly stood on the east side of the lane, opposite the north side of Albion Place. Here chained prisoners in convoy from the Sessions House to Newgate Gaol were allowed to halt and drink a stoup of ale. When the inn was demolished in the 1890s a fine late Elizabethan fireplace was removed to St John's Gate

St John's Gate – On of the most distinguished buildings, and almost the only one to survive until our times, was Prior Thomas Docwra's handsome gatehouse of 1504, opening towards the City, still very much in the Gothic style and resembling a college gateway.  It was the main gate to the Priory of St.John.  Built by Prior Thomas Docwra in 1504. For the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, better known as the Knights Hospitallers, an order of chivalry founded late in 11th century at Jerusalem. Its headquarters were later moved to the island of Rhodes and then to Malta (1530-1798).  The priory, built about 1148, soon after the establishment of the order, was burned down by Wat Tyier's rebels (1381). Site went to Henry VIII at Reformation, used as a storehouse and blown up by Duke of Somerset. Stone used for his palace in the Strand, Mary I restored the church. Under Elizabeth used for play rehearsals. Buildings given to the Duke of Northumberland, some kept by the Crown as a store. Became a chapel for William Cecil, various other owners. Hogarth's father's coffee shop in the gateway. Johnson lived there. Became a watch house and the Old Jerusalem Tavern, council office of the masons. 1845 dangerous structure restored, 1877 1931 back to the Order of St. John, by then Protestant - Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. St John's Ambulance launched 1958. The room over the gate was once occupied by Edward Cave, the founder 1731 of the Gentleman's Magazine, to which Johnson and Garrick subscribed. It continues to be known as the Council Chamber, and contains 15th-century altar-paintings looted from the priory church at the Dissolution and rediscovered in 1915, and interesting relics of the Knights Hospitallers. The annexe on the south-east of the gateway was added in 1903 by J. Oldrid Scott. On the north side of the gatehouse are the arms of the order and Prior Docwra restored. . The main entrance to the former Priory was built in 1504 by Sir Thomas Docwra, last Prior but one before the Dissolution. Under Queen Elizabeth I the Priory buildings were used as the office of the Master of the Revels, and later the Gate was for many years the home of the Gentleman's Magazine, whose editor Edward Cave was visited here by Dr Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick and many others. It subsequently became a watch-house, a tavern and the offices of a Masonic order. In the 1840s the stonework had become so eroded that demolition was threatened, but it was saved and restored by a local architect, William Pettit Griffith. In 1874 the Gate was re-acquired by the modern Order of St John to become their headquarters. The Perpendicular-style addition on the south side, designed in 1903 by John Oldrid Scott, contains the Order's Chapter Hall, offices. Gatehouse to the inner precinct, built 1504 by Prior Thomas Docwra, had a chequered career after the Dissolution; in the c18 it was offices and printing works for the Gentleman's Magazine, in the c19 the Old Jerusalem Tavern. 1874 it became Headquarters and Museum of the revived Mo Venerable Order of St John. Restored in 1846 by W.P. Griffith, 1873-4 by R. Norman Shaw, and then from 1885-6 by.  Scot who was involved in a ten-year programme of restoration, adaptation and building, including new offices to the SE (1901-3), and new Chapter House (1901-4). The gatehouse has an archway with room above, flanked by four-storey blocks. These have main room on each floor with garderobe projection and square stair-turret. The dressings are of Kentish rag, much restored, with inner walls of brick; those within the archway have some brick diapering. Archway with star-shaped tierceron vault main window above of three lights, battlements of 1846 with additions of 1892-3. Stair-turrets with small Perpendicular doorways, reset to allow for the raised ground level. Scott additions 1901-3 are in matching Perpendicular, with a broad doorway planned for ambulances. The interiors are largely in Scott's Neo-Tudor, with plenty of panelling. His Chapter Hall has big Perpendicular fireplace windows with heraldic glass, and a grand timber ceiling with central lantern rising above supported by well-carved stone angel corbels. On the same level is the Council Chamber in the room above the archway. This has a fireplace of c. 1700, panelling 1900, and more heraldic glass 1911 by Powells. Roof with lantern of 1885-6 inserted above early ci6 trusses with coarse openwork panelling. In the wing a late c17 closed-string staircase with bulbous balusters; pretty plaster motifs on the soffit, added in the l860s. On the second floor a fine late c16 stone fireplace, from nearby Baptist's Head, formerly the town house of Sir Thomas Forster. Tapering pilasters, lintel carved with fruit, deer and other animals. The wing stair-turret has its original timber newel stair. It leads to Shaw's library, with big Tudor fireplace dated 1874.

Dundee Buildings

Eagle Court Board School 1874

St.John’s Lane

Board School 1874, extended 1894. Plain, two L shaped blocks, tall chimneys and gables.

St.John’s Square

St John's Square was in origin no more a true 'square' than was Charterhouse and both grew up on the site of monastic foundations.  The Priory founded in the 12th century, as English headquarters of the Knights of St John or Knights Hospitaller, eventually comprised a massive church, a great hall and Prior's lodging, and several smaller buildings.  Its main entrance was on the south, a towered gatehouse opening on the area north of Smithfield.  In spite of the empty courtyard implied by Hollar's etching of 1661, the Priory enclosure now outlined by St John's Square must from early days have contained tee-standing and lean-to buildings, as well as gardens and plots.  The Great Hall, more than 100 feet long, with a grand staircase, stood at the enclosure's North -East angle immediately south of it the church, in its entirety, must have extended well across the court n, and a good way down.  At the Priory lived two Priors, one of the English Langue of the Order, the other of Clerkenwell who ran the church; also the Preceptor or administrator.  There were a number of knights; some resident, others visiting the city on Order business, or Bounding the Court besides three Chaplains and 15 other clergy.  Royalty and nobility took up the right to hospitality.  Other residents were the Keeper of the Keys, and certain guests, who were entertained at the Prior's table.  Humbler but vital members of the permanent community included the cook and servants, dispensary workers, a janitor, a laundress -one of the few women - attorney and his clerks, and the Procurator-general's staff.  Outdoors were a brewer, millers, a pig-keeper, and slaughterer.  It was a populous and busy establishment.  Important Royal or state visits were made to the Priory, when its courtyard was hidden by monarchs and high prelates.  One such occasion was in 1185, in the reign of Henry II, when the Order's Grand Master Roger des Moulins, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, were there during this visit the Patriarch himself consecrated the Priory's new church with its circular nave.  Not many years later, in 1212, King John was the Prior's Lenten guest, and on Easter Sunday he knighted Prince Alexander of Scotland, son of King William the Lion - who later became King Alexander II.  Of the buildings round the courtyard, most had been destroyed in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, when the then Lord Prior, Sir Robert Hale, was the particular object of revenge by Jack Straw and his followers.  He was beheaded by the mob at the Tower of London, and the great Priory Church and other buildings burnt.  During the next century and a half, however, the Priory was substantially restored and beautified, and he original circular church replaced by a new one with a rectangular nave.  Indeed »y 1540 the Priory was at a pinnacle of wealth, splendour and power, and besides the handsome church the courtyard contained the Grand Prior's and Sub-Prior's edgings, dormers for priests and yeomen, and an armoury, distillery, counting-house, slaughter-house, laundry and other offices, and a schoolhouse.  Dotted about were a wood yard, orchard, and gardens with a fishpond, and a burial ground.  Some locations can only be matter for conjecture.  Once the predators moved in much of the priory was dismantled.  By the 1550s King Henry's successor Protector Somerset had ordered the church nave to be removed and the stones used for his own new palace in the Strand, Somerset House.  Chancel and crypt, however, survived, serving in turn as chapel, library and wine-cellar, until in 1723 they were restored by a merchant named Simon Michell for use as a parish church for the new parish of St John, Clerkenwell.  The new church was the occasion of great opposition from the old, St James's, so that St John's never became completely independent and did not control its own rates.  Michell, a JP, was in fact very unpopular, and on his death his coffin was stoned.  Monastic properties after their dissolution were usually shared between rapacious couriers, who often built themselves fine mansions on the site, and this was the immediate fate of the rest of St John's Priory.  Queen Elizabeth I's Master of the Revels was soon housed in the main buildings, as was, under Queens Mary and Elizabeth, Sir William Cordell, Master of the Rolls.  In the reign of Charles I came-Lord Burleigh, and several knights and widowed ladies, such as Sir Francis Lovel Sir Thomas Pelham, and Lady Sekforde.  Later was Sir William Fenwicke, a Parliamentarian and member of the Long Parliament.  Noble inhabitants in Charles II's reign included Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle, one time Ambassador to Muscovy and Scandinavia; Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, whose distinguished political career ended with his implication in the Rye House Plot and Horatio, 1st Baron Townshend.  The fashionable world, however, was moving westwards to the restored Court at Whitehall, and the square's population, although still well-to-do, became more broad based.  Well into the 18th century it continued an expensive area to live.  Only after the turn of the century, with the sharp rise in population, was its status among the well off threatened by the creation of more modern residential areas such as the New River Estate.

20A large house on the inner, SE corner of the passage, shown in Storer's 1828 engraving of St John's Church, was occupied in 1816 by the Finsbury Savings Bank (then no.), until its removal in 1840 to the building in Sekforde street which still bears its name.

21-24 the distinctive character of the Square and surroundings had now long been industrial, ranging from watch- and clockmakers and ancillary craftsmen to printers, engravers and paper firms.  Later came platers, gilders, and other non-ferrous metal workers, and Smiths themselves were to transfer to the latter capacity, moving from the clock making corner to the opposite range: (nos.21-24, now 49-52).

27 with a front of 1876 by R. Norman Shaw for Sir Edward Lechmere.  Red brick, five storeys, with two levels of dormers.  Linked to the priory by an addition of 1903.                               

33-38 Clerkenwell Green Association Workshops

36-44 Bishop Burnet's House 36 and later 44, was the house of the famous Bishop Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715): a rambling two-storeyed, three-gabled mansion "lighted in front by 14 square-headed windows", its forecourt planted with trees and shrubs, and with large gardens behind.  Steps led up to a large entrance portal with a carved entablature borne on Tuscan columns.  Inside, the rooms had handsome chimneypieces carved in relief, one containing a grate with a bas-relief dated 1644, of Charles I riding over "the Spirit of Faction" - a prostrate female - surrounded by pillars, bay wreaths, scrolls and a crown.  Two lead cisterns belonging to the house, dated 1682 and 1721, survived at least until the 1860s.  Burnet, a prolific author, notably of the History of the Reformation in England (1679-1714), and a History of his Own Time (1724-1734), was in 1689 appointed by William III to the Bishopric of Salisbury, but after active participation in politico- religious factions he retired to a quiet life in Clerkenwell, though his continued friendship with great men such as the Dukes of Marlborough and Newcastle the latter a Clerkenwell neighbour, drew many listeners to his Sunday evening lectures here.  The most notable event of Burner's occupancy was during the Sacheverell riots of 1710, when the Bishop witnessed the mob pretending support for Tories and High Church in their destruction of the contents of the former Priory church, because e t was then used as a Dissenting chapel.  Burnet died at his house, almost pen in hand, on 17 March 1715, and at his burial at the church of St James's, the ill-disposed mob threw din and stones at his hearse.  Late in the 18th century Burnet's house was occupied by Dr Joseph Towers (1737-99), a humble Southwark bookseller's son who became a printer, bookseller, dissenting minister, and honorary Edinburgh LLD (1789).  He was a prolific writer of tracts, compiled a British Biography, and contributed to Biographica Britannica.  Towers, who preached at Newington Green Chapel, was arrested in 1789 as a free-thinker, but his; powerful connections secured his release without trial, and he died in St John's Square possessed of many honourable friends.  Burnet.  The square's 18th-century prosperity was undermined when City merchants built new houses farther north, in rural surroundings within sight of the villages of Hampstead and Highgate, and the old mansions became multi-occupied tenements.  Many Tudor or Jacobean houses survived, in decay, until early or even mid-Victorian times.  Already in 1817 the Gentleman's Magazine had illustrated Burner's former house as divided into two such tenements, with the addition of first-floor bay windows; and a double row of small lodgings had been built in the one-time back garden approached through an arched passage known as Ledbury Place beside the former mansion's front door.  The south half of the house was occupied by the parish clerk and undertaker, the north by a "Hearth Rug manufactory.”  By 1859, when Pinks was writing, the large, high rooms had themselves been partitioned to form 23 mean dwellings for families and small manufacturers - shoemakers, box-makers, frame- makers, stay-makers - and the original staircases had been replaced.  The back gardens filled with the poor cottages, and even the forecourt by small shops. 

36A has a defaced date plaque of 1850 giving the builder's name, James Brown

45 adjoining Burnet's was a similar mansion belonging to John and Theodore Clarke, printers, sons of the Rev Adam Clarke, who was Professor of Greek at Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College.  He was born in Londonderry of English parents, and worked closely with John Wesley, by whom he was ordained in 1782.  While visiting London he used to lodge with his sons here if Clerkenwell.  He died at Bayswater in the first cholera outbreak, but was buried of the grounds of the City Road Methodist Chapel, near to John Wesley       

47, early c18 refaced in the c19, stand on late c16 brick vaulted cellars with a four-centred arch, probably remains of post-Dissolution buildings constructed within earlier outer walls which may have belonged to the priory bell tower demolished in 1550.

47-52, a row of late 18th-century houses on the north side, gutted in 1987 for reconstruction as offices for Smith & Co. behind the facade, except in the cellars, where excavation revealed remains of limestone walls of St John's Priory.

48-52 Most houses built in the square in the 16th-18th centuries incorporated rubble from the Priory foundations, if not actual walls.  In 1845 the architect W P Griffith, an inhabitant of the Square who was commissioned to restore the then crumbling St John's Gate, recorded 7-foot walls with splayed window openings under the North range - possibly the base of the 300-foot-high church tower, as described by the historian Stow.  Cellars and basements of houses in this range coincided with foundations of the tower, of ashlar and chalk rubble core.  Excavations below the same buildings in 1986 (the present nos.) revealed well-preserved courses of limestone walls and fairly regular chalk blocks, and a doorway probably dating from approximately the beginning of the 13th century.  At the rear were well-preserved quoins within an original door, and windows, which may have included one that Griffith had found.  In 1862 Griffith noted that the arch of the new East-West main London sewer, which passed under the south of the square, had been partly built with stone from the Priory.  A typically utilitarian Victorian ^Approach to the then considerable surviving mediaeval relics.

49-50 Gregory was presumably the builder in 1781 (formerly nos.21-24) the NW corner - today the square's oldest surviving secular buildings.  Only facades remain

49-52 from the Gate and the main body of the church, the oldest relic was until 1986 the row of houses 49-52 occupied by Smiths, 49-50 late 18th century and 51-52, early 19th.  In 1986-8 these were gutted, leaving only the facade behind which the interiors have been reconstructed for offices, although in fact nothing original remained above ground level.  Excavations by the Greater London Archaeology Unit, as pan of a general historical research into the Priory's history, revealed a fair amount of the mediaeval structure among the foundations.  Smiths' original factory premises in the NE corner, on the site of Aylesbury House, were also gutted in 1989, when extensive archaeological excavations were made

51-52 was the home of the Finsbury Dispensary, founded in 1780 to relieve sickness among "the labouring and necessitous poor.”  In 1805 they removed to St John Street, and thence elsewhere before settling in Hayward's Place.  The St John's Square lease had run out, and rather than restore dilapidations, the owners rebuilt (1806).  This was the building used by Doves the printers as their offices.  Other printers also established themselves in this row, and later John Smith and Sons removed to the whole range.  The distinction in date is visible in the facades, which are all that remain only facades remain 1806-7.  Behind, all was rebuilt c. 1990.

52 was from 1757 for many years the printing works of Gilbert and Rivington, printers to the even older firm of Rivingtons the publishers.  Of this prolific family, with a dozen and more children in each generation from the early 18th century onwards, several sons entered either the publishing firm in St Paul's Churchyard or, later, the St John's Square printing office.  Alexander Rivington, founder son of Francis, the second-generation publisher, was famed as "Printer and Scholar,” and superintended the production of many learned publications.  He retired in 1868.  ' In the 1870s, after acquiring an extensive plant of Oriental type, Rivingtons became England's chief Oriental printers.  The firm removed in 1901 to their Little Sutton Street works, and subsequently became Clowes and Sons Ltd.

84, a later c 19 'flat iron' block, is topped off with attic workshop windows.

Chapel.  Beyond the Clarkes' house Wesleyan chapel was to be built in 1848, by a congregation, which had formerly met in nearby Wilderness Row.  It had a seating capacity of 1,300, and cost £3,800, and was designed by James Wilson of Bath in Decorated Gothic style, with a four-light window on its main east front towards the square.

Coach and Horses survives as a 1960s rebuilding.  Now a modern pub has a long history, having been rebuilt more than once.  In 1785 one April morning it was totally burnt out - astonishingly leaving unscathed the timber houses on either side, separated only by narrow alleyways.

Crypt of St John's.  The crypt has its gruesome effigy of Sir William Weston, the last Prior. The King's Master of the Revels was ensconced here in Elizabethan times. It was his job to license plays before they were performed - an early censor - and many of Shakespeare's and Marlowe's plays were licensed here. Later still, it was the home of one of the first British magazines, the Gentleman’s Magazine, under the editorship of Edward Cave, and has connections with Goldsmith and Garrick, and  Dr Johnson. This was one of the places where "Scratching Fanny,” the supposed Cock Lane ghost, claimed to display itself in 1763, but in this case failed to materialise.  The mysterious noises were eventually exposed as a fraud practised by the young daughter of William Parsons, officiating clerk of St Sepulchre's, who was gaoled for a his part in it, but had meanwhile cleaned up a small fortune from the curious crowds who flocked to the area to be entertained by this nonsense - including Johnson and Walpole, who like many others were disappointed of the sensation.  "Scratching Fanny's" coffin in the crypt was shown with many others to interested visitors, well into the 19th century.

Shop everything else was rebuilt in the late 19th century or later.  One of the oldest surviving buildings is the shop, date-plaque 1856, at the corner of Albemarle Way

Gate House, a glass and tile egg box replaced an 1849 Methodist chapel in the Gothic style demolished as redundant in 1957

Heritage Centre

House adjoining the SW corner was in the late 18th century the property of Mr Gabriel Gregory, carpenter, who in 1780 obtained permission from the Paving Commissioners to remove the North Postern in order to rebuild his house, thus leaving the south entrance to this narrow passage "open from the ground to the sky".  Accordingly the two gates were demolished and the passageway left open, as it is today.

Jerusalem Court, narrow and winding, was entered from the east side of the square by an archway, and incorporated pan of other ancient mansions, cut off from light by houses in Albemarle Street (now Way) to the south.  Rather improvidently, tall model dwellings were erected on the north side of this Court: "very unhealthy,” observed a Special Committee in December 1888, "without through ventilation, and such as should never have been built.”  Inspectors and medical officers referred the case, and half a dozen others, between Sanitary Committee and Vestry, making recommendations, while the wretched inhabitants still endured the abominable conditions.

Little St John's Square continuing westwards, beyond these relatively humble properties we reach further grand houses.  The odd extension, or "little square", at the north-west corner of the enclosure came into the hands of Dudley Lord North, through his son John's first wife, hence was sometimes known as "North's Court".  In 1708 this property was described as "a pretty area of new brick buildings, lately erected", and "a set of fairhouses, making three sides of a square" (that is, as an extension of the main 'square' presumably on Lord North's property.  Two of these were offices of Dove's, the printers (no.22 and later 21)

Memorial Garden.  Lord Mottistone paid. Garden of Remembrance on site of chapel. Outline of the church still in St John’s square. Site of church marked in bricks in the pavement. Round nave of a military order.

Methodist chapel demolished replaced by Gate House

Museum of the order of St.John.  The Museum in the gatehouse preserves many carved fragments, especially from the ornate late c12 chancel, and from large oriel windows of the late c15 or early c16. In the early c16, prominent members of the Priory staff had houses in the outer precinct; from one of these may come terracotta fragments, possibly of continental origin, found in excavations in Albion Place in 1990-4.

Penny Bank Chambers (1879), part of the Clerkenwell Road scheme, was built as a good example of model dwellings: it was restored as craft workshops in 1975.                                                  

Princess Alice pub, called after the disaster

Priory Church was left a shell by incendiaries in 1941, its 18th-century interior destroyed.  It now has a reconstructed facade containing a narthex in front of its 18th-century west front, and a plain interior within three later 15th/early 16th-century walls.  Only the 12th-century crypt was untouched by bomb

Site of St.John’s Priory.  Occupies the site of the courtyard of the priory. North postern until 1780. Sum given by Henry VIII to attack the Turks at Rhodes in 1182. Priory of St.John founded 1140 on land from Briant. Founded by Jordan Briset, Augustinian order of the Knights of St. John. They had a hospital for the sick in Jerusalem with lots of wounded crusaders in it. Lots of them joined the order with the black cross on a white background. Theoderic came to London with lots of knights and marched through the city with banners and spears to Clerkenwell - red cassock and white cross as military dress. As soldiers they undertook privateering activities and captured Rhodes, which was their headquarters. The Clerkenwell church had the round nave of a military order in 1522 Sulieman the Magnificent had captured Rhodes and the Knights had fled to Malta, so the London monks went there too. 1540 dissolved and the Prior died of a heart attack. The Duke of Somerset blew up the tower and used the stone to build Somerset House in the Strand. Crypt of St John

Smith & Co., makers of clock components (founded 1780), established their factory in 1812 on the site of another fine mansion, birthplace in 1727 of John Wilkes, the politician.  The firm, now non- ferrous metal Stockists,

St John's Gate, 1845 then a tavern, came under threat and was declared unsafe.  The architect W P Griffith luckily intervened to save it, and a substantial restoration was undertaker, including the creation of a new set of fake crenellations for the parapet.  In 1874 the Gate was, as we have seen, re-acquired by the revived Order, later the Most Venerable Order of St John, and has since served as its headquarters and (later) also as its Library and Museum.

St John's Square evolved from the inner courtyard of the priory; part of the court was regrettably lost to Clerkenwell Road, which now cuts it off from the medieval gatehouse in St John's Lane.  The priory buildings, used by the Office of Revels in the c16, began to be replaced by individual houses from c. 1630.  By the mid c19 these housed numerous specialized craftsmen, especially jewellers, watchmakers and printers.  The side of the square still has a pleasing c18 appearance.  A small open space, cut through by Victorian Clerkenwell Road, succeeds the mediaeval St John's Priory court surrounded by peripheral buildings. Of these only St John's Gate and the shell of the church remain above ground. Many of the Priory buildings survived until at least the late 17th century, occupied by members of the nobility. Large private mansions then replaced them, e.g. Bishop Burner's house on the west side, swallowed up in 1879 by Clerkenwell Road. From there in 1710 during the Sacheverell Riots, Burnet witnessed the Ann-Dissenting mob sacking St John's Church, at that" time used as a Presbyterian chapel.  Tudor old road started here and up.  Old Road to York Road, Maidenhead Lane.  37 years before 1826.  Wesleyan church, Gothic next to the gateway given to the London Mission Centre after 50 years.  Area of the court of the priory

Near the gate stands an old-world smithy; Smithfield's horse-drawn traffic provides plenty of work

St. John's Church 1185, consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.  1140 and 1180.  Destroyed in 1380 during the Peasants Revolt.  Rebuilt on the site of the priory church perpendicular. In 1723 and given a new west front and cupola. The parish church for Clerkenwell until 1931, then became the St.John's area church, bombed out in 1941 and now a simple hall inside. Church very dramatic quality unsurpassed. W.Taylor. St.John the Baptist. Altar. Plate, monuments. Paintings taken during the dissolution are back. Modern looking church. Many monuments.  Parts of the choir walls were incorporated in the 18th-century building; the original church had a round nave (as usual with the Order of St John) the outline of which is marked on the ground in the Square. In 1931 the church reverted to the order, but it was very severely damaged in 1941 by incendiary bombs. Rebuilding was begun in 1955 to designs by Lord Mottistone, and includes a public garden surrounded by a memorial cloister. Below the chancel survives the original Crypt, is a major 12^th treasure, the three west bays of which are pure Norman work of about 1140, while the two east bays and the side chapels were completed about 1170. . The nave of the Priory church has been twice destroyed. Its original circular nave, burnt out in 1381 during the Peasants' Revolt, and now marked by a double row of cobbles, was replaced in Perpendicular style to a rectangular plan. After the English Order's suppression in 1540 it served various uses, including as a private chapel. In 1723, restored at the expense of Simon Michell, it was given a new West front and a cupola, and used as a second parish church for Clerkenwell until 1931, when the modern Order of St John acquired it as their Priory church. The building with its elaborate Georgian galleries and fittings was entirely burnt out by incendiary bombs in 1941, and was subsequently restored as a simple hall church. The original crypt, however, has withstood fires, wars and bombs and is one of London's very few surviving 12th-century`buildings.  The exterior gives little sign that the crypt is one of  London's major c12 treasures. It lies below a choir, which was rebuilt in 1721-3 as a plain Georgian parish church, reusing parts of the medieval outer walls. After gutting in the Second World War the church was restored and extended in 1955-8 by Seely & Paget, and one sees first their one-storey Neo-Georgian elliptical narthex enclosing a new entrance for the crypt, and an early c18 wall visible above, of red brick with stone pilasters. The part of the medieval church has disappeared; it consisted in the c12 of a circular nave, inspired by the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, as was the practice of both this Order and the Templars. This was replaced by a more conventional aisled rectangle before 1381, when the church was sacked during the Peasants' Revolt. Both replacement nave and a massive tower added c. 1500 were destroyed by Protector Somerset after the Dissolution, to provide building material for Somerset House, leaving only the choir standing. Inside the narthex, a 020 double stair, intended for processions, descends to the crypt. On each side is visible the start of the curved c12 wall of the round nave, with bases of two c12 internal pilasters. The crypt is of two dates. The unaisled mid-c12 part has three bays with simple rib vaults and plain transverse arches, and a fourth bay where only springers to the vault survive. The ribs appear to have had applied plaster enrichment with chevron, originally painted red. The late c12 enlargement (probably complete at the consecration of 1185) added two bays, which extend transeptally for one bay on one side and two on the other.  These parts have the more elaborate mouldings of the late c12: triple-shafted responds, ribs with triple rolls, the centre one keeled, and transverse arches with pronounced angle rolls, transept is a vaulted chamber, from which the early c12 exterior wall is visible: ashlar-faced with pilasters with chamfered bases. The crypt was restored and refitted by J. 0. Scott in 1900-1 and 1904-7. Font Octagonal on a renewed quatrefoiled base. From the Preceptory at Hogshaw, Bucks. – Altar Frontal, embroidered with figures in ovals, Italian c1, brought from Florence. – Stained glass early c0, by Nicholson. - Monuments Sir William Weston, Prior of St John, 1540, emaciated corpse wrapped in a shroud and placed on a flat rush mat; a fragment of a larger tomb whose Gothic canopy is known from drawings. - Knight of St John, assumed to be Juan Ruiz de Vergara, proctor of the Langue of Castile in the Order of St John, originally in Valladolid Cathedral.  Given in 1914. Alabaster.  Recumbent effigy with sleeping son or page. Of a quality unsurpassed in London or England. Convincingly attributed to the Castilian sculptor Esteban Jordan. The pedestal was designed by C. M. 0. Scott, 1916.    The post-war church has a frugal whitewashed aisleless interior. At the end, responds of former aisles: late c1, with keeled shafts, four major, eight minor, important evidence of Transitional Gothic forms in London. Perpendicular windows. Two corbels high up relate to the former c18 gallery. Reredos.  Two big carved corsoles and a panel with cherubs' heads.  Early c18 doorway. In the Museum, two fine painted wings from late c15 Flemish altarpiece, formerly in the Priory church. The area of the church was laid out as a memorial garden after the war, approached through a Tuscan archway below a caretaker's flat. On the side of the church, blocked openings are visible between stone buttresses restored in 1907-8.  Some decoration, perhaps from the time of the early c16 Docwra Chapel which stood near the church. A cloister arcade. In its centre a Crucifixion by Cecil Thomas, 1951 with flat terminal panels in an Eric Gill tradition.

The Knights Hospitallers' Priory of St John, a wealthy establishment which became head of the Order in England, was founded c. 1144 by Jordan Briset or Bricett, a Suffolk landowner who held property in Clerkenwell.  Its precinct, covering about six acres, was bounded by Turnmill Street, Cowcross Street, St John Street and Clerkenwell Green. Within this, an inner precinct was entered by the gatehouse in St John's Lane, leading to the church in the present St John's Square the two brutally separated since the 1870s by Clerkenwell Road.  Gateway and church are the chief survivals, but scattered evidence of medieval foundations has been found beneath buildings in and around the square

Wesleyan Chapel, untouched by the 1879 roadworks, was burnt out in 1941 in war damage, temporarily reopened in 1949, but finally closed and demolished in 1957.

Wilkes's House Possibly a little to the east of Aylesbury House was one owned by a rich maltster, Israel Wilkes, father to the celebrated Radical politician John Wilkes, who was born here in 1727.  House and business were inherited by John's brother Heaton, who or before 1747 built a distillery adjoining it to the east.  John Wilkes is known have visited his brother's house as Alderman, at least in 1770.  From 1783 until 1810 the tenant was Francis Magniac, a famous merchant and goldsmith, and Colonel of the Clerkenwell Volunteers during the Napoleonic Wars With Daniel Beale who traded with China in musical automata and fancy mechanical clocks.  Later the premises became a warehouse for Dove's, the printers, whose offices and printing works were in the range of houses at the opposite corner of the square Actual ownership of the mansion and ground passed in 1793 to the Walpole family.  Eventually the house was demolished and the property acquired by J Smith and Sons, another clock making firm.  John Smith had begun as a manufacturer of watch and clock glasses, but in 1845 extended to actual clock making and built here the largest clock factory in Clerkenwell.  All branches of craftsmen were employed and all manufacturing processes covered, from brass founding to clock making and from seasoning timber to clock-case making.  Next door to Smith's the newly founded British Horological Institute, briefly had its offices in 1859, before moving to purpose-built headquarters in Northampton Square

Tompion Street

Was Lower Smith Street.  Became Tompion Street, appropriate enough for the area, though now a token name, being mostly destroyed in the war, and given way to topographically unrelated Council blocks.  Northampton Estate development.

Topham Street

Triangle

Maisonettes 1970s for the GLC. Overbearing. Replaced low rent scheme for the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, Compton Dwellings 1872.

Tysoe Street

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area, which had previously been used for meetings.  Peculiarity in the diagonal entry, whose line was determined by one of the network of old field-paths crossing New River land.  When bricks and mortar superseded fields, the new Clerkenwell street pattern crystallised the line of six old paths converging on what became the junction of Rosoman and Exmouth Streets.

Three Crowns. Supposed to be called after James I who united three crowns.

Upper Rosoman Street

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area which had previously been used for meetings

Vineyard Walk

Attempt to grow grapes. Then a pleasure ground 'Mont Plaisance'

Wakley Street

8 National Children's' Bureau

Walmsley Street

Northampton Square's original six intersecting streets were mostly renamed in the rationalisation of London names in 1935.  Lower Charles Street became Walmsley Street, after Dr Robert Walmsley d.1924, first Principal of the new Northampton Institute; but it disappeared under the 1966 building extension Lower Charles Street was originally an earlier lane Taylor's Row, 1792-4, renamed in 1814.

Warner Street

Coldbath fields. Huskisson and Towers fine chemicals

Chiappa building there with signs up. Empty

Warner House

Coach and Horses neo Jacobean 1900 – site of Hockley in the Hole Bear Garden.

Whiskin Street

Wilmington Square

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area, which had previously been used for meetings.  Wilmington Square was originally to have extended to Margaret Street; some houses appear in 1818 map as "building.”  Cromwell notes in 1828 that it was still unfinished, and presumably for financial reasons would be "completed in a form more circumscribed than was at first determined on, and with houses of a less lofty character" Accordingly the square was reduced in depth, with its north side built well short of Margaret Street, in 1829-31 Its style is simpler than the downhill south range, and of one storey less, achieving an equivalent skyline by a raised basement, above which is a pedestrian terrace adjoining the centre garden.(It could not be served by a road, for the road now ran behind the terrace. The west side was completed, though hardly occupied, by 1829, but is already shown in the 1828 map.  Curtailment of the square meant that it was tucked away in what was a backwater - until 1970s traffic management included it in a main lorry route.  Wilmington Square has come through war and social change not entirely unscathed. The square belongs to the group with 'unrelated terraces', like Canonbury.  Except for the slightly higher ground, and the reconstructed corner, all are of four floors plus basement.  The earlier side is fairly standard, stuccoed ground floors with circular-headed windows.  The somewhat heavy quality of this terrace is a reminder of what must have been the oppressive effect of Holford Square.  Back gardens disappeared long ago, when Wilson's John Street, incorporated as a terrace into Rosebery Avenue in the 1890s, and damaged in the Second World War, was rebuilt in the 1950s as Council flats.

1 end house sports a pediment.  Most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

1-5 is individual.

6-7 in the centre have balconies with continuous anthemion motif, nos.

8 door now recessed.

8-11 have been reconstructed laterally since the war, damaged in the war have been rebuilt and combined laterally, with a single front door.

10 1835 the Rev. W J Hall, whose book of psalms and hymns sold 4 million copies, lived here

1-12grand south terrace appeared only in 1824.  Much the most elaborate on the South side, all ground floors stuccoed and with circular-headed windows. The three centre houses and one at either end slightly advanced, rusticated, and with circular-headed first-floor windows as well.

12 is canted out to adapt to the diagonal entry of Tysoe Street.  In the late 1830s Wilson, its builder, occupied this house.  Oddly it had only a parapet with a wreath, reconstructed 1989 with a very basic pediment and, alas, no wreath, but a small pediment on the centre block, adorned with crossed laurel branches, harmonises this lopsidedness.  The stringcourse is raised to the base of the second-floor windows.

13-14. 1825, are distinguished from 15-21 only by their balconies.  Below the bedroom floor is a cornice, but no string course.  Panels inset below the ground-floor windows bring their bases down to threshold level.  Appeared only in 1824.

15-21 appear in Horwood's 1818 map, as "building"

18-21 have an interlaced design.  Now joined horizontally

20 The east side early became offices, and in 1888 Aubrey Beardsley was working in the office of the District Surveyor here.

21 the door and hallway extend to Merlin Street.  Front door double-panelled with circular mouldings, railings halberd with urn terminals.  Most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

22-24 destroyed in the 1930s for rebuilding as part of the austerely impressive Expressionist Police Flats block

25 On the end wall of blind windows break up the brickwork expanse. Most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

25-37, its entity as a 'terrace' is marked only by slightly advancing end houses and distinguishing them with round-headed first-floor windows.  Along its high pedestrian walk, has only three floors and basement, and like the other side has panels below the windows, and double-panelled doors, though without the circles.  Windows have individual balconies; some on the ground floor have window guards.

27 Herbert Spencer had run an office as a railway engineer here, quitting it for philosophy when the firm derailed.

31Its entity as a 'terrace' is marked only by slightly advancing the centre

37 most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

38-39, the short range north of Attneave Street, were completed only in 1840, and in the 1960s were condemned as unsafe and rebuilt by the Council approximately in facsimile with a single central front door.  Tactful rebuilding flats behind replica fronts matching the square.  The centre not filled in until 1841.

40-47 approximately balancing the opposite nine of 13-21,

40 most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.  The chief difference from the E side is the stringcourse between first and second floors.  Nos.

Gardens.  Managed by the vestry of Clerkenwell.  In 1895, when the neighbourhood had long been densely populated.  Lord Compton in the name of the Marquess of Northampton presented the square gardens, covering almost an acre, to Finsbury Vestry for public use.  With seats and flowerbeds it soon became an attractive and much needed small park.  This was at a time when its "uninteresting" early-19th century architecture was dismissed by contemporaries as the "hideously inartistic style of that period"

Wilmington Street

Another parcel, which belonged to the Northampton Estate, built up piecemeal 1819-31 by a builder, John Wilson.  11 squalid courts which developed on the Northampton lat between Wilmington Square and the Lloyd Baker Estate was cleared in the 1920s

Woodbridge Estate

A surprisingly complete early c19 enclave.  It belonged to the Sekforde Charity, used also to endow almshouse at Woodbridge, Suffolk, and was laid out from 1827 by C. Cockerell, surveyor to the charity, and his assistant.  Most of the building took place in the 1830s-40s.  Two new streets, Woodbridge Street and Sekforde Street, replaced a warren of small buildings that had grown up within the outer precinct of the nunnery.  The Sekforde Estate/ Woodbridge Estate was owned by Sekforde, Elizabeth Cooper and Master of the Guard of Recruits, by Christopher Saxon, Elizabethan surveyor.  There is an almshouse in Woodbridge where he was buried.  The Estate was built and the mansion demolished 1767.  Almshouse sundial in the six bits of 60 year lists, 1826 no act for leaves. Revenue of estate intended for the aged poor in Woodbridge. Developed the streets around.

Woodbridge Street

Woodbridge House in the angle of Woodbridge and Sekforde Streets.  The Sekforde (Woodbridge) Estate This land was owned by Thomas Sekforde, an Elizabethan lawyer and Master of the Coun of Requests. He was a patron of Christopher Saxton, the great Elizabethan surveyor and mapmaker. Sekforde retired about 1581 to an estate in Clerkenwell whose revenues he bequeathed to an almshouse he founded in his native town of Woodbridge, Suffolk, where he was buried in 1588. The estate was subsequently built over and the large mansion demolished, and in 1767 the almshouse governors divided the land into six pans on 60-year-leases. In 1826 a private Act of Parliament was secured for granting new 99-year building leases. Sekforde Estate was bounded by St John Street, Aylesbury Street, St James's Walk, Corporation Row and the wall of the House of Detention. Early lessees included two large distilleries, one of them Nicholson's (founded 1815), which in 1970 vacated the St John Street premises. The high boundary wall in Woodbridge Street dates from 1828. Woodbridge House, which still has the look of a small country mansion, backs on to the angle of Woodbridge and Sekforde Streets. Built on one of the original plots, it belonged at one time to George Friend, a gentleman-dyer to the East India Company, who erected his dye-houses nearby. The Clerkenwell Vestry Clerk, William Cook, acquired the property in 1807 and, hoping to renew the lease, removed the timber dye-houses and rebuilt the mansion for £4000, only to have a further lease refused. From 1848-70 the Finsbury Dispensary operated here: it had been founded in 1780 to provide free medicines for the poor and was housed variously in St John's Square, St. john Street and King Street. Woodbridge House's odd situation backing on to the corner was caused by the lay-out of Sekforde and Woodbridge Streets in 1828 Much of the NE range of Woodbridge Street, which had become ruinous or even destroyed, has been successfully reconstructed in facsimile by the Borough Council, and the other houses sensitively restored. The western leg of the street, long gutted for industrial use, has been restored behind the facades.

Yeoman's House is a private development of offices and units in a yard behind this range.

Old Woodbridge Chapel. built by Independent Calvinists in 1824 and in 1833 became it Clerkenwell and Islington Medical Mission, In  1898 it was bought by Water Cress and Flower Girls Mission – which became John Grooms.  It has a simple brick exterior, the front with round-arched upper windows, in keeping with the contemporary housing of the Sekforde Estate Galleried interior, reconstructed in the c19, now floored.  Features in films 'About a Boy’.,

Used to be pub called Noah's ark

Bank

Red Bull Theatre, contemporary with Shakespeare's Globe and Edward Alleyn's Fortune Theatre, once stood in Red Bull Yard, on the corner site of Nicholson's premises. Alleyn was among those who acted at the theatre, and Pepys is known to have visited it.

Wyclif Street?

Was Lower Ashby Street.  Northampton Estate.  Partly survives.  It was named after Castle Ashby, the Earls' Northamptonshire seat, and its eastern half.  Is now plain Ashby Street, while the western portion was renamed Wyclif Street in 1935.

35-36 British Horological Institute.  From 1860 -1978 rebuilt were the headquarters of the Institute, founded in 1858.  In this building, signals from Greenwich Observatory were received twice daily. The Institute removed in 1978 to Upton Hall, Newark.

Vicarage.  Built on the site of the Northampton Manor House, survives, serving for St James's.    

Wynyatt Street

Leases dating from 1800.

M

Agdon Street

Was called Woods Close. People used to wait for an escort into the city here

Albemarle Way

General Monk brought Charles II to the throne. A late 17th-century street largely rebuilt in mid-Victorian times, and named after the Cromwellian general, George Monck, Duke of Albemarle. Notable residents of the street were Carr's assistant, Samuel Ware (1781- 1860) and William Hone, probably identifiable with the champion of Queen Caroline and author of The Everyday Book

2, although refronted, still retains behind the later facade its 18th-century staircase and upstairs parlour, with a pedimented chimneypiece, doorcase, and wainscoted walls.  At the beginning of the 19th century James Carr, architect of St James's Church and later his son and successor in practice Henry, lived here (before 1905 numbered 12). A c19 front.  Skeletons uncovered during excavations under in 1989 suggest that one burial ground for the Priory of St. John was south of the church, while bones near the church were possibly from the Prior's own burial ground.  Evidence of the priory's eventual expansion beyond its walled precinct was revealed by excavations during the same season at the south end of St John's Lane, of late mediaeval foundations and more pans of skeletons.

5 Stuart Devlin Silversmith

Amwell Street

Developed as part of the New River Estate.  1820s. Named after the Hertfordshire springs which feed the New River.  Close to the headquarters of the New River Company.  Developed from the 1820s.  Streets with agreeable terraces with stuccoed ground floors.  Many doorways with fluted quarter-columns and pretty curving light patterns characteristic of the earlier c19. Downhill from Claremont Square, has terraces with small shops many with good c19 shop fronts. The west side of Claremont Square, Myddelton Terrace (1821), was also part of a longer road, created from the old-field path to Clerkenwell.  It was later renamed Amwell Street. . Chadwell Mylne himself laid out the handsome suburb on the Company's land north of New River Head.

Clerkenwell schools, parochial, 1828 modest and cheap.  Designed by Chadwell Mylne and John Blyth. Eleven bays in minimal Gothic two storeys. Built on New River land.

St.Peter and St.Paul, 1853, Commissioners RC. By John Blyth for members of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion; R.C. from 1847. Sober Italianate front with central Venetian window, interior with galleries on thin iron columns, with ornate Gothic iron railings. Post-war stained glass of saints.

Fountain Pub, Dirty Dick mirror gives pub another name

9 Home of Aveling, portrait painter

13 Bowman and Flood Ltd., non ferrous foundry

42 Lloyds Dairy.  From 1914, tiled interior. Timber corner shop with fine lettering.  An early corner shop that was run by members of the Lloyd family until after 2000.

69 was 2 and previously 25 Myddelton Terrace one of Cruickshanks homes.  He was Dickens' Illustrator.

71 was 23 1834, removes next door one of Cruickshanks homes

Charles Allen House

Arlington Way

Arlington House, New River Co. flats

19 Divertissement

Ashby Street

Was previously Upper Ashby Street. Some remaining properties of the Northampton Estate.  Partly survives.  It was named after Castle Ashby, the Earls' Northamptonshire seat, and its eastern half.  Upper Ashby Street, is now plain Ashby Street

Attneave Street

Sherston Court

Aylesbury Street

Marks the boundary of the precinct of St. Johns.  Which covered the whole area.  The street owes its name to a post-Dissolution mansion, which belonged to the Earls of Aylesbury but had become tenements by the early c18.  A 17th mansion, which was part of the priory buildings.  The Earls of Aylesbury one of the noble families, which acquired and built on its lands.  The house of the Aylesburys until 1706.

Aylesbury House The whole monastic property was the subject of a grant by James I in 1607, defined  "the scite or house of the late Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, &c, having therin one great mansion, and one great chapel, &c, containing by estimation 5 acres", which the King bestowed on a gentleman named Ralph Freeman.  It subsequently • passed to Sir William Cecil (1629?), Earl of Exeter, and then by the marriage of the Earl's daughter, to the Bruce family, Earls of Elgin (1641), in whose possession it remained until 1706.  One of this family, who became Earl of Aylesbury, adapted the old Priory church for use as a family chapel.  A large mansion, at least partly from Priory buildings, was created immediately north of the church, probably for Lord Aylesbury, with a doorway communicating from the north aisle to the house.  It was certainly known as "Aylesbury House", and stood in a courtyard enclosed by iron gates, extending on both sides of the church.  In 1989 excavations revealed parts of walls, evidently from this house, based on mediaeval foundations; also some of the undercroft or Priory vaults.  The noted cabinetmaker Giles Grendey (1693-1780), who made fine furniture for Longford Castle, Kedleston had a house here. 

16 site of Bull's Head, Britton's House

Vast dominating premises of E.Pollard, shop fitter and joiner.  It is now dominated by the vast former premises of E. Pollard & Co., shop fitter and joiner, 1912-26

51, late c18, has a genuine workshop window in the middle floor 

Back Hill

Features in films 'Mona Lisa’.

4 Presbytery and offices to St. Peters church 1865-6, Italianate.

Berry Place

Bakers Row:

On 1690 map

Baker’s Yard.  Warehouses redeveloped. Redeveloped by Kinson Architects, 1988; three-storey warehouses in pale brick; a blue comer column between each garage and doorway adds some character

Berry Street

Bowling Green Lane,

Depressing Victorian contrast – in 1675 there were two bowling greens shown on Ogilby and Morgan's map

16-17handsome four storeyed factory 1877 for William Notting, printer and type founder.  Buff brick segment-headed windows; red brick and terracotta trimming

Industrial dwellings, 1874

10 Board School. 1873  by Robson, picturesquely asymmetrical.

Vast car park along Farringdon Road

Catherine Griffiths Court – low folksy housing

Brewhouse Yard

16 BDP Studiosin old brewery buildings.  Original glazed brick and vaulted ceilings.  Gallery, and café.  Brewery. 1728, became Allied Breweries

Briset Street

Now re-named after the benefactor of St John's Priory, and formerly called Berkeley Street after the Berkeley family whose large Tudor mansion, long ago destroyed, stood on the comer facing St John's Lane. Sir Maurice Berkeley was Standard-Bearer to Henry VIII, Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth, and ancestor to the Earls of Berkeley. In the 19th century this neighbourhood consisted of crowded, narrow courts, densely populated by the very poor.

16 A single house with its original former shop-front survives at what was the entrance to Berkeley Court.

Corner site with St John's Lane was rebuilt as offices 1987 architects EPR Partnership

17 Rowley and Parkes clock maker

Britton Street

Formerly Red Lion Street, developed in 1719 by Simon Michell, a rich local magistrate, on land originally belonging to St John's. It was occupied by well-to-do City merchants. In 1937 it was renamed after John Britton (1771-1857), a local draughtsman and topographer.  approached by narrow lanes and passages. Has the best-surviving c18 houses in this area.

14

22

24 Reconstructed facade of Booth's Gin Distillery.  The early-20th-century arcaded Renaissance front, with sculptured frieze, of Booth's Distillery, by E. W. Mountford, architect of the St John Street buildings of the City University, monumental 1903 re-erected from its former site in Turnmill Street rather meaninglessly here in 1975 as a condition of the demolition of the original building.  The granite ground-floor arches are original, the brick upper floors facsimile reconstruction, incorporating F. W. Pomeroy's attic frieze of carved panels showing gin-making processes.  An archway leads through to a late c20 courtyard: behind the frontage are plain council flats and private offices, built by YRM, who took over the redevelopment of the site, building their own offices across the small yard at the back in 1973-6.  These are in their impeccable sleek and anonymous style of the time: a red steel frame with glazed bands, two storeys above recessed ground floor, overlooking St John's Gardens

27, 28, and 30-32.  Good door case

27-32 c18 houses on the w side, ^H partly rebuilt

28, 30-32 clockmakers' attic workshop windows

36 early nineteenth century like New River estates.

44, on the comer of Albion Place, offices and flat designed 1987 by Piers Gough, of Campbell, Zogolovitch, Wilkinson & Gough, make the most of the corner site: gabled, but its flattened planes creating a hexagonal effect, accentuated by the 'latticed' glazing of the windows.

54 probably original, with a fine door case.  18^th red brick houses with carved door brackets.  Clockmakers’ attic workshop windows

55 early 19th century in the style much used in New River Estate houses.  Refronted in the early c19, has good shop front.

56 clockmakers' attic workshop windows

57 18th century, reconstructed.

59 also a good doorcase.  Note cock-eyed window lintel caused by subsidence.  18^th red brick houses with carved door brackets

Janet Street Porter’s House.  A piece of whimsy, a private house with top-floor studio, by CZWG, 1987.  Successfully eye-catching, but the motifs fail to coalesce: strident lozenge windows with large lattice panes and a forceful purple pantiled roof overpower the quiet buff and brown brick walls.

Jerusalem Tavern. Where Britton worked - this is Britton of Britton and Brayley.  18^th building but only a pub since the 1990s

St John's Garden Burial Ground of St. John's.  Was previously Benjamin Street Burial Ground. Well-planted and much needed small park.

Brooke’s Market?

Open square and back of redeveloped Prudential building

16 1900 Austrian looking

Chadwell Street

Developed as part of the New River Estate.  1820s. Named after the Hertfordshire springs which feed the New River.  Close to the headquarters of the New River Company.  Developed from the 1820s. Streets with agreeable terraces with stuccoed ground floors.  Many doorways with fluted quarter-columns and pretty curving light patterns characteristic of the earlier c19

Mount Zion Chapel

Providence Chapel

Angel Baptist Chapel. 1824. Contemporary with the New River Estate. Calvanistic Methodists.  Stucco front with central pediment and Ionic porch.

Clerkenwell

‘Clerkenwell’ c.1150, ‘Clerkenewella’ c.1152, ‘Clerekenewelle’ 1242, ‘Clarkynwell’ 1551, that is 'well or spring of the scholars or students', from Middle English ‘clerc’ and ‘welle’. In  early Latin sources from c.1145 the well or spring is referred to as ‘fons clericorum’. There is vivid corroboration of the etymology in William FitzStephen's account of London in 1174, in which he describes scholars and youths gathering at this and two other wells  on summer evenings. 

Clerkenwell Company made emergency repair parts for printing trade, there and elsewhere Martin? 90% work in London, food packing labels, die stamps 95%, lot of rush jobs Martin? Operatives' wives made artificial flowers and mantles as outworkers for City firms 1860s Centre for machine tools.

Stedall Machine Tool Co., importing machine tools from the Continent, 300-400 machines in stock for early delivery Churchill Co., last century, importing US machine tools

1837 growth area for colour printing, use of wood block and copper plate, lithostone or zinc plate, involved in hand processes, precision trades typical of Clerkenwell

Finsbury. 1898 factories and workrooms with over 100 workers in clothing trades, millinery, mantles lingerie and neckwear, 1800 woodworking and ready made furniture, Electroplate and enamellers, 1950s, with bulk of work sub-contracted to other London manufacturers GUS and GUM parcel facilities here and Woolworth's

Clerkenwell Close

The close, originally part of St Mary's Nunnery, was by the 16^th  and 17^th  filled with houses with gardens. The establishment of many craft industries in Clerkenwell changed the ownership of these houses. cottages were built at the corner opposite the Horseshoe, popularly known as 'weavers' cottages' but actually watchmakers' or jewellers' accessories workshops, with characteristic 'studio' lighting on the top floor. Over the years these were became ruinous and were demolished. Features in films 'A Fish Called Wanda’.

14-18 are rebuilt in Victorian style, though not in facsimile.  Since the mid-1980s the Close has had an effective face-lift.  Tactful, bland mixture of 19^th offices and warehouses.  Refurbished and rebuilt in 1985-9

27-31 Clerkenwell Workshops, four- and five-storey warehouses converted to small workshops in 1975, some of the first to challenge the post-war policy of replacement Clerkenwell industry by housing.  This sturdy and colourful bright range was built in 1895-7 for the London School Board by the works department, under T.J. Bailey, as the Board's central store 'Furniture', 'Stationery' and 'Needlework' appears in little cartouches over the entrances.  Blue brick ground floor with segmental windows; three upper storeys with red brick pilasters.  This was an early sign of revival for the decayed area.

36-41, slightly east of this, in 1987 pan of a large mediaeval building with chalk and ragstone walls was found, with an adjoining courtyard. The Observatory. Flashy offices

42-46, mediaeval floors and hearths, possibly part of kitchens, were excavated in 1986-7.  Intended as replicas of demolished clockmakers cottages.  Unconvincing detail.

47-48 late 18th-century pair with double- pitched roof, have been salvaged from ruin and restored.  The nunnery had been transformed after the Dissolution into Newcastle House, occupied in the c17 by William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle.  This was demolished c. 1793 and replaced by terraced I houses from which these houses survive.  Converted to flats in 1991 by Hunt Thompson, with new flats behind. Newcastle House.  A rather forbidding mansion with an entrance court and two wings, built over the nunnery ruins which until the late 18th century 1753 could still be seen. Here lived William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, a devoted Royalist who fought for King Charles I, and his eccentric second wife Margaret Lucas, the blue-stocking authoress. A descendant married George Monck, Duke of Albemarle, who also lived here. By degrees noble residences were abandoned as their owners followed the Court westwards, and Newcastle House was occupied by a cabinet-maker before being demolished in c 1793. On its site was built Newcastle Place — itself long since demolished — a row of substantial houses by James Can, architect of St James's Church.

54-56 early 19^th

Cromwell House built by the rich Challoner family of the City and later said to have been occupied by Oliver Cromwell.

The Observatory.  One jarring note in this area, at the corner of Newcastle Row; flashy offices with a parade of mirror glass a crude Neo-Deco detail, 1987-8 by Peter Tiggs Partnership. London Ecology Centre Exhibitions and events concerned with the environment of the city.

Crown Tavern, 1815, collection of clocks in restaurant a clock with connections with the Rye House Plot.  Stucco- trimmed, c. 1860. Features in films 'Suzie Gold’.

Horseshoe Pub.  From 1833 from 1747, supposed to be a tunnel to the prison for the hangman's drinks. 18^thhouse at the back of it. Air of a village corner tavern contributes, with the unexpected windings of the narrow street, to the Close's still surviving atmosphere.  Modest c19 pub built out in front of an older building.

Comoys Briar Pipe Manufacturers 1879-1937,

Peabody Buildings high blocks (1884). An American philanthropist, George Peabody (1795- 1869), founded a housing trust on the lines of 'Model Dwellings' companies, with which the Victorians attempted to combat the fearful slums brought by rapid industrialisation. Usually even the few shillings' rent were then beyond the means of all but those regularly employed, and the poorest still endured life in stinking courts and alleys like the rabbit-warren behind Turnmill Street and Cowcross Street

St.James’ Church.  Built 1788-92, by James Carr, a local architect and builder. It is on the site of the choir of the Nunnery.  In 1656 the parish bought the church and the avowdson but the old church was demolished in 1788 and there is a model of it in the vestry – with a real clock in it. This church is a stock-brick box with a stone tower topped by a balustrade and vases and with an obelisk-like spire. Inside a curved end is underlined by the gallery, which is reached by two staircases.  In the early 19^th  upper galleries were added for the charity school children. The church was restored by Blomfield in 1883-4, but many Georgian furnishings remain. The font is carved rosewood, c. 1820. There is an an 18^th  communion table with-bowed front and wrought-iron rails.  Also 18^th churchwarden’s pews and box pews in the gallery. There is a mahogany organ case with feathery palm leaves and an important organ of 1792 by George Pike England. The Royal Arms in Coade stone are over the nave door, with an early 18^th  statue of St James, from a poor box. There is a stained glass window of the Ascension by Alexander Gibbs, 1863, with large coloured figures.  Beneath the tower are two charity boards, a bell ringers’ board about Westminster Youths, 1800 and amonument to the victims of the Fenian riots, 1867. There are vestry furnishings for the church officers and the local corporation. Monuments: a brass of John Bell, Bishop of Worcester, 1556; Elizabeth, Countess of Exeter, 1653; Elizabeth Partridge 1702, with bust and putti ; Henry Penton 1714, wall monument with obelisk; Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, 1715, tablet with books and scrolls, and a black marble floor slab; Thomas Crosse 1712, by Roubiliac; a wall monument with two busts.  There are also monuments from the old nunnery.  Features in films 'About a Boy’, ‘Love, Honour and Obey’..

Nunnery. The north west end of the entrance wall outside the church are remains of the old nunnery.  It was the Benedictine Nunnery of St.Mary founded in 1140 by Jordan Briset and dissolved in 1539. Augustinian canonesses. fragmentary traces of column-shafts and bases of the old nunnery cloister and the position of the north door into the nave which were excavated in 1975.  In the garden the corner of a mediaeval building was found which was part of a range of buildings north of the cloister.

St.Chads well 1822.

Churchyard managed by the Vestry of Clerkenwell

Clerkenwell Green

A misnomer, as no 'green' has flourished here for 300 years, though in its aristocratic 17^th days it was bordered with trees. City knights and aldermen had houses here and Isaak Walton lived here after retiring from his City linen-draper's business. In the 19^th Clerkenwell became heavily industrialised, densely populated, and poor, and the Green became a centre for protest meetings, especially by radicals and unemployed, and was regarded as 'the headquarters of republicanism and revolution'.  Here Dickens’ Oliver Twist watched the Dodger.  There are some trees, but it is now urban and commercial.  Features in films 'A Fish Called Wanda’, ‘Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence’

Clerkenwell Sessions House.  The Former Middlesex Sessions House which has been the  London Masonic Centre since c. 1980. Built 1779-82 by Thomas Rogers, Surveyor to the County of Middlesex, and altered by the County Surveyor, Frederick  Pownall in 1859-60. It has a Palladian front with decorative reliefs by Nollekens of Justice and Mercy. The square central hall with a circular dome is original, but the gallery, central staircase and lantern to the dome are by Pownall. He kept the Court Room ceiling. Before 1613 the justices met at The Castle in St John Street. Then Baptist Hicks built a hall for them, called Hicks Hall and this used as  was the Sessions House until 1779 when a row of old buildings on the west side of Clerkenwell Green was removed and this new building was erected at the County's expense. It includes a Jacobean fireplace and Hicks’ portrait taken from Hicks Hall. By 1860 even this building was too small and it was enlarged. In 1919 the courts moved to Newington Causeway and the building was converted to office use. it remained empty for some years until it was acquired by a Masonic foundation, and restored in 1979. Features in films 'I Believe in You’.

12—14 shop fronts have some good high-Victorian decoration.  Characteristic warehouses of 1878, builder T.E.G. Charming, with plenty of jolly terracotta and curved shaped gables enclosing large Gothic arches.

15-17, reconstructed from ruins in 1986, unfortunately replaced a pretty Regency pillared shop-front with a timid echo.  Facsimile late Georgian shop fronts, eighteenth century houses, 15 Longcluse clock dial painter 

16 has a good early c19 shop front with Ionic columns, re-erected in 1978

18-19 Klamath House 1990 by Huckle, Tweddle Partnership; a sleek stone front with modish features: angled balcony, centre window stepping out in width, stair-tower with playful small window shapes.

29 a former public house of c. 1860, with narrow arched triplet windows on the top floor below bracketed eaves

31 mannered classical building of 1911. It has a narrow stone frontage with long thin windows.  Included in a development of 1984-6, which was designed to convey the small-scale 18^{th –}19^th  variety that once existed here - flats and workshops with brick and rendered fronts with a variety of curved and angled bays.

31a Features in films 'Love, Honour and Obey’.

37a Marx Memorial Library Built 1738 by James Steer as a Welsh Charity School. - for the children of poor Welsh residents of London – which moved to Gray's Inn and the building became in turn a coffeehouse, shops, and a radical club. It was much altered in the c19; but the front elevation was restored to a semblance of its simple c18 appearance in 1969. It was used for radical meeting from 1872, when it became the headquarters of the London Patriotic Society, and by the socialist Twentieth Century Press from 1892 to 1922. Lenin had an office here in 1902-3. In the first-floor library, is a large forceful 1930s mural, in fresco, by Jack Hastings, pupil of Diego Rivera, depicting 'The Worker of the Future upsetting the Economic Chaos of the Present', including portraits of Marx, Lenin etc. Leon Trotsky, used to pore over the radical books while Lenin edited the journal, Iskra.here.

Charitable infant school in the same house

Clerkenwell Parochial Sunday School

Clerkenwell Protestant Sunday School on site of earlier school of 1801,

Horse and cart

Site long left empty was rebuilt in 1987 by Islington Council, as a flat-and-workshop complex of lively design.  Excavations here in 1984 revealed a mediaeval tenement basement, which were within the precinct of St Mary's Nunnery and probably rented out.

Telephone box

Working Men's Club

Clerkenwell Road

Built by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1878 to link New Oxford Street and London Docks. It was opened by Hogg, Chair of the Metropolitan Board of Works.  The Middle level interceptor sewer passes beneath beneath it  part of it is shown as ‘Passing Alley’ or  ‘Pissing Alley’ on the Roque map. It also incorporated Wilderness Row and some of Charterhouse Grounds. several narrow streets and alleys west of St John Street were destroyed – like Liquorpond Street. Warehouses, offices and a tram route were built along the new street.  Features in films 'Mona Lisa’.

102- 108 Columbia Gramophone Co.

122 Shop front 19^th

18 Hugin House

29 Elson silversmith

49-53 Red House

55-57 36

57-18c facades of Booths Distillery, recalled from Turnmill Street

60 Marshall silver repairs

74 William Phipps spoon silversmith

84 flat iron building on the corner

Cavendish Mansions 1882

Corner are Holborn Offices

Duke of York. Debased classical pub elevation

Griffin Pub, site of Reid's Griffin Brewery LE Reid's bottle labels on the walls

Hat and Feathers  pub.  Alsopps mirror.  1860 by Hill & Paraire, with ornate stuccoed front and a good bowed corner.    Listed Grade II,

Holborn Union Offices, 1886.  Board of Guardian’s Offices.  1885-6 by H. Saxon Snell & Sons, a symmetrical classical block in blue and orange brick.     The present Council offices.  During a short period when Finsbury and Holborn were jointly administered for local government purposes: a palatial brick frontage — ironic in view of its original use which has responded well to cleaning.

Holborn Town Hall, demolished .A substantial brick-and-stone pile was erected in 1878-9- for Holborn District Board of Works to exploit recent road improvements. Designed by the Board's surveyor, Lewis Isaacs, and Henry Louis Florence in an eclectic classical style, it boasted the unusual juxtaposition of a lavish double-height hall over a municipal stone-yard. It was sold in 1906 to pay for the new town hall and was demolished in the 1960s.

Kipp House

Mountford House

Penny Bank chamber with coin design on the walls.  Penny Bank Gallery. Converted for Association of Craftsmen 1879-80 by Henman & Harrison. Traditional crafts. These are towering model dwellings sparsely decorated with bands of tiles bearing the name of the National Penny Bank, founded 1875, and modelled on the Yorkshire Penny Bank, where amounts as small as one penny could be deposited.

Plaque about bombing blocked by German airship

St Peter's. A mission church for the poor Italian community living around Saffron Hill.  Built in 1862-3 by John Miller Bryson, probably influenced by more ambitious but unexecuted plans of 1853 by Francesco Gualandi.  It has a tall narrow two-bay front and an entrance of two arches. The upper parts date from 1891 by F. W. Tasker built in  brick and stone.  Before Clerkenwell Road was built it was intended to provide a grand facade to Herbal Hill. It has a slarge and impressive interior like an Italian basilica. In 1885-6, the walls and ceiling were painted by Arnaud and Gauthier, from Piedmont.  There is a painting of the Annunciation, signed by Bon Einler1861.  There are also four Italian Baroque terracotta statues of evangelists, apparently brought from the Manchester exhibition of 1857. Every year on the first Sunday after July 16 there is an Italian sagra around the church. The fete involves a procession through the streets to mark the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  Caruso and Gigli once performed on the church steps on some Sunday mornings. Features in films 'Mona Lisa’,’Queen of Hearts’..

Victoria Dwellings

Coldbath Fields

Was a path going to the river Fleet, name probably ironic,

Well in the fields

Coldbath Fields Prison, 1794-1887, built by Howard as a experiment in strong discipline Tristan treadmill

Apple Tree pub, 1720 on the same site in the eighteenth century, Parcels run to the north from 1887. Strong man of Islington Topham prisoners from Coldbath Fields there

Coldbath Square

Cold Bath cured nerve disorders there from 1697-1870

Coldbath House

Compton Passage

Church School

Compton Street

Name relates to the Northampton Estate family ownership

Terrace remains from Northampton Estate developments.  Modest, some houses only one bay wide.

St Peter and St Paul R.C. School, remodelled 1968-71 by Farrington, Dennys &-Fisher

Cornwall Place?

New River and Treasurer.

Corporation Row

Was once called Cut Throat Lane. It long marked London's most northerly built-up limit. Its name derives not from the City but from a 'corporation' or union workhouse, built in the fields about 1662 for a union of metropolitan parishes. It stood at the NE corner of the present Hugh Myddelton School grounds.

35-43 Early Georgian terraces

NW corner bowling green

Mulberry garden pleasure ground opened in 1742 on east side, became an exercise ground for the Clerkenwell Volunteers

Clerkenwell Bridewell

Adjoining was a large bowling green, from which the neighbouring lane was named.

Mulberry Garden, one of Clerkenwell's many pleasure grounds, was opened in 1742, laid out in avenues and gravel-walks, and providing entertainments such as an orchestra, refreshments, skittles and fireworks. It was fashionable, but apparently not long-lived. Later, during the Napoleonic Wars, its ground was used for exercising by the Clerkenwell Volunteers.

The Quaker Workhouse, a large quadrangular building, was taken over about 1692 by the Society of Friends for their own poor members and for a charity school. By 1774 part of the building had become tenements. In 1786 the Quaker Workhouse removed to land off the present Rawstorne Street, and the old building fell into ruin. It was demolished in 1805, and the Paving Commissioners took part of the site for widening Corporation Row

New Prison Wall. A tablet on the inner side of the north wall, between the two gates, commemorates the site of the explosion in the wall of the prison.  in 1867 an attempt was made to free Fenian prisoners Burke and Casey who were awaiting trial by blowing up the north precinct wall. the leader, and as a result 15 people were killed and forty or so seriously injured. Michael Barrett, the instigator, was hanged — the last person in England to do so in public. The bomb planted was between the gates marked ‘Infants’..

Crawford Passage

Before 1774 it was called Pickled Egg Walk

Cockpit

Cruikshank Street

Amwell House.  Lubetkin.  Two-storey added by Skinner, Bailey & Lubetkin in 1956-8

Bevin Court.  1952 by Lubetkin after Tecton had left.  Form of the old Holford Square.  On the site of the bombed Holford Square of 1841 the one major c20 addition: by Skinner Bailey & Lubetkin, i.e. part of the Tecton firm after it had split up.  The first design, which preserved the form of the old square, was rejected in favour of a cheaper solution of a seven- and eight-store Y-shaped block of 130 dwellings.  The wings have the distinctly Tecton surface patterning, achieved here through alternation - windows, textures, and access-gallery uprights - private balconies were too expensive.  The surprise is the stunning central staircase, one of the most exciting C20 spatial experiences in London Views out in different directions between the access points to each wing.  Mural in the entrance by Peter Yates.

Holford House.  Lubetkin a four-storey block of maisonettes, is part of the same scheme

Cyprus Street

Was King Street, 1880

Flats 1930s a group of Monson's flats,

The Trianglean overbearing brown brick cluster of maisonettes of the 1970s, by Clifford Culpin & Partners, for the GLC, with a monumental entrance under a high-level bridge.  They replaced an earlier low rent housing scheme, the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company & Compton Dwellings of 1872-6

Dallington Street

Was Allen Street, Dallington Master of Charterhouse

St.Paul's Buildings, Galactic House, Bailey Wood turners

Cavendish Buildings

Earlstoke Street

Now disappeared, had been Upper Smith Street.  Two Smith Streets were named after the 9th Earl of Northampton's wife Maria, daughter to a Wiltshire gentleman.  Disappeared under university extension, had been renamed Earlstoke Street in 1935, after Maria Smith's parental home,

Easton Street

Exmouth Market

1756, rural path called Bridewell. The south side was built in the 18th century as Braynes Buildings, looking out over fields towards Highgate. It was frequented by visitors to the spa-wells, but in 1818 the north side was also built up and the street re-named in honour of Admiral Pellew, Lord Exmouth. The houses are mostly original, though much altered.  Exmouth Street served as a main road connecting St John Street with westerly districts. On completion of the last stretch of Rosebery Avenue in 1892, application was made to allow costers — always unpopular with the authorities — to establish a street market here as its traffic was now diverted to the new road. It long remained a flourishing market. Of recent years, with falling population, and competition from the more conveniently-sited Chapel Market, its prosperity has declined, but attempts have been made to maintain it.

8 In the 1820s Joseph Grimaldi, the famous clown, lived here, one of his frequently-changed lodgings. 

32-34. a date-stone of 1765 with Brayes Building on the stuccoed front

43, first floor note curious 'rococo' plaster swags in canopy form.

55

56 plaque to Joseph Grimaldi. Which says  ‘clown, lived here 1818-1828'. Grimaldi, born in London, is said to be the greatest English clown ever. He was a master of song, dance, acrobatics, mime and an astute manager. He lived here for the last decade of an eventful popular and well rewarded life. Plaque erected 1989.

City Mansions

Holy Redeemer. Site of chapel built on site of Ducking Pond House for Huntingdon Methodist Connection in 1756. Demolished 1856 and replaced by the Italian church. On the site of Spa Fields Chapel demolished in 1886 when its lease expired. 1887-8 by J.D. Sedding, completed by H. Wibon, 1892-5. Not in their exuberant free Gothic mood, but a powerful Italian Renaissance design, exceptional among London's Victorian Anglican churches. The brick exterior hides a steel-framed construction. Tall front with round-arched doorway, boldly lettered frieze, and striped brick above with a circular window. Big deep-eaved pediment. Projecting campanile. They make bold use of tiles for stringcourses and arches. Inside, four groin vaults on an unbroken entablature, resting on giant Corinthian columns. Capitals carved by F. W. Pomeroy. Sedding planned frescoes, but these were not carried out. Behind the nave arcades, narrow aisles, and narrow, inorganically placed transepts.  Marble High Altar under a massive domed baldacchino, on the pattern of Santo Spirito, Florence. Behind it, Wilson's Lady Chapel, with altarpiece in pedimented Ionic frame. Large stone Font 1909 17th-century font came from St Giles's. Cripplegate and other furnishings by Wilson. Prince Consort's Organ from the Chapel Royal, Windsor, by Father Willis installed 1889. London's only church in Basilica style. Exceptional.  The foundation stone was laid by William Ewart Gladstone. It lends a Roman touch to this corner of Clerkenwell, enhanced by the cleaning of its West front in 1987 in advance of its centenary in 1988.   There is an unusual set of An Nouveau Stations of the Cross

Clergy house 1906

Church hall 1916, added by Wibon.

Street Market

Exmouth Arms named after Sir Edward Pellew, British nineteenth century Naval Commander made Viscount Exmouth

London Spa, tile work inside.   One of Clerkenwell's most famous resorts, opened about 1730 between the upper and lower parts of the later Rosoman Street. It was a re-discovered mediaeval well of chalybeate waters, advertised as curing every imaginable ailment. Other small spas and gardens (such as the New Wells), opening in the vicinity during the summer season were usually identified by their situation vis-a-vis the well-known London Spa. Entertainments included rope-dancers, fireworks, freaks, singers, operetta, and home-brewed ale, but the resorts were often reviled by moralists for their disorderly customers. In 1835 the London Spa was rebuilt as a tavern, and again about a century later. .1730 between top and bottom of Rosoman Street, rebuilt as a pub building of second Sadler's wells

Eyre Street Hill

Gunmakers Arms

Farringdon Lane

The continuation of the route out of Clerkenwell.  Formerly Ray Street.

City Pride pub was the White Swan changed by Fullers city and

30 Abbott House. Plaque about being opened by John Gerald??

16 Clerk’s Well of Hockley in the Hole.  Site of old healing well – all sorts of fairs and fun there. A kind of beer garden from Charles II's time. Butchers dog's competitions at Clerks’ Wells. Set up by churchyard in 1800 ‘clerks well’ as in ‘Clerkenwell’. In Tudor times there was a stream flowing through the nunnery grounds there. In 1673 it was turned into a well and given to the poor of the Parish of Clerkenwell but it was in fact leased to a brewer called John Crosse who enclosed it. Just putting a drinking fountain on an outside wall for the public. 1720 'excellently clear, sweet and well tasted'. In 1800 a pump was set up by what is now 16 Farringdon Street but the water started to fail and then the vestry closed it down because it was polluted. The well chamber was filled with builder's debris and built over. In 1924 16 Farringdon Street was rebuilt and the well was found again. The Council leased the building and forgot about it again a rectangular enclosure with some medieval ashlar wall; repaired with brick.  It was rediscovered in 1924, and identified as the well mentioned by Fitzstephen and Stow, which gave its name to the area.  It lay just outside the precinct wall of the nunnery.  Fitzstephen describes it as 'frequente scholars and youth of the City when they go out for fresh a summer evenings'. In 1924 workers uncovered the old well where the parish clerks performed their medieval 'miracle' plays.

Sacred wells used to run in the wall of the convent of Saint Mary Tudor brickwork.  1170 miracle plays

Plainerhouse, 1875,

Peabody buildings 1884

Peabody Terrace 1964

34 Warehouse 1875 for John Greenwich, watch and clock manufacturer with Gothic details and clock.  Most notable the tall gabled designed by Roy Plumbs, a prominent clock, and other appropriate decoration  - hourglass, scythe etc.- above the upper windows

Farringdon Road

This was built as an extension to Bagnigge Wells Road and previously it was part of Field Lane and Chick Lane which was a very rough area. The railway runs down the side and Farringdon Station and the goods yard covered the valley side.  Chick Field Lanes were demolished as were others like Coppice Row and Victoria Street.  It was called ‘Farringdon’ for Mayor Farndone who was a goldsmith. The Ward was called after him and ghe street after the ward. It has building on a grander scale than elsewhere in Clerkenwell and the printing industry, because of nearby of Fleet Street was prominent here.  Many buildings remain from this period although their use has changed and there are some buildings from the 1980s, although names and a few relics survive to give some inkling of the earlier history of the area. Features in films 'Alive and Kicking’.

14-16 plaque about Clerks' well

20 Smith New Court House along the curving sliver of land between road and railway, a flat canyon-like office frontage of polished granite, c. 1993 stepping up to a high tower at the comer of Cowcross Street.  Not an asset to the townscape.

75 indifferent with the usual polished granite uprights of c. 1990.  Then a long sequence of smaller groups of workshops and warehouses of the 1880s

77-79 warehouse with classical detail.  1880s

83-86 Associated Press

84-104 speculative group of 1872 by Plumbe, 1872-3, built as a speculation    Gothic arches to the top floor, lush capitals

91-93, c. 1930-5, stone-faced and quiet.

94, Quality Chop House, a rare survival of an early c20 working-class restaurant, much-refurbished 1980s but with some original fittings.  Much refurbished.

99-101 1887, slightly Gothic, with some black diapering.

103 premises for J. &R.M.Wood printing press maker.  Machine Hall behind with cast iron columns.  1865 by John Butler Machine hall behind with cast-iron columns.

Flats - on the large site at the corner of Clerkenwell Road by Chassay Architects, 1993-4, building up from four to seven storeys, constructed around a deep-plan concrete frame intended for offices, the change of use during construction a sign of the times.  Brick and rendered frontages, with glazed set-back top floor.

105-107 1887.  Are both dated 1887, slightly Gothic, with some black diapering.

106 Penny Black, was Clerkenwell Tavern, 1888 Pub in the 84-104 group

109-111 for William Dickens chromolithographer, Venetian Gothic palazzo.  1864 First large premises of colour magazine printing by Henry Jarvis, a splendid Venetian Gothic palazzo.  Red and black brick, with close-set Gothic arcades.

113-117premises for V.& J.Figgis, typefounders.  1864. 1875-6 by Arding & Bond.  The main building is of five storeys, with a sixth above a cornice; the windows of the four middle floors are enclosed in two series of giant arches; the whole is tied together by continuous rusticated brick piers.

119-141Guardian offices.  Built as a warehouse and converted to offices. An uncouth intruder. On the site of Corporation Dwellings built by Waterlow opposite Farringdon Road Buildings built by the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Working Classes.  Built as a warehouse c. 1976, and converted as offices for the Guardian by Elsom Pack & Roberts.  An uncouth intruder, six storeys of drab brown precast panels contrast tellingly with subtler articulation of the c19 buildings.

142-144 1950

143 offices and shops was site of grim Clerkenwell workhouse?

145-155 late 19^th commercial terrace, a good example.  A decently proportioned late c 19 commercial terrace.  A balanced design with slightly narrowed houses.  The others each have a ground-floor shop and three or four-light upper windows extending almost full width party walls.

150 Swinnerton

Car park vast multi-storey of the 1980s with bland arched frontage of red and yellow brick.

Catherine GriffCourt housing of the 1980s behind the car park, folksy brick

Bakers' Row

Betsey Pub was Betsey Trotwood and before that the Butchers Arms. in Pear Tree Court from 1686. Named after David Copperfield’s aunt.

Eagle where Lenin stayed gone

Farringdon Market on this area after it had been covered over, before that Fleet Market was on the edge of the stream

Flats on the corner of Clerkenwell Road. Intended as offices in the 1990s

Fleet Building, Telephone Exchange

Fleetway House HQ of Amalgamated Press, gone, IPC Magazines

Gazzano cafe

Line of Fleet, Last section of Fleet arched over in 1850s from Peter Street to Castle Street

Middle Row demolished 1867 sort of structure in centre of main road in lots of old towns, cf. Maidstone.

Red Lion Tavern with plank bridge over the Fleet,

Site of mansion of John Oldcastle, was a pub called Lord Cobham and then Sir John Oldcastle, gone by 1762

Faulkner’s Alley?

Finsbury

Vinisbir 1231, Finesbury 1254, Fynesbury 1294, ry 1535, that is 'manor of a man called Finn", from an Old Scandinavian personal name and Middle English bury. The area was once part of the marshy ground, later drained,  north of the City wall that gave name to Moorgate and Moorfields and on the mid-16^th century 'wood-cut map' of London Fynnesburie Field is still shown as open ground with horses, archers, and windmills. Finsbury Circus & Square were laid out as part of a new residential suburb between 1777 and 1817.

Friend Street

1786-1825 Friend's school, 1702

Hermitage Buildings

Gard Street

Garnault Place

23 Grimaldi

Gee Street,

Called after John Gee

Alfred Place

Cotswold Court

Parmoor Court

Sapperton Court

Gloucester Way

Goswell Road

Swallows

Saddlers’ Sport Centre for the City University. 1973.  Sheppard Robson & Partners, begun 1973. Like the nearby halls in Bastwick Street, faced in brown brick, with some close-set black mullions. Tough but decent, nicely finished, and less dour than the firm's main campus buildings.

Mount Mills, Windmill mount

Pheasant and Firkin, was the Old Ivy House

Carter Patterson, until 1948

132 Gordon's gin

135-137 grand six storey composition

Charles Green balloonist born there

77-81 Carter Paterson and Co.  The premises back from the road and approached by two gateways. Buildings substantially constructed of brick, concrete and iron and are 5 floors in height. They consist of cart area on ground floor, and stables and warehouse space on first floor, and stables and smithy on 2nd floor.. The carts bring in.goods collected in the City to the Bank on the ground floor, they are trucked across to carts waiting to receive them, which distribute them over London.

128 Carter Paterson and Co These premises cover a large area of ground and consist of a building of three floors used as Offices and open and covered yards with brick buildings used for receiving goods, and to some extent storing same, and stables, smithy, boiler and engine house and warehouse with grinding machine and chaff cutting machine. The goods taken were principally parcels. Over the smithy and boiler house is a stable for young horses and at the extreme East end of yard is another very large stable.

Great Sutton Street

Named after Thomas Sutton.  Narrow lined with late c19 factories and warehouses;

30a was built as a dairy by George Waymouth: dairy scenes on ceramic lozenges.

38 London Portable Gas Co. oil gas works.  Cylinders under patent of Gordon and Heard. 3.2.6. per 1000 cf. including collection and delivery and ornamental stands for holders. Some internal piping installed. Horsed vehicle delivery 7 miles from works. Royal Inst. Faraday discovered benzene through it. Ok as long as coal gas expensive but then went. 1827 Charter maybe. 1819-1834

52 Dancer inventor of microphotography

Hall Street

Peregrine House Features in films 'Susie Gold’.

Hayward's Place

Hardwick Street

Named after a Governor of the New River Company. Called after local ironmonger

1-5 refurbished 1920s warehouse

Haywards Place

1834, a humble terrace of six cottages — adorned with diglyphs even so—is at the end of Woodbridge Street opposite the chapel.  Much restored cottages for distillery workers

1-18 was Suffolk Street and site of Woodbridge Chapel.

5 and 6 reconstructed 1951 after war destruction.

Next door new warehouse for Croll meter factory in 1846.

Herbal Hill

1 an early c19 house.

Coach and Horses the comer of Warner Street, opposite huge warehouses, small and cheerful, busy Neo-Jacobean of 1900.  It is on the site of Hockley-in-the-Hole Bear Garden.

Hermit Street

Buxton House

Holford Road (not on az)

Hugh Myddleton Pub. After the New River's completion a handy tavern opened just opposite the Pond, appropriately named after Hugh Myddelton.   The Myddelton's Head, depicted in Hogarth's "Evening" as a wayside tavern, was much frequented by performers from Sadler's Wells. The Tavern was rebuilt in 1831 and stood at the southwest corner of a new paved terrace, Myddelton Place, along the east riverbank opposite Sadler's Wells.  Dinner with Babbage Hershel, Lubbock, Brunel etc. 1832

4 Baron Von Hugel

Holsworthy Square

Six storey tenements rehabilitated for St.Pancras Housing Association by Peter Mishcon in 1981-7.  Ingeniously replanned, with old staircases replaced by lifts and the exterior enlivened by elegant stairs and balconies

Inglebert Street

Provides a vista to St Mark's Church

Insurance Street

Jerusalem Passage

Site of Priory north postern until 1780. It connects the north side of the square with Aylesbury Street and hence with 12 Clerkenwell Green, and in the last century contained flourishing shops. Foundations of the mediaeval buildings survive in cellars below the passage. Corner by the old postern lived the 'musical small coal man' Thomas Britton (d 1714), a native of Northamptonshire who became a coal-dealer in Clerkenwell. He had a natural skill in chemistry, was a noted collector of rare books, and by his extraordinary musical talents gathered celebrated musicians and members of the Court as an informal musical club, held in the poky house above his shop. Jerusalem Passage.  A tavern, the St John of Jerusalem, occupied the corner of this site until 1760, when it was succeeded by a large charity school run by the parish until the lease expired in 1830.  The school then moved, and a row of shops then occupied the ground floor.

8 late c18,

9-10 c. 1830,

11 early c18

12 mid c18

Laystall Street

Plaque about Mazzini. From 1836 onwards, Clerkenwell was the home of Mazzini, the Italian revolutionary. It was also the first port of call for Garibaldi on his visit in 1836

Christopher Hatton Centre, old London County Council School, plaque up.

Leo Yard

Was Red Lion Yard

Little Italy

Area bounded by Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue – also known as Italian Hill.  Name goes back at least two hundred years. Church, shops and driving school.

Little St.John's Square?

North’s Court

21 & 22

49-52

Lloyd Baker Estate

The Lloyd Baker estate, whose three large fields formed a long parallelogram on the hillside between the Pentonville end of the New River estate and the Fleet valley by Bagnigge Wells, was owned by a Gloucestershire family.  In the time of James I Dr William Lloyd, Bishop of St Asaph, was one of the "Seven Bishops" who defied the King; Mary, the daughter of a descendant, the Rev. John Lloyd, married another clergyman, the Rev William Baker of Hardwicke Court.  It was their son, Thomas John Lloyd Baker, who in his father's lifetime actively undertook development of their London estate in the 1820s.  A plan of 1807 shows the three fields, two of them abutting on the east on New River land.  Hill Field contained two small reservoirs used by the New River Company; Robin Hood's Field also adjoined Lord Northampton's estate to the south, as did the third.  Black Mary's Field.  Black Mary's other side extended to Bagnigge Wells road, and housed a cow layer and other farm buildings.  The Lloyd Baker estate was planned from September 1818, placing it fairly early in the post-Napoleonic canon, but it was delayed by a trade depression, which slowed the taking up of leases.  The estate plan was drawn up by the family's elderly surveyor, John Booth

The Lloyd Baker estate owners resented the mean, shimmy alleys between it and Wilmington Square, and would not allow a connecting road between the estates.  To this day only a footpath from one comer of Lloyd Square links them.

Lloyd Baker Street

The estate’s first houses were in Baker Street - later renamed Lloyd Baker Street - appear in the rate books only in 1825.

The slope towards the Fleet River is very appealing with very special semi-detached villas. Was originally called Baker Street.  The houses also have windows framed by giant arches.

Union Tavern – was previously the site of the Bull in the Pound – a resort of vicious characters.

Lloyd Baker Street flats

1-50 1829 "Upper Baker Street,” which was later re-numbered consecutively as 1-50 (1836). 

13 YWCA Moved from Lloyd Square, which was the Sisters of Bethany.  Converted in 1962 from- former convent, a House of Retreat for the Society of the Sisters of Bethany first established at No. 7 Lloyd Square in 1866. By Ernest Newton, 1882-4, in robust Queen Anne-Board school style rather than Gothic, the effect diminished since alteration of the gables.  Small cloister with balustraded corridor on two side Chapel, now studio, rebuilt by Newton 1891-2; low aisle am high clerestory; free Decorator detail.  Boarded barrel roof.  Good Crafts screens; some stained glass

43 Warwick William Wroth, FSA, 1858-1911, eldest son of Rev Warwick Reed Wroth, was a distinguished numismatist at the British Museum, and also author of The London Pleasure Gardens of the 18th Century 1896.  The Rev Mr Wroth, had his vicarage here

Lloyd Square

Lloyd Square first appears in 1833, its progress especially inhibited by the cost of its larger houses, and of such additions as contributing to the central garden layout, which proved a financial embarrassment to some of the builders.  As a result, some were skimped in workmanship. The Lloyd Baker estate, whose three large fields formed a long parallelogram on the hillside between the Pentonville end of the New River estate and the Fleet valley by Bagnigge Wells, was owned by a Gloucestershire family.  In the time of James I Dr William Lloyd, Bishop of St Asaph, was one of the "Seven Bishops" who defied the King; Mary, the daughter of a descendant, the Rev. John Lloyd, married another clergyman, the Rev William Baker of Hardwicke Court.  It was their son, Thomas John Lloyd Baker, who in his father's lifetime actively undertook development of their London estate in the 1820s.  A plan of 1807 shows the three fields, two of them abutting on the east on New River land.  Hill Field contained two small reservoirs used by the New River Company; Robin Hood's Field also adjoined Lord Northampton's estate to the south, as did the third.  Black Mary's Field.  Black Mary's other side extended to Bagnigge Wells road, and housed a cow layer and other farm buildings.  The Lloyd Baker estate was planned from September 1818, placing it fairly early in the post-Napoleonic canon, but it was delayed by a trade depression, which slowed the taking up of leases.  The estate plan was drawn up by the family's elderly surveyor, John Booth, who submitted a plan for Lloyd Square in August 1828, and a year later objected to a contractor's proposal to build it in the style of Amwell Street, which would spoil the symmetry since two sides of the square had already been let in advance.  It was Booth's son, William Joseph (1797-1872), who took over as architect, aligning in a much more individual style than Amwell Street and other New River given the dimensions and shape of the estate, there was small scope for the space at the top end other than turn it into a 'square' - or rather, an open space bordered by houses.  Given, too, that the more common practice was to create a square surrounded by streets.  Lloyd Square is a 'square' as it were by necessity, because space would not allow the converging streets to continue to the top unless houses became almost back-to-back.  The Granville Square plan was here turned inside out, leaving the hilltop as garden ground, and making this end of Wharton and Baker Streets into 'Lloyd Square' with similar paired villas. Early residents of the estate were gentlemen, tradesmen, and small professionals - timber merchant, surgeon, watchmaker, solicitor, and house agent.  Furthermore, the family origin of the landlords led to a large number of Welsh inhabitants over the years.  The Lloyd Baker estate was almost unique in London in remaining in private hand until a very late date.  Miss Olive Lloyd Baker (1903-75), who inherited it from he father at the age of 13, maintained a personal interest in her 450 tenants, administering| her inheritance "like a feudal village".  At her death, rents were mostly below the normal but on the other hand, many houses had shared lavatories and 40 had no baths.  In 1971 Islington Council acquired 95 rather run-down properties on the estate (none in Lloyd Square), and by degrees rehabilitated them with the help of a GLC grant.  Other houses were bought by their tenants, or occupied under licence.  Lloyd Square was kept a leasehold.  The gardens too remained in private local ownership, maintained by the residents through a committee levying a rate, and the only private gardens in the area except for Charterhouse Square.  The peculiar history of this area has given it a strong village atmosphere, with feeling of closely-knit community, enhanced by traditional local shops in adjoining Amwell Street in the character of 'Village Street’.  The distinctive, if not unique streets of the Lloyd Baker estate play a set of variation on terrace and linked-villa theme.  Lloyd Square, at the top of the estate, exhibits the Greek influence of young Booth's early travels, especially in its pediments, and gives a trick effect of paired villas.  All are in fact linked by advanced porch entrances with flat pillars or half-pillars - coupled between two houses, each with a small room above.  Most of the fanlights survive, consisting of seven long cylindrical panes.  All windows are squared, with lying panes.  Some doorcases retain an original circular moulding at the corners.  Two widely spaced rooms on each floor are capped by a heavy cornice and, above, a plain 'pediment', and are sliced across by a broad stringcourse.  Chimneys are centred.  While not emulating the extraordinary owl-like, bespectacled effect of Lloyd Baker Street, whose windows are recessed behind huge arches with brick mouldings, Lloyd Square is distinctly unusual.  The square tilts slightly downhill, contributing to the rhythmic fall of the estate's two axial streets, Wharton and Lloyd Baker.  Internally the houses differ, but on plan, the stairs are generally placed centrally between two rooms

7 was the original Sisters of Bethany

11 -12 are eccentric

12 is really part of Lloyd Baker Street.

21, home of the actor and producer the late Denis Arundell.

24 Home of Poulton, jurist

Alexandra Club.  In 1880-82 a House of Retreat was built for the Sisters of Bethany, the designs of Ernest Newton; since 1966 this has been the Alexandra Club (YWCA). Its window design has a slight echo of the windows of the square's houses.

Archery field house.  Just below the NW corner of the square was a small circular pond, one of the New River Company reservoirs in Hill Field.  This was later drained and two large houses built on the site.  In 1883 these were demolished for the building of a new Spa Field Chapel, for the congregation of the old Exmouth Street 'Pantheon' chapel when was replaced by the Holy Redeemer Church.  By 1938 the chapel's congregation had dwindled away, and this too was demolished and the estate repossessed the site, under a clause of re-ownership should the 'cause' fail.  After the war   Archery Fields House a small block of flats was built on the site in mildly pastiche style.

Lloyd Street

Part of the Lloyd Baker Estate – family estate

Cable House

Lloyds Row

Hugh Myddleton School. Separate Nursery School similarly detailed to the main school. Mallory Buildings?

Called after one of the Knights buried in the church

Malta Street

Named after Hospital of Knights of Malta

St.Mary of the Cross, picturesque fountain 1863. Glass school and parsonage of 1870

Partridge Court, Retired home, local Partridge family

Crayle Court, London County Council, 1960

Manningford Close

Midway House

Margery Street.

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area, which had previously been used for meetings.  In time parts of Clerkenwell, with alleys and mean infillings, became one of the worst Victorian slums, and the Margery Street area.  Built up piecemeal 1819-31 and then cleared and rebuilt in the 1930s.  Another parcel, which belonged to the Northampton Estate, built up piecemeal 1819-31 by a builder, John Wilson.  11 squalid courts which developed on the Northampton lat between Wilmington Square and the Lloyd Baker Estate was cleared in the 1920s and replaced by Finsbury's most extensive inter-war housing.  Five- and six-storey flats of 1930-4 by E. C.P. Monson.  The conventional courtyard lay-out, with polite Neo-Georgian frontages but austere backs, should be contrasted with Tecton's work.

New Merlin's Cave

Bagnigge House

Charles Simmons House

Earlom House

Greenaway House

Gwynne House

Riceyman House

St.Anne's House. 'Very superior blocks of workers flats',

St.Helena House 'very superior blocks of workers flats',

St.Philip House

Spring House

William Martin Court

Mason's Place

Merlin Street

Merlin Street Baths

24 Charles Ronan House, flats for married police.  Expressionist red brick exteriors. More individual 1927-30, by G. Mackenzie Trench, architect to the Metropolitan Police.  A rare early example of flats for married policemen.  Five storeys, around a courtyard entered through large arches with tiled voussoirs.  Drab courtyard elevations with the usual access balconies, but expressionist red brick exteriors with strong verticals ending in blocky chimneys; no period features at all

Milner Street

St Simon Zelotes

Moreland Street

King's Arms

Finsbury Mission

Moreland School 1971 similar to Moorfields.

Mount Pleasant

Clerkenwell Hill circled by the Fleet River. Sarcastically called Mount Pleasant. Site of Cold Bath Fields Prison. Mount Pleasant itself was probably a heap of rubbish, which was sent to build Moscow in 1812. Previously Called Gardeners Fields, swampy. Before 1875 called Baynes Row and Dorrington Street. Once just a country track leading to the Fleet River. 

Cold Bath Fields Prison built 1794 and closed 1900. It was originally the Middlesex House of Correction with places for 1,800 convicts, the largest jail of its time. It was a very rough institution, known as the Bastille or the Steel.

Post Office Underground railway stables, maintenance depot, blind tunnel that was supposed to go up Cubitt Street and along the Fleet Valley. Was to be an extension to King's Cross, and to office in Mornington Crescent, never built

Post Office Sorting Office. By the Office of Works converting the Middlesex House of Correction. Huge Parcel Post Office built in 1900-34 and damaged in 1943. Largest of its kind in the world, with 91 acres of floor space, and about a million parcels every week. Visitors were shown the Sorting Offices and the Post Office Railway.  1934 by A. Myers of the Office of Works. Vast.  Refurbishment and extensions Watkins Gray International, 1996.

4 Grimaldi

47-53 Georgian terrace.  A surprising survival, a modest early Georgian terrace 47-49 is the least altered, with brick bands and cornice and ornamental window heads.  The plaque 'Dorrington Street 1720' seems appropriate but is not in situ; it comes from a street near Brooke's Market

Holiday Inn replacingMounbt Pleasant Hotel, a refurbishmentpfaRowtonHousxe.

Myddleton Passage

Benyon House

Worthington House

Myddleton Square

This is the largest square in the district barring the monumental Finsbury Square, in area just outstripping Charterhouse Square.  Arguably Islington's best, and chief adornment of the distinguished New River estate, it is contemporary with Wilmington and the last part of Claremont Squares.  Design and layout were by the Company's surveyor, William Chadwell Mylne (1781-1863).  Like the rest of the estate it covered former Priory of St John property, Commandry Mantells, and Tomlins remarks that its building, with the adjoining Upper Chadwell and River Streets, "completely obliterated all remembrance of the Mantells and their former lordly possessions.” Mantell is said to be a corruption of Mandeville, the name of a mediaeval proprietor who gave the land to the Priory of the Knights of St John. The Property of the Knights was commonly known as a Commandery. The exact site was a large field called Butcher's Mantells, between New River Yard and the "Upper Pond" where Claremont Square was built, lonely enough to be the night haunt of footpads.  From 1824 to 1829 the new square appears in Sewer Rate Books under the name Chadwell Square.  By 1827, 67 of its 73 houses are recorded, a number of them still empty. Although Myddelton Square is stylistically the most unified in the area, with all houses of four storeys and basements and all its tall drawing-room-floor windows framed in sunken panels, a few minutes' study will show as much variety in building decoration as other Islington squares.  For example, while all end houses have flanking porches each pair is different.  Not all houses are of the same size:  he west side has stucco door and window surrounds, and stringcourses: the houses are stepped upwards to take the slope.  The east side lacks string courses except

3-4 disappeared during the war, enlarging access to Myddelton Passage.

11a-12a the south side, where a pend was made through to back garden the flanking houses have been given small side porches, string course and full rustication where other houses have only horizontal channelling.

18-21 the corner houses a slightly larger, with larger doorways and their piano nobile window furthermore, are rather Frenchified in proportions and have margin panes – though not all survive.

30 Plaque.  The Rev Jabez Bunting (1779-1858), "second founder of Methodism, lived there from 1833 until his death.  He was appointed Senior Secretary of the Missionary So in 1833, and from 1834-58 was President of the Theological Institute.

33 -34 and 23-30 Flatted arches to the ground floor windows and front doors distinguish them.

39 home of Giffard, scholar

39 The Rev Robert Maguire (1826-96), who lived here from 1857-75, was a   cause celebre in 1857, when an overwhelming majority elected him minister I James's Church, Clerkenwell, after a prolonged and unseemly tussle her parishioners and Vestry on the right of appointment, and a knock-out contest her several clergymen.

42 Home to Ballard – Medical Officer of Health and early pollution inspector

43-53 Bomb damage during World War II destroyed houses.  On the north side.  On it now stands this range is an exceptionally early example of facsimile reconstruct which the New River Company undertook with satisfactory results in 1947.  The rebuilt houses are distinct from the originals lacking stuccoed ground floors and having very thin stringcourses and narrow win guards; most other houses have paired balconies.

45 commemorative plaque

5 home of actor, Dibdin.  Flat no 4 home of novelist B.S.Johnson.  The actor-playwright Thomas Dibdin, who when the square was first built lived near the SW corner, writes admiringly in his Autobiography published that year, that the area "not five years since, was an immense field, where people used to be stopped and robbed on their return in the evening from Sadler's Wells; and the ground floor

60 Fenner Brockway, the first Labour peer, lived at here from 1908-10.  A plaque unveiled (by himself) in 1975. He was a a peace campaigner and early supporter of colonial freedom. Lord Brockway, as he became, died in the late 1980s just short of his 100th birthday.

61 Richard Cromwell Carpenter (1812-55), District Surveyor for East Islington, architect of Lonsdale Square, lived here from 1836-42, until 1841 as "Esq. and in 1842 as "Architect" - a nice distinction.

65 Features in films 'The End of the Affair’.

9 home of Painter, Schmit

St Mark's Church. in the centre of the square. Built 1825-27 as a chapel of ease for Clerkenwell and it is like a Commissioners' church - "the usual Gothic box of the period" or “Joke Gothic”.It’s exceptionally solid 90-foot high west tower has a fine traceried and pinnacled porch in keeping with the scale of the square.  It is stock brick  but some of the stone came from Wanstead House.  The window tracery is of iron, not stone. It was designed by W. C. Mylne, Surveyor of the New River Estate.  It was reordered in 1873 by W. Slater to create a chancel; and reseated in 1879. Originally the church had a three-sided gallery, but after serious war damage, restoration left an always-bare interior barer still.  The east window showing the Ascension, with scenes of local events, was designed in 1962 by A E Buss, of Goddard & Gibbs. On the wall at the back of the Church is a plaque recording the death of Sir Hugh Myddelton on 10 December, 1631 with the words "Engineer, Goldsmith and Public Benefactor. He brought Fresh Water to London". Features in films 'The End of the Affair’.

Myddleton Street

Chadwell Mylne himself laid out a handsome suburb on the Company's land north of New River Head, with appropriate names.

50 Buchanan medical practise 1860s.

Hugh Myddleton Junior School. Among the most interesting. 1966 for ILEA. The angled across an incoherent cleared area between Spa Fields and Finsbury Estates. Attractive sturdy buildings, of brown brick with bold timber fascia, a departure from standard types Julian Sofaer for ILEA, 1966-70. The design makes much use of golden section proportions. The Infants' School has one-store-ranges formally arranged around a courtyard; the two-storey Junior School is linked to it, and also has a small courtyard.

Royal Mail Public House.

Mr. Turner, floor cloth and table cover, mfr, fire, building, factory, japan and store room used as a drying house

New River Head

Sir Hugh Myddelton's New River was completed in 1613. Its route from Amwell in Hertfordshire terminated with a reservoir on the high ground above Clerkenwell, later known as Spa Fields. The former ponds are still open spaces, the Upper Pond in Claremont Square is now a covered reservoir, and the inner and outer round ponds of c17 origin are now dry between Rosebery Avenue and Amwell Street. Some early buildings remain. New River Head was opened in 1613 by labourers walking round it. Pumps from old engine house of 1818 raised water to Claremont Square and Crouch Hill. In 1820 the company offices based here but were rebuilt by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1920. Now all private housing.

The Round Pond formed the nucleus of reservoirs to which the New River was channelled. The work was completed in 1613. From the circular "bason" or reservoir of 1613 water was conducted to a cistern thence to smaller cisterns, and finally distributed to the City by means of wooden pipes hollowed from elm-trunks. By the early 18th century the Round Pond was ringed by a much larger, irregular pool, and they were known as the Inner and Outer Ponds. The Round Pond was abandoned in 1914 and vanished under Water Board buildings, and much of its remaining original wall was destroyed in 1976 by the Thames Water Authority to make way for prefabricated offices and car parks. Much of the Pond's sloping revetments had survived undisturbed until then. Part still remains behind the main building on the north side

The Water House.  Sluice-house and offices. On the south rim of the Round Pond what came to be called the Water House was built in 1613-14.  The original brick buildings had a steep-pitched pyramidal roof and its upper storey partly carried over a colonnade –attributed by tradition to Inigo Jones. As well as a gallery above the cistern with stopcocks for the sluices, there was a counting-house, and was home to the clerk. A later Clerk, John Greene who married Myddelton's granddaughter, enlarged the building in the 1690s, when the Oak Room was created.   Subsequently much enlarged, it became home to successive Surveyors to the Company, notably Robert Mylne (1733-1814), but was demolished y the Metropolitan Water Board to make way for the offices opened in 1920.   In 1820, the Company offices moved from Dorset Street here and Chadwell Mylne made the necessary alterations. In 1902 the Metropolitan Water Board took over the New River Company's premises and in 1913 decided to rebuild them entirely.  This ended in the obliteration of the Water House and the destruction of almost the entire Round Pond. Delayed by the First World War, the new offices designed by Austen Hall were opened in 1920, on a reorientated axis, largely covering the drained Inner Pond. The new building did, however, incorporate the Oak Room, rebuilt to face west at an angle of 90° to its former axis.  In 1987 the TWA moved to Reading, and the future of the building, and of the New River itself, came under review.

Wind pump.  Circular brick base c. 1708, now with conical roof for pumping water to the Upper Pond.   It was replaced by a horse. Water was pumped to Claremont Square by a six-sailed windmill designed by George Sorocold. As wind-power proved unreliable, and the mill was damaged by storms, two horse-gins were substituted in 1720. The brick windmill tower remained a landmark for many years and its lowest storey remains to day.

There were two c19 boiler houses.

Engine House. In 1767 an atmospheric steam engine was installed by John Smeaton, in a tall brick engine-house. This engine was at first not completely successful and was rebuilt, and replaced by one more efficient. Two Boulton and Watt beam engines were installed in 1808, for which the engine-house was enlarged - the extensions are still distinguishable – with a tall chimney, which remained until 1946. Water was thus supplied to Holborn, Islington, and Holloway.

Devil’s Conduit In the area of the former inner pond. Rather confusingly re-erected in 1927. It served originally as an extension to the White Conduit, which supplied the Greyfriars.  Handsome 14th-century stone cistern - popularly known as the Devil's Conduit - removed here in 1927 from Queen's Square, Bloomsbury.

c20 buildings of the Metropolitan Water Board facing Rosebery Avenue were converted to flats in 1997-8.

Headquarters Offices.  by H. Austen Hall, 1914-20; Neo- Georgian, with a formal entrance to Hardwick Street and angled wings and an added top storey. The Interior circulation area leads to the Oak room board of 1696-7, reinstalled from the previous offices on the site. It has sumptuous plasterwork and carved panelling, some of the best of its date in London. The ceiling is oval with a painted medallion of William III and allegorical figures, by Henry Cooke, within lushly modelled wreath and borders; charming small plaster panels of rural scenes. The fireplace is flanked in the grand manner with two big Corinthian half-columns; the high-relief watery and fishy subjects flanking the royal arms on the over mantel are carved with all the exquisite realism of the Gibbons tradition, and must surely be by him. Carvings over doors and windows as well. Now flats. Features in films 'The Innocent Sleep’.

Laboratory building by John Murray Easton of Easton & Robertson, 1938, built on a curve, with continuous first-floor windows. At the end a semicircular glazed projection for a staircase, especially handsome inside, with a blue ceiling with figure of Aquarius by F. P. Morion, and original light fittings. One of the most pleasing structures of its date in London.  Meter testing department extended in 1920s. New laboratories on site of first filter beds.  Electric pumps put in 1950. Pipes which brought water from Stoke Newington used to connect King George and William Girling reservoirs.  Seal of the Metropolitan water Board bearing the same motto as on the seal of the New River Company, which it absorbed, and two hands on either side represent a boy pour water and a girl holding a hose-pipe. On a publication by the M.W B in 1953 an old man appeared in place of the boy. The eight drops of water represent the eight water companies which formed the M.W.B. now flats.

Research Building added by Howard Robinson in 1938.

Reservoirs built in 1709. 17th and eighteenth century ponds. In the early eighteenth century the round pond had another pond inside it. 1976 vetements were moved for a car park.  Behind the main building is the old floor of the inner pond.

Surroundings – in 1898 New River Head was surrounded by the Company’s fields. Almost the only buildings within a quarter-mile radius apart from Sadler's Wells and Myddelton's Head, were an old farm-house (Laycock's, by Goose Yard), the cottages then newly encroaching on Islington Spa gardens, and terraces along the east side of St John Street.

Ring Main Shaft.  The new London water ring main passes under this site at about 45 metres underground. Construction site and access shaft. The ring main connects to these shafts at a depth of 40m

Newcastle Row

1, which has a lively blue striped-brick ground floor and projecting eaves in sympathy with nearby buildings.

Northampton Estate

Developed in the early c 19 on land around the Manor House belonging to the Earl of Northampton, which survived until 1869.  The names Compton Street and Spencer Street recall the family ownership.  Watch and clock making spread to this area from Clerkenwell, and during the c19 specialist small-scale industries proliferated.  By the c20 the minor streets had become notoriously slummy; hence the extensive rebuilding

Northampton Road

Was previously part of Rosoman Street. Thomas Rosoman was the builder of the second Sadler's Wells. It is called Northampton because the manor of Clerkenwell was a possession of the Compton family of Compton Wynyates, the head of which became Marquess of Northampton in the eighteenth century.

London, Metropolitan Archive, previously Greater London Record Office in the building since 1986. It was the large former printing works of the Temple Press, built 1939 by F.W.,Troupe and converted in 1984 to house the G.L.C. Archive and Library and remodelled by Bisset Adams.. 13 miles of books on London plus documents and of photographs.

Northampton Buildings stood, On the east side, bounded by Rosoman Street/Corporation Row/Goode Street, from 1892 to 1978 of the Artisans, Labourers and General Dwellings Co. After their demolition, the site remained open and derelict like a travesty of the old grottoes and tea gardens, which since 1984 are more appropriately recalled by an ornamental park and a playground.

35 In 1813 the Finsbury Dispensary was then the top house of the street opposite the London Spa. It contained remnants of a 'grotto garden’, which had been one of the minor showplaces about 1780.

Northampton Buildings of Artisans Labourers and General Dwellings, now Playground

Thomas Wethered

English Grotto Gardens in north east corner of Lower Rosoman Street

Mulberry Garden

35 Daily Chronicle start of News Chronicle

Northampton Tabernacle

35 Finsbury Distillery garden there

Small reservoir. At the corner of the street opposite the London Spa, to which it was at one time connected by water-wheels turned by waste water from the River Head.

Surprise

23

Northampton Square

Northampton Estate was built up on land around the Manor House, which belonged to the Earls of Northampton.  Their titles are reflected in adjoining street names. Square laid out in 1805. A former pipe- field belonging to the New River Co. was cleared of its mass of wooden pipes to form the site of the Square. The Spencer Compton family, Earls and later Marquesses of Northampton and owners of Canonbury Manor, also held land in Clerkenwell.  Northampton 'manor house' remained the family's town house until the late 17^th century, but at some time between 1677 and 1708 they removed to Bloomsbury Square in the general westwards exodus of the aristocracy from Clerkenwell - because of the lure of Whitehall and, to some extent, pressure on Clerkenwell property from City merchants and craftsmen after the Great Fire of 1666.  At that time the mansion's surroundings were known as Wood's Close estate a rural area extending beyond the intersection of Percival Street and Corporation Lane, which was then the limit of St John Street.  Northampton Square was laid out about 1805   its earliest leases dating from 1806-10.  Paving requests start in 1805.  The square's plan incorporated six radial streets, finished about 1815-18, all given Northampton family names.  In shape the square might almost be represented as a lozenge or diamond, with its four corners at the points of the compass, Like many other parts of Clerkenwell the square was before long occupied by master tradesmen and others in the clock and watch-making industry, and already by the 1830s and '40s back premises were becoming infilled by substantial workshops and even small houses for humbler residents.  This juxtaposition may have been Cockerell's policy, such as he had already adopted in the Foundling Hospital Estate, and certainly the Northampton estates did allow for occupation by a wide range of social classes.  Northampton Square continued 'respectable' until about 1900, but long before that the short leases had begun to fall in (late 1870s onwards), and buildings began to be split into tenements, while few repairs were carried out.  Shoddy workshops and hovels were run up in intervening and rear spaces, and the whole area had deteriorated into slum.  Compton was much perturbed by this evil, and even before he succeeded to the estate as 5th Marquess, he instituted improvements.  The most notable contribution to the area was the founding of a new adult education institute in 1896, appropriately named after his family.  The surviving houses are extremely pretty.  Unlike other squares, they have semi- J circular sunk panels on both ground and first floors; a continuous dentil moulding runs below the attic floor, and most doorways retain similar mouldings. 

Northampton House which before 1802 was a private asylum. It had been mansion of the Earls of Northampton on being vacated by its noble owners, at some date before 1728 became a private madhouse; a fate which befell a number of other great houses round London.  For some time it was run by Dr James Newton, a herbalist, who laid out the grounds as a botanic garden, where in 1730 a rare white lily, growing a 'cluster of roots' from the top end of its stalk, was recorded.  Of the inmates, the most notable was perhaps Richard Brothers, a religious fanatic.  A former naval lieutenant, he was first reduced to the workhouse after squandering his pay in disputing the qualifying oath, and then, believing himself a heavenly prophet.  In 1817 Northampton House became a young ladies' boarding academy, and in the 1850s, "Manor House School,” for boys.  It was finally demolished in 1869 to make way for a church.  The site was presented by the 3rd Marquess. 

Northampton Polytechnic/City University The Northampton Institute was originally a branch of the City Polytechnic In 1907 it attained independent existence as the Northampton Polytechnic Institute, and it expanded steadily, acquiring new annexes and facilities, especially in engineering, technical trades and chemistry.  In 1957 it became a College of Advanced Technology, and in 1966 was further upgraded as the City University.  The architect E L Mountford, who also designed Battersea Polytechnic, here in 1896 made imaginative use of an odd asymmetrical site - Baroque executed with Rococo flair.  At the NW corner a low wing tapers to a point with turret and cupola above, abutting on the large main building with its curly gable ends.  The assertive entrance tower, topped with a heavy-looking tempietto, is almost overshadowed by its supporting bracket buttresses, the striped drums and parapet below, and the chiming clock projecting over St John Street.  North of the entrance, the hall block is fronted with a row of pillar-like buttresses; the longer frontage southwards to Wyclif Street combines French Renaissance and Queen Anne features.  Not least of its remarkable decorations is the sculpture by P R Montford above the entrance, of figures symbolising science, agriculture, etc.  In 1966, after the college achieved university status, it was unfortunately considered necessary to sacrifice the whole north end of Northampton Square for new buildings 1966-70, by Sheppard Robson & Partners.  This large addition cut across the top corner in a straight line, obliterating two streets, and a small wing projected forward at the end.  The addition effectively turned the college buildings back to front, with the older buildings now partly used for administration, and main lecture-rooms, and students' corridors entered from Northampton Square.  City University.  The historic nucleus is Northampton Institute built in 19^th as part of estate improvements. Was an important technical institute built in 1896 by E. W. Mountford, but extended several times since It filled an awkward site with a public hall, offices and swimming pool.  Completed in 1898. Bombed and some replacements.  City University. So named from 1966.  It fills an awkward triangle between St. John Street and Northampton Square with public hall offices, workshops and swimming bath. E. W. Mountford won a competition in 1893; the building was completed in 1898. Red brick with lavish stone dressings. An exceedingly successful example of the neo-French c16 style of the moment with its fresh and playful enrichments. At the comer, for example, a picturesque composition in three dimensions: a pert little turret with its cupola, a big bold curved gable higher up, and a lantern tower as a final flourish. The main front is asymmetrical but with a central tower.   Doorway with lively figure-frieze by Paul Montford below. A Baroque curved-up broken pediment. Windows partly French c16 partly Queen Anne. Many alterations: internal courtyard built over at basement level by 1901; five-storey extensions into it, 1909. After war damage the great hall on the St John Street front was rebuilt within existing walls, the gym to its E replaced by a five-storey block (1952-8), and the swimming pool at the Northampton Square comer was reroofed. The main campus buildings by Sheppard Robson & Partners 1971-9, adjoin the Institute cutting brutally across the comer of the square and the site of Charles Street. Tough exposed concrete and dark brick, as used in their earlier university buildings but here there are no alleviating open courts or greenery, and the heavy masses do little to lift the spirit. Circulation at first-floor level. The buildings include library, students' union, refectories, lecture theatres and laboratories etc. The Centenary Building was converted from High Voltage Laboratory to lecture theatres in 1993-4.

St.Peter’s church. dismissed by Pevsner as "quite uncommonly ugly, had a high tower and was intended to be transeptal, though the transept was never completed.  Apart from its vast size, one of its chief features was the series of bas-relief panels on the exterior depicting historic martyrdoms.  There were statues of the chief martyrs in niches at the tops of the buttresses, and inside the church, tablet!  Along the walls listing 66 English martyrs from the Wycliffites onwards.  The church was heavily damaged in the Second World War, and eventually demolished in 1956, when the parish was reunited with St James's, Clerkenwell.  It was replaced by a sadly, unmemorable row of shops and flats, and Wyclif Court, a 14-storey Council block.

New River Company Behind the manor house had been a pipe-field covered with New River wooden water pipes, and their replacement by underground iron pipes enabled the release of such sites for building.

Market in the first half of the 18th century a market for the sale of sheepskins was held in the area between Northampton House and Percival Street, The Skinners' Company owned land immediately west of St John Street.  From 1792 part of the same site was used for the parish 'Greenyard', a pound for stray animals.  The Skin Market ceased about 1815, when the site began to be built over by Market Street and small lanes, all long ago disappeared.  The Council flats, Brunswick Close, adjoining Northampton Square, now cover the area.

The gardens.  Lord Compton, well before he succeeded as 5th Marquess (1897), not only made ground available for the new Northampton Institute, but also had already opened all the square gardens to the public.  1886 he conveyed  Northampton and Wilmington Square gardens to the Vestry as a gift, the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association having offered to run them for the benefit of the poor.  The Marquess's daughter, Lady Margaret Graham, had formally opened the gardens in July 1885, and at the same time a fountain for local use was erected by Charles Clement Walker, Esq., JP, of Shropshire, in memory of his mother who was long a resident in the parish.  The estate remained in the Northampton family's hands until 1949.  Was the garden of the London mansion of the Crompton family? Donation to mother of Walker, JP.  Built in 1830 on the site of a pipe field belonging to the New River Company.  Managed by Vestry of Clerkenwell

11-12 George Baxter (1804-67), who invented the "Baxter print,” a method of oil colour picture printing, and had business premises part of the destroyed range from 1843-60.

18-21 eccentric numbering, extending back into Sebastian Street, has two bays of blind windows - one with a Royal Insurance plate - a handsome back addition; its doorway, in the street.  He also an elaborate fanlight and fine Ionic/composite half-columns.

18-35 survive. This row, the longest, has a variety of good door pilasters, notably

22 double-fronted but with front door asymmetrically placed,

22-25 are unequal in size,

26, the largest with four slightly crowded bays, even has an overhead lamp bracket. The house is oddly cut off at an angle due to the angle of entrance of humble Tompion Street - of which a single small house survival attached to its grander neighbour

27 fames Clarke Hook, RA (1819-1907), portrait, historical and marine painter, admired by Ruskin, was born here and educated at the North London Grammar School, Islington. He studied at the British Museum and the Royal Academy, where he exhibited very successfully; a Radical and keen Methodist.

28, pilasters actually composite half-columns.

29, with pilasters, also has lion masks.

3-25 narrower than the rest, necessitating slim windows and panes.

35 British Horological Institute

36-29 houses are 3-storey with attic and basement, all with balconettes, and a row of characteristic workshop windows in the attics of testify to earlier. Use of some of the houses.

Bessemer lived in Northampton Square,

Brunswick Close on the site.  Development replacing slummy Northampton Estate properties in the 1950s. Three fourteen storey slabs. By Lubetkin’s assistant Franck.  1956

Brunswick Court

South corner house belongs to Sebastian Street, its fenestration, and other features slightly raised above its neighbours.  It is also the only house who circular-headed window has radial astragals, the rest, surprisingly in such a graceful setting, having the simplest type of uncompromising straight verticals.

Owen’s Row

The line of the New River. A short cul-de- sac terrace beside the Empress of Russia pub, and by a small shrubbery.

2-5 humble Georgian terraces

Optics Dept of City University in 1963 buildings, which were once part of Dame Alice Owen's Girls School.

Paget Street

Pardon Street

Was Clark Street. Site of Pardon churchyard and chapel, dates from Black Death

Passing Alley

Features in films 'The Criminal’

Pear Tree Court

A large area of Peabody housing, built in 1883 to house over four hundred people displaced by clearance of the overcrowded small courts hidden behind the houses.  A surviving c1 8 house is just visible at the back. A haunt of Oliver Twist and the Dodger.

Students halls of residence for City University

Large area of Peabody housing

Peartree Street

St.Paul's Church, bombed

Percival Street

Named after Spencer Percival

Brunswick Close Estate swept the old pattern away.  1956-8 Embenon, Franck & Tardrew.  Three bold fourteen-storey slabs, rising from leafy gardens, on a staggered plan to allow for maximum light levels.  Exposed reinforced concrete construction, with small projecting fire escape staircases ornamenting the top four storey flats.  The westernmost block has shops facing St John Street, and originally had an open way through it, a Corbusian concept which recurs in the firm's other Finsbury estates

Earnshaw House, Thomas Earnshaw, pioneer chronometer 1949

Grimthorpe House

Harold Laski House

Tompion House, Thomas Tompion watchmaking pioneer

Pickard Street

Kestrel House

Pine Street

Used to be Wood Street

Finsbury Health Centre, 1935-8 by Lubetkin and Tecton, their first public commission. One of the key buildings to demonstrate the relevance of the Modem Movement to progressive local authorities. This was the first achievement of the 'Finsbury Plan', the borough's effort, inspired by Alderman Harold Riley and Dr Katial, Chairman of the Public Health Committee, to create better living conditions for its overcrowded residents.  It has an H-shaped plan, which is two-storeyed with a pan-basement floor, and a central entrance set in a gently curving projecting wall of glass blocks, between splayed wings. It has the Borough arms over the entrance. The formality is tempered by a roof terrace to the centre, the name above in typical 1935-40 lettering. The walls are faced with cream tiles and there are glass panels and metal windows. A floating effect is achieved in the 'flashgap' - a recessed plinth between the walls and the ground, which is typical of Lubetkin. The light and airy entrance hall is given character by its curved glass wall, and originally had Gordon Cullen's health education murals on the rear walls, with a large map of London in the centre but some original furniture and light fittings remain. The lecture theatre has a curved back and a curved concrete roof. Consulting and treatment rooms are divided by partitions in the wings, where extra space and light fills the corridors. Repairs by Avanti Architects, in 1994 restored part of the exterior to its original appearance. This included asphalt reroofing, new tiles on the left-hand entrance wing, new thermolite glass panels, and the restoration of the original colour scheme of blue and terracotta to the painted concrete.

Finsbury Maternity and Child Welfare Centre

Rawstorne Street

Part of Frog Lane. The old road from London to Highbury.  The Land is part of the Brewer’s Estate let to them by Dame Alice Owen in 1613.  The Knights Hospitaller founded a hermitage in another field on Goswell Fields - the triangle between St John Street, Goswell Road and Rawsthorne Street. Here in 1610 were built almshouses for ten poor women of Islington and Clerkenwell, a chapel, and a school for poor children of the district, all by Dame Alice Owen, who had been enriched by the death of three City husband, in 1613 she conveyed the land in trust to the Brewers Company who administered the charity.

Railway tunnel between Farringdon and King's Cross blown up by bomb 10/40

Brewers Buildings. 1871. Some blocks refurbished 1968

48 St. Mark's National Schools

Amateur Theatre

Ray Street

Was Rag Street, supposed to be a mill site. Also  it was Hockley in the Hole because it was down by the river and because a lot of rough young people used to socialise there.

Ray street crossover. Tunnel below Metropolitan. Lines across widened lines. 1863 rebuilt 1960 widened lines 1860 to allow Metropolitan. Trains over old lines others go under. Eastern end mouth is 16ft lower than Metropolitan tracks and dip under the Metropolitan tracks and go onto the south side of the other lines. Metropolitan tracks went across the widened lines by a wrought iron bridge, which acted as a strut between the walls, which the cutting called Ray Street gridiron, renewed in 1892, and 1960.

Tubinsiation of the Metropolitan Railway after 1860 between November 1860 and May 62. 29 ft wide 59 ft deep. Fleet River in a pipe loft diameter. Tunnel is built on rubble in the river bed but after 1862 flooded to 10 ft. joined by the River of the Wells

Metropolitan Horse Trough

Paupers Burial Ground  was on the west side

Coach and Horses– on the site of the establishment where all the fights and drinking took place.

2

River Street

Chadwell Mylne himself laid out this suburb on the Company's land north of New River Head, with appropriate names. Features in films 'Doctor in the House’.

Rosebery Avenue

Named after Lord Rosebery, Chairman of the London County Council who officially opened it in 1896.  it has been originally planned by the Metropolitan Board of Works. The northern end comes from existing streets but the southern end was new. In the 18^th  there were small roads north of the New River Head.  In the Clerkenwell area new Victorian roads were built over available open space, incorporating existing lanes, which were widened.  The road’s  massive bridges and towering blocks obscure the steep drop to the Fleet Valley and there are 14 arches over the Fleet River. It crosses  Spa Fields, past Sadler's Wells to St John Street in the gap left by the New River between St John's Terrace and Myddelton Place. most of the buildings opposite New River Head were demolished including Eliza Place, the Sir Hugh Myddelton Tavern, and Deacon's Music Hall. At the southern end printing and publishing offices opened , trees were planted, and a new Town Hall and Fire Station were built, and there is even a tiny park - Spa Green which was created from four separate plots.  Among the demolitions was Cold Bath Fields Prison and Mount Pleasant Post Office was begun and surrounded with working-class flats.  There was regeneration in the 1990s to designs by Peter Mishcon. Features in films 'Mona Lisa’.

1-2 Ginnan

133-159 sleek and bold by John Gill Associates, 1987-9, is feebly postmodern, with brick triangular oriels with a tall glazed frontage and transparent curved stair-tower behind.

143 Kempson and Mauger enamellers

143-147 Edison

161 refurbished 1920s warehouse given a neat new steel fire escape to provide a focus at the back.  All by Troughton McAslan, 1989-91.

40 A brick house, which is a remnant of Cobham Row.  In 18^th the street went around the ‘cold bath’.  A three-storey brick house.  Cold bath commemorated in the name Coldbath Square.

44 Fire Station.  L.C.C 1911. F. T. Cooper of the LCC Fire Brigade Branch. Large, quite plain eighteen-window front, but with nice Arts and Crafts details and railings

58-66, striped brick, with two sets of hoist doors.

90 Rosebery Hall

Barnstaple Mansions

Bell

Bideford Mansions

Braunton Mansions

Cavendish Mansions.  Grim looking blocks.

Finsbury Town Hall.  An eclectically styled building, on a triangular island site,  built as the Clerkenwell Vestry Hall in 1894 to replace the old parish watch-house of 1814 and enlarged by the new Borough of Finsbury in 1899.  Site at a spot where six roads met, also opposite the London Spa but the first phase at the same time as the completion of Rosebery Avenue which it fronts.  Lord Rosebery was the local authority chair who also opened the building. It is built mainly of red brick with elaborate rubbed-brick and Ancaster-stone dressings. The architect was Charles Evans Vaughan who won the competition held in 1893. The interior was remodeled by E.C.P. Monson in 1928 but kept the original public hall on the first floor which is most notable for elaborate Art Nouveau detail and the winged female figures holding the electric light fittings... Outside is a lantern and a fanciful glass and iron street canopy. The blunt-ended rear is more Baroque; with a pediment with female figures; and carved frieze above the first floor. The Council chamber was converted in 1975 to a mental health day centre. There were further alterations in 1985.

Flats, tall mansion flats of 1892, with crow stepped gables and decorative Renaissance friezes.  Less frugal in appearance than Rosebery Square although they were intended as low-rental accommodation by their developer, James Hartnoll.

Garden with War Memorial, 192l by Thomas Rudge, a bronze angel of Victory on a tall granite pedestal which bears a plaque showing 'Finsbury rifles attacking ‘Gaza'; two other plaques have disappeared.

Greenwood House

New River Walking up Rosebery Avenue, the pavement in front of Sadler's Wells Theatre follows the former course of the New River. The water ran here in an open channel until 1891 when Rosebery Avenue was constructed and the channel was replaced with an iron pipe.

Rosebery Court.  1989. By Kinson Architects, part of the Baker's Row site prestige offices six storeys with some fancy Mackintosh-inspired Arts and Crafts detail.

Sadler's Wells Theatre.  Is it the sacred well for the Penton Hill? The fashion for combining medicinal waters with entertainment was launched by the discovery in 1683 of two chalybeate springs in Thomas Sadler's garden near the New River Head. Sadler's Wells, and its rival the Islington Spa on the other side of the River, opened at much the same time. Sadler already ran a music-house, and in 1765 this was rebuilt by Thomas Rosoman on more ambitious lines as a theatre: it survived, with frequent alterations, until 1928.  Public breakfasts and noon-tide dancing were the rage, and 'exceptionable or improper characters' were rigidly excluded. It was Mr.Sadler’s wooden music house. The New River, fringed by poplars, enhanced the area. New Tunbridge Wells or Islington Spa, opposite the Wells, enjoyed its dizziest fashion in the 1730s when royally discovered it and the Court flocked here daily. In 1765 a theatre replaced the Music House. A decline in fashion from the 1770s led to a dismantling of the Spa and despite its occasional revival, houses began to encroach. At the theatre Debden’s spectacles used water from the New River reservoir. The gardens, much curtailed reopened in 1826, but in 1840 the old coffee-room was finally demolished and the ground completely built over. Grimaldi, the famous clown, played between 1818-28. 18 were killed in a struggle over the fire alarms. Samuel Phelps produced thirty-four of Shakespeare's plays in 1844-63 as well as concerts acrobatics and performing animals, aquatic spectacles — using an understage tank filled from the New River reservoir - opera, melodrama and burlesque. After Phelps it declined to inferior music hall and then a shabby cinema.   It was rebuilt in 1931 by Frank Marcham as a home of popular opera in north London 1931 with Lilian Bayliss modelled on the Old Vic as 'a theatre for the people'.  It quickly regained its place in Londoners' hearts and the ballet company achieved an international reputation under Ninette de Valois. The theatre has since been the venue for visiting companies. The spa-well survived until this century entered from a house bearing its name since preserved in the theatre. The theatre was rebuilt as a major dance theatre through Lottery funding. 1997-8 by RHWL. Exterior by Nicholas Hare Associates. The wedge-shaped site is enclosed by tall, plain brick walls. At the end is a big glazed foyer with giant video screen. Auditorium seating 1,500; special attention to disabled access. A well survives beneath the present building. – Noel Coward was the last person to drink from it.

Spa Green.  A minute public garden made up of the remnants of the space left by the demolition of buildings for Rosebery Avenue. The north end marks the approximate site of Islington Spa.  One piece of this space came from the New River Co. and was surplus land of theirs - Pipe Fields, used to store pipes. Opened 1895, 3/4 acre.  War memorial 1921 with Victory on a pedestal.

Tall mansion flats 1832.  Less frugal in appearance than Rosebery Square

The Metropolitan Local Management Act creating the Metropolitan Board of Works in the 1850s also conferred wider powers on parish vestries.  Civic awareness brought into existence crusading newspapers such as the Clerkenwell News (1855) and Islington Gazette (1856). The former, precursor of the Daily Chronicle, started at 35 Rosoman Street in the one-time home of the Finsbury Dispensary.  With increasing circulation it moved in 1862 down the road to Myddelton House, a new building on the corner of Rosoman and Myddelton Streets and opposite the London Spa. When this was demolished in 1972 an older building was revealed behind. Nothing now remains. The paths intersecting the open fields belonging to the New River Company all became built up as streets: Tysoe Street, Amwell Street, Garnault Place.

Viaducts – hidden from view in Rosebery Avenue itself.  Pretty. Built 1890 by Westwood Baillie.  Flies over Warner Street cast iron on brick jack arches; pierced trefoil balustrades

Rosebery Square?

Model dwellings, Hartnoll buildings now St.Pancras HA.

Rosoman Place

Features in films 'Alfie’.

Rosoman Street.

Thomas Rosoman was the builder of the second Sadler's Wells. He also built a row of 'good houses' in 1756 along this rural path, previously known as Bridewell Walk. Overlooking fields, it became a favourite suburban retirement for prosperous City tradesmen. Spa-wells and gardens proliferated here, but in the late 18th century the vogue for spas declined, and the street was built over.  Not a single house survives of 18th-century Rosoman Street, which by the 1930s had deteriorated into slum tenements with shops below, and was demolished wholesale.

Myddleton House corner of Rosomon and Myddleton Street demolished 1972 Daily Chronicle

Rutland Place

Site of Rutland House Davenant

Sans Walk

The old network of passages.  Sans were a local family

Sheltered housingLevin Bernstein, 1995-6),

Hugh Myddelton School became ILEA Kingsway Princeton College.  named after the creator of the New River it was opened in 1893 under the 1870 Education Act, which introduced compulsory education and created School Boards financed from the rates. It opened as a Board School in 1874, in Bowling Green Lane. It was the such school opened by royalty, the Prince of Wales, with a key manufactured in Clerkenwell. it accommodated 2000 children, and offered free meals. It thus became a show school. now only the junior school operates, The school is on the site of the Clerkenwell prisons, and is bounded by the prisons'-outer walls, and below the ground are the cells of the House of Detention which were used as air-raid shelters during World War II. It is a massive three decker by  T.J. Bailey's built on an H-plan, with yellow terracotta decoration. The lower halls have vaulted aisles, with classrooms off them. the top hall has a mansard roof on iron trusses. There was a separate cookery and laundry building in an Annexe of 1902, built as a Special Girls' School.

School Keeper's House, three storeys, brick and stucco; formerly the prison governor's house. The boundary wall incorporates part of the prison wall.

Clerkenwell Bridewell: In 1615 a 'House of Correction' for the county was built on garden ground on the south part of the area of the school, to ease the over- flowing London Bridewell. It thus became known as the ‘Clerkenwell’ or ‘New Bridewell’ or the 'New Prison'. One inmate was Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine, who preached against the Act of Uniformity, in 1669. By the late 17th century crime had so increased so much that this prison inadequate. its conditions were increasingly bad and when the new House of Correction was built in Coldbath Fields it became redundant and was demolished in 1804.

Second New Prison was built as an overflow to Newgate, forming a House of Detention for those awaiting trial. The most notorious inmate was Jack Sheppard, who escaped from several London prisons including this. The prison was enlarged in 1774-5 and a gate built facing Sans Walk, roughly on the site of the present school gate. In 1818 it was almost rebuilt on more modern lines covering the whole site including houses, and the former Quakers' Workhouse. the high wall was then built at this time. It all cost £35,000. 

House of Detention. In 1845—6 the New Prison was demolished and rebuilt on the lines of Pentonville, by the County Surveyor William Moseley. It was a prison for both men and women. By William Moseley, whose basement survives beneath. It had prison cells radiating from a central hall with cast-iron columns. The former female corridor is accessible; roofs of shallow brick arches; warders' hall and clerk's office with granite columns.

Was Shorts Buildings

Scotswood Street

Was Newcastle Street. Features in films 'About a Boy’

Sheltered housing 1995

Sebastian Street

Was previously Upper Charles Street. Northampton Square's original six intersecting streets were mostly renamed in the rationalisation of London names in 1935.  Upper Charles Street became Sebastian Street after Lewis Sebastian, another Polytechnic Benefactor, one-time Master of the Skinners' Company on whose adjoining land it stood and Chairman of the college Governors until 1901.  This has at least survived, though many of its houses (1803-7) have been demolished.  Pre-1814 it was Taylor’s Lane.

Sekforde Street

Sekforde Elizabethan from Woodbridge. This street, the most distinctive in the area, was laid out across the Sekforde Estate on its rebuilding in the 1820s. The fairly modest houses are distinguished by the terrace’s elegant curve, varied doorways, and the copings with brick diglyphs, a rare feature in local building. The high curving brick wall (1828) formed part of the perimeter of Nicholson's Distillery. In Sekforde Street is the building where Charles Dickens had his bank account. His books are alive with references to Islington - Fagin taught Oliver Twist to pick pockets just off Farringdon Road

Myerson’s Ironworks with facade in the Greek style. Near the St john Street end of Sekforde Street: unfortunately demolished in the 1970s.

8 John Groom of the Crippleage

25 and 26 a panel infilling in 1985/6 as flatted houses, although for some reason not in the idiom of the street, is nonetheless a fair approximation to the domestic style of the New River estate.

Finsbury Savings Bank by a local architect.  Was on corner of Jerusalem Passage. Overwrought building – the splendid embossed lettering holds the Savings Bank building together  (1840) forms an attractive eye-catcher from St john Street; designed by Alfred Bartholomew (1801-45), who was mainly an architectural writer and journalist, son of a Clerkenwell watchmaker. The Savings Bank originated in 1816 at the NE corner of Jerusalem Passage.  A festive stucco front in the spirit of Barry's Pall Mall Italian Renaissance club.

Houses - Simple but nicely detailed three-storeyed terrace houses in between some rebuilt in facsimile by Pollard Thomas & Edwards after Islington had acquired the run-down estate in 1975.

Sekforde Arms

Wall of Nicholson’s Distillery 1820s terraced copy with brick Diglyphes

Seward Street

Before nineteenth century mound of earth called Mount Mill. Chapel and windmill, battery and breastwork in civil war. Levelled to make a Physick Garden on the north side. St.Luke’s burial ground.  Managed by the Vestry of St.Luke’s

South side St.Bartholomew's burial ground

Leopard 1833

22 Henry Cox, 1853.

Seymour Close?

Skinner Street

Built on Skinners' Company land, which was leased, to the New River Co. in order to store pipes. The Skinner Street Estate weas built 1968. Features in films 'Alfie’.

Skinners Well

Public library, Baroque Jacobean with an angle tower, brick building in Contrast to the early nineteenth century houses, demolished 1967, first library in the UK to have open access shelves details,

41 Godwin

35-45 Houses an isolated c18 group, straight-headed windows of rubbed brick, but much altered.

Charles Townsend House

Joseph Trotter Close

Michael Cliffe House

Patrick Coman House

Spa field Street

Was part of Yardley Street

Spa Fields

Public garden in open fields between Bowling Green Lane and New River Head. Grounds of Ducking Pond House and the Pantheon Tea Rooms.  The Fields were approached through an alley in 1895 at the back of cottages of Exmouth Street. 1816. Became the core of an area for rebuilding by Finsbury Borough, interrupted by the war. Fields, their hollows filled with springs and ponds. Here unsophisticated summer amusements took place, from rough-and-tumble fist-fights and cudgel-play to bull-baiting, fairs, and 'frightful grin' contests between old men. Not surprisingly the fields became a haunt of footpads, and link-boys were hired to light theatre-goers from Sadler's Wells back to the streets of Bloomsbury. Spa Fields were the scene of popular protest meetings during the depression and unemployment following Waterloo. In December 1816 a peaceful crowd awaiting 'Orator' Henry Hunt was purposely stirred up by a group of agitators to attempt an insurrection. Some marched to Clerkenwell and the City to raid gunsmiths' shops, intending to assault the Tower, but were dispersed after a scuffle with a hastily gathered force. 

Playground opened 1936, by Chairman of the L.C.C.  Fields managed by L.C.C.

Burying ground 1 3/4 acre and gravelled. Lay out by consent of the freeholders. 1780 brick walls. 8,000 bodies in 50 years. Marquis of Northampton drill ground for the Middlesex R.V.  1886 public garden ghoulish stories of the place. In the 1780s land was leased from the Northampton estate for a Nonconformist burial ground, and within half a century had been so indiscriminately filled with graves that it was estimated to contain 8000 bodies, nearly four times what it could decently hold. Ghoulish disclosures were made of the repulsive details, for like Bunhill Fields and most London churchyards it was still in use. Only after sensational publications, powerful local agitation and a petition to Parliament were burials stopped. In 1886 the two acres were convened to a public garden.

The Pantheon and Spa Fields Chapel. Duck-hunting was pursued in Spa Fields at one of the local 'ducking-ponds'. In 1770 Thomas Rosoman removed a small tavern named Ducking Pond House and let the land to the builder of the Pantheon, one of the last and least successful places of its kind in the area. The fashion for which it sought to cater was really past, and condemned for 'infamous company' it was closed in 1776. Soon after, it became a chapel for the pious Lady Huntingdon's Methodist 'Connection'. The extraordinary domed building, copied from the much grander Rotunda in Oxford Street (and a long way after the Pantheon in Rome) was said to hold 3000 persons, having two huge circular galleries

Sadler's House part of Spa Green Estate

Spa Green Estate

Site of Islington Spa.  Opened by Bevan on 26/7/1946, Finsbury Borough Council ambitious rebuilding scheme. Lubetkin and Tecton with Ove Arup. Most innovative public housing in England with many novelties –monolithic box structure, refuse system, aerofile roof profile, etc.  Incomparable modernists. This is the finest of the estates successor firm of Skinner and Lubetkin. The clearance area by the 1930s Plan, an ambitious scheme for borough-wide rebuilding, which was halted by the war.  The original plan proposed a spine of eight-storey blocks ranged along Rosebery Avenue, with lower housing complete with parks and amenities.  First plans were made in 1937 by Tecton, then also busy with the Finsbury Health Centre.  Their revised and reduced scheme of 1946 for the Estate was built in 1946-50.  Three blocks of flats, n two of eight storeys, one of four.  The lower one is on a curving plan, which does much to humanize the group and tie it in with its surroundings.  Executive architects were Lubetkin and Skinner, the structural engineer, was Ove Arup.  The flats were the most innovative public housing in England at the time, with many novelties, both structural  -an early example of monolithic box- frame construction of in-situ concrete, the first Garchey refuse disposal system in London - and social the ingenious aerofoil profile of the roof canopies on the tall blocks, designed to channel wind through the clothes-drying areas.  The elevations too depart from the monotony of standard pre-war flats.  The tall blocks, Wells House and Tunbridge House, are planned as a pair, with their bedrooms facing inward towards a landscaped area.  The outer sides are deliberately livelier: plain brick-clad vertical panels, containing the living-room windows are divided by a syncopated rhythm of inset balconies with grey ironwork against inner walls painted Indian red.  Fanciful curved canopies to the central porches and the curved ramps on the inner sides are typically wayward Lubetkin touches.  The four-storey Sadler House has a different version of rhythmic facade patterning, with alternating balconies contained within a tile-faced frame.  Refurbishment in 1978-80 by Peter Bell & Partners included extensive retiling and restoration of much of the original colour scheme.  Later decorative iron grilles; lathe lift extension to Sadler House was added in 1987

Greenwood House

Sadler House. Different version of rhythmic façade patterning

Wells House. Planned as a pair with Tunbridge House. Bedrooms facing in to a landscaped area

Tunbridge House.   Pair with Wells House

Tiverton Mansions

Spencer Street

Name relates to the Northampton Estate family ownership

St James Close

Three Kings. near Lenin's office. 18^{th .}   site of hostelry of nunnery.  Features in films 'Dance with a Stranger’ as the Magdala.

St John Street

Ancient thoroughfare leading from Smithfield to Islington and the north. Built to replace Roman routeThe long climbing length of St John Street was for long regarded as the first part of the Great North Road, a circumstance which dates from the days when the drovers came this way, bringing their cattle to Smithfield to feed the population of the great city. Road to St.John's priory. Used to transport market garden produce. The New River crossed it. The ground level begins to descend to the 50-foot terrace level of the City. Because of its heavy traffic, in the 19th century it contained 15 taverns on the east side and 8 on the west. Until about the 1820s the built-up area ceased at Percival Street, and beyond this was known as St.John Street Road.

1 Hicks Hall.  Sir Baptist Hicks was a wealthy and influential silk-mercer of Cheapside.  He was knighted early in the seventeenth century, subsequently made a baronet and finally a peer, Viscount Campden.  He was appointed Lord Mayor.  In 1609 he bought the manor of Campden in Gloucestershire.  He died in 1629.  Before the reign of James I Middlesex magistrates habitually administered justice in a tavern-room near Smithfield.  The growing inconvenience of this led to their obtaining from the King land north of the market with licence for a permanent building, leaving space for a carriageway on either side.  Here Hicks at his own expense built a Sessions House of brick with stone dressings, and this was opened in January 1612, named Hicks Hall in his honour.  It contained a room where bodies of criminals were publicly dissected.  Famous trials here included that of the 29 regicides (1660) who had affirmed the death sentence on King Charles I.  The Hall, dating from about 1610, was partly intended for the use of the justices at Sessions and partly as a Bridewell, or house of correction.  It fell into ruin and By 1777 was much decayed and, rather than rebuild so near Smithfield a new one was erected at Clerkenwell Green and the old hall demolished in 1782 and replaced in 1780 by a new Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green.  No trace of Hicks's Hall now remains although F E Baines states that ‘a wall tablet still indicates in some detail the site'.  It stood just north of Smithfield Meat Market at the point where St John's Lane branches from St John Street.  Its persistence a seemingly undistinguished point in the City, as the place from which measurements of the northern roads were made is at first surprising.  The demolition of the Hall in 1780 made little difference to its importance as a reference point. This was the more infuriating to explorers who more often than not, failed to find the site of the former landmark; in 1840 for example, a Barnet schoolmaster Jedediah Jones, who was researching on milestones in the London area, gave up in despair his attempt to pin-point the site of the Hall.  Its site was never built over, and remains open as the widest part of St John Street.  The traditional road to the north, whose starting point has long been placed at Smithfield in the City of London, and which leaves the Capital via Islington, climbing the North London heights at Highgate to Finchley.  But the classic used by all the road books of the coaching age, was Hicks's Hall.  Hicks's Hall. The most important of the ten or so points in London from which were measured the Great Roads of Britain.

1, plain apart from some polychrome brick and a panel with the address.

3 Built as a butcher’s shop and offices by W.Harris 1897.  More flamboyant Tall Free Gothic gable facing Smithfield, and a skyline embellished by quirky chimneys and flourishes.                             

11 Stephen Bull Restaurant, 1992 Morrison.  Whose sentiments are at odds with the theatrical place making often embedded in interior designers. As Bob Allies commented. 'We've avoided doing things if driven by fashion.' All of which makes the restaurant the more remarkable. It strives substantiality and to employ language of space, light and simplicity plus some strong colouring demanded. Bull's demonstrates a consistent layered and interpenetrating components and volumes affecting architectural detail. You see it in the contrived volumes of entry passage, and suspended mezzanine; in the strong patches of wall colouring; in the metalwork details of the security gate (becoming an A+M trademark) and the slim flatness of the hand railing. Minimalism is offered as considered refinement rather than a reductive influence.

11-13, a site long empty, rebuilt 1987 as offices by Campbell, Zogolovitch, Wilkinson & Gough.

13-19 Meat store

18-20, a late c19 warehouse with hoist between two big Gothic arches, and an oculus in the gable above.  Patrick Donovan Late 19^th

22 is a tiny two-bay c18 house; redbrick with flush windows; note the 2nd-floor window's unusual fluted architrave.

24Italianate warehouse ingeniously opened up, with c19 Italianate front of three bays, was ingeniously converted in 1986 by D. Y. Davies Associates: the ground floor was partly opened up, exposing the iron structural columns; a passage leads through to glazed showrooms in a bridge over the yard behind

24a back land warehouse.

26 Farriers with ceramic horses.  Stephen Bull restaurant c19

30a dairy built by George Waymouth. Dairy scenes on ceramic lozenges

34/36 Farmiloe. Striking Victorian frontage. Lead and glass manufacturers. An Italian Renaissance 'palace' 1868 by Isaacs, an especially striking Victorian frontage; eclectic Italianate with busy stucco dressings.  Four storeys, with ornate cornice and decoration over the round- headed first-floor windows.  The plainer c19 buildings which follow make an effective foil. The crescent shaped block has a fine Victorian facade with offices and showrooms at the front and a warehouse behind. Amongst other things the firm traded in lead glazing and the manufacture of leaded cathedral lights. Inside, the warehouse has closely spaced cast iron columns so as to bear the weight of lead once stored there. It stands as a reminder of a once important London industry.

38-40 Vic Naylor. Features in films 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’,’The Mean Machine’.

40 -42, brick, four storeys; brick

44-46 1877 stucco with row of six arched first-floor windows.

57 White Bear 1899, one of the now few pubs, with a fine brick frontage and stone dressings, in a florid 17th-century Dutch style.  A highlight.  Terracotta panels and curved gable

69-73 good group with a nice shop front.  Late c1 with a good early c19 Ionic pilastered shop front

71 Stephen Bull's Bistro

72, an early c 19 survivor with first- floor windows under arches, suggest show much of the street must have looked in the early 19th century

78 fine Gothic warehouse 1886.  Probably John Lawson brass founders.  Five storeys, with three storeys of loading bays contained within a Gothic arch with traceried top lights.  Now offices,

80-88 suggests how much of the street must have looked in the early 19th century.

80 good first-floor ceiling, with a new entrance reached down a passage.

82-84, earlier c1 altered, 

86-88 Café Lazeez. passage through to Hat and Mitre Court early 19^{th  .} Features in films ‘The Criminal’.

89 Gedge & Co., 1885

90 is dated 1926; tall and narrow, with windows grouped in a frame.

94-100 Stepney Carrier Company Garage

99 elaborate free classical with curved gable, one of a group of narrow frontages in the stretch leading up to Clerkenwell Road.  This was laid out in 1870s; contemporary with it are the SE and NE comer blocks, with moderate Italianate trimmings.

103 Bros. Castings ltd. castings and precious metals.

115-121 Mallory Buildings.  Replaced slum properties 1906.  Effete courts around the edge of St John's Square, 1906.

122 Lee clock maker early c19 with nice shop front.  Domestic survivals

137-157 stretches from Percival Street to Sebastian Street a bold 3 storey composition in red brick, which looks c 1910

145-157 tall ungainly 1970s offices.  Better balanced.  

148-154 four-window office range.  In red brick and terracotta

156 –162 Allied House.  HQ of Allied Brewers, the largest in Europe. In 1970s including wines sprits etc. 1961 merger of Tetley Walker, Ind Coope and Ansells also Harveys, Showerings of Babycham, Britvic, Coats, Gaymers Whitways etc. and two Dutch companies - d'Organjeboom and Rude. 8 breweries in all in 1970s.  Brewery offices.  With rusticated brick ground floor with an archway; splendid Rococo-inspired metalwork on the timber gates. Terracotta panels between the two upper floors.  Behind, a wedge- shaped counting house and office, 1876, restrained classical, but with whimsical Moorish doorcase.  Vast fermenting House and offices, Tuscan-pilastered.

158-173 faience faced simple classical 1920s offices for Pollards.  Showroom and factory by Malcolm Mans.

181-185 some of the sequence of Nicholson’s Distillery.  18^th closed c. 1970, mostly of c. 1873-four storeys, grey brick with windows, cornice and segmental pediment one centre bay on a corner.

187-191 low archway through to Hayward’s Place

201 Nicholson’s Distillery Buildings 1828, austere and grand

236 industrial building used by City University.  1860s

238 Building which used to be the George and Dragon.  Tiles, George 'Finch Marylebone' in the outside stonework. 1889 rebuilt 1901 

376 Barnes enamellers

370, was formerly the Clown Tavern,

Barclay’s Bank built as London Joint Back 1871.  First more sober dated 1871, by Lewis Isaacs, a proud stone- faced palazzo, four storeys, elaborately detailed, with bowed comer oriel.

Bull Yard site of Richard Burbage theatre and pit.  Corner of site of Nicholson’s was theatre. Allen and Pepys, Used by the Queen's Men. Very vulgar audience. Survived the Civil war and Cromwell. First to reopen in the restoration with 'Alls lost with lust'

Cannon Brewery on this site from mid c18; much rebuilt in 1893 by Bradford & Sons, damaged in the Second World War and closed in the 1960s.

Charles Townsend House.  Called after member of Finsbury MB and Labour Party 

Clumsy pastiche of George terrace 1980 replaces Myerson’s Ironworks

Connaught Buildings, for City University with lecture theatres, offices etc., in a converted industrial building.

Cross Keys with stone in the wall about Hicks Hall

Crown and Woolpack collection of jugs and cups became Japanese Canteen. A policeman hid in a cupboard to spy on one of the meetings of Lenin and Trotsky Unfortunately he didn't understand Russian

Eagle Court cleared for building in the 1980s boom,

Emberton Court

Empress of Russia. named after Catherine the Great. 

Finsbury Estate 20^th.  The last of Finsbury's major rebuilding schemes, completed only in 1968, after the borough had become part of Islington.  By C. L. Franck of Franck & Decks, successor to Emberton, Franck & Tardrew.  Four housing blocks, freely grouped to the realigned sweep of Skinner Street; two blocks of four storeys, one of nine and one of twenty-five.  The taller blocks have reinforced Concrete frames, and are in shades of grey, with blue spandrel panels to the tallest.  The different buildings interlock to a greater extent than in the firm's earlier work, a characteristic of the three- dimensional planning current in the 1960s.  A covered car park is included, and also a Library crisply black and white, with a -two-storey glazed front respecting the line of St John Street.  There is a vista through the ground floor of the tower block beside it, but the bulk of the car park compromises the view.

Flats Tall LCC flats over shops, five storeys and attics in austere grey and yellow 

Gilbert & Rivington printers

Goose Yard

Gun Alley

Hicks Hall demolished in 1780 but little difference to its use as a datum point, often not clear where it was.  Baptist Hicks was a silk mercer, 17th century, a knight, from Campden, A great man and lord mayor. Replaced by new sessions house. Plaque on a wall about it. Where St John's Lane branches to St John Street. Great North Road where distances of the mail coaches were measured from. First bit of Great North Road. Used particularly by the cattle drovers.  Where distances of the mail coaches were measured from.  Family house, 1868, Powler

Institute eclectic baroque, 1894-6.  Exceedingly successful example of the neo-French 16th century of the moment with an appreciation of a playful enrichments

Library - Finsbury Reference Library.  Local history section. 1965 part of the surrounding estate. Intended as central library for Finsbury.   By C. L. Franck, 1965-8. The two-storey curving front respects the line of the street, emerging from beneath a tower block. Precast units in black and white, with large glaze entrance to a broad foyer; a public hall, children’s library and the main library behind, the latter given character by generous window and suspended barrel ceiling. Replacing the library in Skinner Street of 1890 by Karslake Mortimer.

Mulberry Court

Northampton Institute.

Peel Meeting House

Scholl's head office

St John of Jerusalem. On site of old Cannon Brewery. Part of Ind Coope Head Office. Name from the order of St John. Brewery building is a landmark.

St.John's Mews

Tunbridge House part of Spa Green Estate

St.Helena Street

Part of the Wilmington Square area - Cromwell criticised the builders of this "handsome assemblage of edifices" for allowing it to be "nearly environed with streets of a most mean and narrow character", especially an alley between 35 and 41 feet to the north, "between the rear-yards of one line of houses and the little front gardens of another ... a waste of the intermediate ground which so alarmed its proprietor, that he has since (1826) erected another row of houses ... between the former ones"  - probably St Helena Street.  In time parts of Clerkenwell, with alleys and mean infillings, became one of the worst Victorian slums, especially St Helena Street, whose houses were actually back-to-back, was among the most notorious.

St.James Walk

Was previously called Hart Alley and when it was partly built up post Restoration it was known for obvious reasons as New Prison Walk. It was renamed in 1774 and called New Walk.  Most of the houses are from that date and part of the Sekforde estate housing developed in 1827.  The leases granted then led to extensive rebuilding. Features in films 'About a Boy’.,

Clerkenwell Parochial Sunday School 1828 built on the site of an earlier one of 1809, and a charitable infant school opened in the same house (1831).  The architect was William Lovell, a Pentonville surveyor, and in 1858 the house was raised by one storey by William Pettit Griffith.  Griffith's father John Griffith lived in St John's Square.

St.John’s Lane

This was the main approach from the City to the Priory of St John of Jerusalem, across the open plain of Smithfield ('smooth field').

36 High on the wall near the south end of the street, is a cross, believed to indicate that the site was once property of the Order of St John. There is also a parish boundary plate dated 1797.

28 near the Gate, next to Passing Alley a stone inscription reads: 'this building was partly destroyed by German aircraft on the 18th December 1917. Restoration completed 1919'.

The Baptist's Head: A tavern owing its name to the mediaeval priory formerly stood on the east side of the lane, opposite the north side of Albion Place. Here chained prisoners in convoy from the Sessions House to Newgate Gaol were allowed to halt and drink a stoup of ale. When the inn was demolished in the 1890s a fine late Elizabethan fireplace was removed to St John's Gate

St John's Gate – On of the most distinguished buildings, and almost the only one to survive until our times, was Prior Thomas Docwra's handsome gatehouse of 1504, opening towards the City, still very much in the Gothic style and resembling a college gateway.  It was the main gate to the Priory of St.John.  Built by Prior Thomas Docwra in 1504. For the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, better known as the Knights Hospitallers, an order of chivalry founded late in 11th century at Jerusalem. Its headquarters were later moved to the island of Rhodes and then to Malta (1530-1798).  The priory, built about 1148, soon after the establishment of the order, was burned down by Wat Tyier's rebels (1381). Site went to Henry VIII at Reformation, used as a storehouse and blown up by Duke of Somerset. Stone used for his palace in the Strand, Mary I restored the church. Under Elizabeth used for play rehearsals. Buildings given to the Duke of Northumberland, some kept by the Crown as a store. Became a chapel for William Cecil, various other owners. Hogarth's father's coffee shop in the gateway. Johnson lived there. Became a watch house and the Old Jerusalem Tavern, council office of the masons. 1845 dangerous structure restored, 1877 1931 back to the Order of St. John, by then Protestant - Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. St John's Ambulance launched 1958. The room over the gate was once occupied by Edward Cave, the founder 1731 of the Gentleman's Magazine, to which Johnson and Garrick subscribed. It continues to be known as the Council Chamber, and contains 15th-century altar-paintings looted from the priory church at the Dissolution and rediscovered in 1915, and interesting relics of the Knights Hospitallers. The annexe on the south-east of the gateway was added in 1903 by J. Oldrid Scott. On the north side of the gatehouse are the arms of the order and Prior Docwra restored. . The main entrance to the former Priory was built in 1504 by Sir Thomas Docwra, last Prior but one before the Dissolution. Under Queen Elizabeth I the Priory buildings were used as the office of the Master of the Revels, and later the Gate was for many years the home of the Gentleman's Magazine, whose editor Edward Cave was visited here by Dr Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick and many others. It subsequently became a watch-house, a tavern and the offices of a Masonic order. In the 1840s the stonework had become so eroded that demolition was threatened, but it was saved and restored by a local architect, William Pettit Griffith. In 1874 the Gate was re-acquired by the modern Order of St John to become their headquarters. The Perpendicular-style addition on the south side, designed in 1903 by John Oldrid Scott, contains the Order's Chapter Hall, offices. Gatehouse to the inner precinct, built 1504 by Prior Thomas Docwra, had a chequered career after the Dissolution; in the c18 it was offices and printing works for the Gentleman's Magazine, in the c19 the Old Jerusalem Tavern. 1874 it became Headquarters and Museum of the revived Mo Venerable Order of St John. Restored in 1846 by W.P. Griffith, 1873-4 by R. Norman Shaw, and then from 1885-6 by.  Scot who was involved in a ten-year programme of restoration, adaptation and building, including new offices to the SE (1901-3), and new Chapter House (1901-4). The gatehouse has an archway with room above, flanked by four-storey blocks. These have main room on each floor with garderobe projection and square stair-turret. The dressings are of Kentish rag, much restored, with inner walls of brick; those within the archway have some brick diapering. Archway with star-shaped tierceron vault main window above of three lights, battlements of 1846 with additions of 1892-3. Stair-turrets with small Perpendicular doorways, reset to allow for the raised ground level. Scott additions 1901-3 are in matching Perpendicular, with a broad doorway planned for ambulances. The interiors are largely in Scott's Neo-Tudor, with plenty of panelling. His Chapter Hall has big Perpendicular fireplace windows with heraldic glass, and a grand timber ceiling with central lantern rising above supported by well-carved stone angel corbels. On the same level is the Council Chamber in the room above the archway. This has a fireplace of c. 1700, panelling 1900, and more heraldic glass 1911 by Powells. Roof with lantern of 1885-6 inserted above early ci6 trusses with coarse openwork panelling. In the wing a late c17 closed-string staircase with bulbous balusters; pretty plaster motifs on the soffit, added in the l860s. On the second floor a fine late c16 stone fireplace, from nearby Baptist's Head, formerly the town house of Sir Thomas Forster. Tapering pilasters, lintel carved with fruit, deer and other animals. The wing stair-turret has its original timber newel stair. It leads to Shaw's library, with big Tudor fireplace dated 1874.

Dundee Buildings

Eagle Court Board School 1874

St.John’s Lane

Board School 1874, extended 1894. Plain, two L shaped blocks, tall chimneys and gables.

St.John’s Square

St John's Square was in origin no more a true 'square' than was Charterhouse and both grew up on the site of monastic foundations.  The Priory founded in the 12th century, as English headquarters of the Knights of St John or Knights Hospitaller, eventually comprised a massive church, a great hall and Prior's lodging, and several smaller buildings.  Its main entrance was on the south, a towered gatehouse opening on the area north of Smithfield.  In spite of the empty courtyard implied by Hollar's etching of 1661, the Priory enclosure now outlined by St John's Square must from early days have contained tee-standing and lean-to buildings, as well as gardens and plots.  The Great Hall, more than 100 feet long, with a grand staircase, stood at the enclosure's North -East angle immediately south of it the church, in its entirety, must have extended well across the court n, and a good way down.  At the Priory lived two Priors, one of the English Langue of the Order, the other of Clerkenwell who ran the church; also the Preceptor or administrator.  There were a number of knights; some resident, others visiting the city on Order business, or Bounding the Court besides three Chaplains and 15 other clergy.  Royalty and nobility took up the right to hospitality.  Other residents were the Keeper of the Keys, and certain guests, who were entertained at the Prior's table.  Humbler but vital members of the permanent community included the cook and servants, dispensary workers, a janitor, a laundress -one of the few women - attorney and his clerks, and the Procurator-general's staff.  Outdoors were a brewer, millers, a pig-keeper, and slaughterer.  It was a populous and busy establishment.  Important Royal or state visits were made to the Priory, when its courtyard was hidden by monarchs and high prelates.  One such occasion was in 1185, in the reign of Henry II, when the Order's Grand Master Roger des Moulins, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, were there during this visit the Patriarch himself consecrated the Priory's new church with its circular nave.  Not many years later, in 1212, King John was the Prior's Lenten guest, and on Easter Sunday he knighted Prince Alexander of Scotland, son of King William the Lion - who later became King Alexander II.  Of the buildings round the courtyard, most had been destroyed in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, when the then Lord Prior, Sir Robert Hale, was the particular object of revenge by Jack Straw and his followers.  He was beheaded by the mob at the Tower of London, and the great Priory Church and other buildings burnt.  During the next century and a half, however, the Priory was substantially restored and beautified, and he original circular church replaced by a new one with a rectangular nave.  Indeed »y 1540 the Priory was at a pinnacle of wealth, splendour and power, and besides the handsome church the courtyard contained the Grand Prior's and Sub-Prior's edgings, dormers for priests and yeomen, and an armoury, distillery, counting-house, slaughter-house, laundry and other offices, and a schoolhouse.  Dotted about were a wood yard, orchard, and gardens with a fishpond, and a burial ground.  Some locations can only be matter for conjecture.  Once the predators moved in much of the priory was dismantled.  By the 1550s King Henry's successor Protector Somerset had ordered the church nave to be removed and the stones used for his own new palace in the Strand, Somerset House.  Chancel and crypt, however, survived, serving in turn as chapel, library and wine-cellar, until in 1723 they were restored by a merchant named Simon Michell for use as a parish church for the new parish of St John, Clerkenwell.  The new church was the occasion of great opposition from the old, St James's, so that St John's never became completely independent and did not control its own rates.  Michell, a JP, was in fact very unpopular, and on his death his coffin was stoned.  Monastic properties after their dissolution were usually shared between rapacious couriers, who often built themselves fine mansions on the site, and this was the immediate fate of the rest of St John's Priory.  Queen Elizabeth I's Master of the Revels was soon housed in the main buildings, as was, under Queens Mary and Elizabeth, Sir William Cordell, Master of the Rolls.  In the reign of Charles I came-Lord Burleigh, and several knights and widowed ladies, such as Sir Francis Lovel Sir Thomas Pelham, and Lady Sekforde.  Later was Sir William Fenwicke, a Parliamentarian and member of the Long Parliament.  Noble inhabitants in Charles II's reign included Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle, one time Ambassador to Muscovy and Scandinavia; Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, whose distinguished political career ended with his implication in the Rye House Plot and Horatio, 1st Baron Townshend.  The fashionable world, however, was moving westwards to the restored Court at Whitehall, and the square's population, although still well-to-do, became more broad based.  Well into the 18th century it continued an expensive area to live.  Only after the turn of the century, with the sharp rise in population, was its status among the well off threatened by the creation of more modern residential areas such as the New River Estate.

20A large house on the inner, SE corner of the passage, shown in Storer's 1828 engraving of St John's Church, was occupied in 1816 by the Finsbury Savings Bank (then no.), until its removal in 1840 to the building in Sekforde street which still bears its name.

21-24 the distinctive character of the Square and surroundings had now long been industrial, ranging from watch- and clockmakers and ancillary craftsmen to printers, engravers and paper firms.  Later came platers, gilders, and other non-ferrous metal workers, and Smiths themselves were to transfer to the latter capacity, moving from the clock making corner to the opposite range: (nos.21-24, now 49-52).

27 with a front of 1876 by R. Norman Shaw for Sir Edward Lechmere.  Red brick, five storeys, with two levels of dormers.  Linked to the priory by an addition of 1903.                               

33-38 Clerkenwell Green Association Workshops

36-44 Bishop Burnet's House 36 and later 44, was the house of the famous Bishop Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715): a rambling two-storeyed, three-gabled mansion "lighted in front by 14 square-headed windows", its forecourt planted with trees and shrubs, and with large gardens behind.  Steps led up to a large entrance portal with a carved entablature borne on Tuscan columns.  Inside, the rooms had handsome chimneypieces carved in relief, one containing a grate with a bas-relief dated 1644, of Charles I riding over "the Spirit of Faction" - a prostrate female - surrounded by pillars, bay wreaths, scrolls and a crown.  Two lead cisterns belonging to the house, dated 1682 and 1721, survived at least until the 1860s.  Burnet, a prolific author, notably of the History of the Reformation in England (1679-1714), and a History of his Own Time (1724-1734), was in 1689 appointed by William III to the Bishopric of Salisbury, but after active participation in politico- religious factions he retired to a quiet life in Clerkenwell, though his continued friendship with great men such as the Dukes of Marlborough and Newcastle the latter a Clerkenwell neighbour, drew many listeners to his Sunday evening lectures here.  The most notable event of Burner's occupancy was during the Sacheverell riots of 1710, when the Bishop witnessed the mob pretending support for Tories and High Church in their destruction of the contents of the former Priory church, because e t was then used as a Dissenting chapel.  Burnet died at his house, almost pen in hand, on 17 March 1715, and at his burial at the church of St James's, the ill-disposed mob threw din and stones at his hearse.  Late in the 18th century Burnet's house was occupied by Dr Joseph Towers (1737-99), a humble Southwark bookseller's son who became a printer, bookseller, dissenting minister, and honorary Edinburgh LLD (1789).  He was a prolific writer of tracts, compiled a British Biography, and contributed to Biographica Britannica.  Towers, who preached at Newington Green Chapel, was arrested in 1789 as a free-thinker, but his; powerful connections secured his release without trial, and he died in St John's Square possessed of many honourable friends.  Burnet.  The square's 18th-century prosperity was undermined when City merchants built new houses farther north, in rural surroundings within sight of the villages of Hampstead and Highgate, and the old mansions became multi-occupied tenements.  Many Tudor or Jacobean houses survived, in decay, until early or even mid-Victorian times.  Already in 1817 the Gentleman's Magazine had illustrated Burner's former house as divided into two such tenements, with the addition of first-floor bay windows; and a double row of small lodgings had been built in the one-time back garden approached through an arched passage known as Ledbury Place beside the former mansion's front door.  The south half of the house was occupied by the parish clerk and undertaker, the north by a "Hearth Rug manufactory.”  By 1859, when Pinks was writing, the large, high rooms had themselves been partitioned to form 23 mean dwellings for families and small manufacturers - shoemakers, box-makers, frame- makers, stay-makers - and the original staircases had been replaced.  The back gardens filled with the poor cottages, and even the forecourt by small shops. 

36A has a defaced date plaque of 1850 giving the builder's name, James Brown

45 adjoining Burnet's was a similar mansion belonging to John and Theodore Clarke, printers, sons of the Rev Adam Clarke, who was Professor of Greek at Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College.  He was born in Londonderry of English parents, and worked closely with John Wesley, by whom he was ordained in 1782.  While visiting London he used to lodge with his sons here if Clerkenwell.  He died at Bayswater in the first cholera outbreak, but was buried of the grounds of the City Road Methodist Chapel, near to John Wesley       

47, early c18 refaced in the c19, stand on late c16 brick vaulted cellars with a four-centred arch, probably remains of post-Dissolution buildings constructed within earlier outer walls which may have belonged to the priory bell tower demolished in 1550.

47-52, a row of late 18th-century houses on the north side, gutted in 1987 for reconstruction as offices for Smith & Co. behind the facade, except in the cellars, where excavation revealed remains of limestone walls of St John's Priory.

48-52 Most houses built in the square in the 16th-18th centuries incorporated rubble from the Priory foundations, if not actual walls.  In 1845 the architect W P Griffith, an inhabitant of the Square who was commissioned to restore the then crumbling St John's Gate, recorded 7-foot walls with splayed window openings under the North range - possibly the base of the 300-foot-high church tower, as described by the historian Stow.  Cellars and basements of houses in this range coincided with foundations of the tower, of ashlar and chalk rubble core.  Excavations below the same buildings in 1986 (the present nos.) revealed well-preserved courses of limestone walls and fairly regular chalk blocks, and a doorway probably dating from approximately the beginning of the 13th century.  At the rear were well-preserved quoins within an original door, and windows, which may have included one that Griffith had found.  In 1862 Griffith noted that the arch of the new East-West main London sewer, which passed under the south of the square, had been partly built with stone from the Priory.  A typically utilitarian Victorian ^Approach to the then considerable surviving mediaeval relics.

49-50 Gregory was presumably the builder in 1781 (formerly nos.21-24) the NW corner - today the square's oldest surviving secular buildings.  Only facades remain

49-52 from the Gate and the main body of the church, the oldest relic was until 1986 the row of houses 49-52 occupied by Smiths, 49-50 late 18th century and 51-52, early 19th.  In 1986-8 these were gutted, leaving only the facade behind which the interiors have been reconstructed for offices, although in fact nothing original remained above ground level.  Excavations by the Greater London Archaeology Unit, as pan of a general historical research into the Priory's history, revealed a fair amount of the mediaeval structure among the foundations.  Smiths' original factory premises in the NE corner, on the site of Aylesbury House, were also gutted in 1989, when extensive archaeological excavations were made

51-52 was the home of the Finsbury Dispensary, founded in 1780 to relieve sickness among "the labouring and necessitous poor.”  In 1805 they removed to St John Street, and thence elsewhere before settling in Hayward's Place.  The St John's Square lease had run out, and rather than restore dilapidations, the owners rebuilt (1806).  This was the building used by Doves the printers as their offices.  Other printers also established themselves in this row, and later John Smith and Sons removed to the whole range.  The distinction in date is visible in the facades, which are all that remain only facades remain 1806-7.  Behind, all was rebuilt c. 1990.

52 was from 1757 for many years the printing works of Gilbert and Rivington, printers to the even older firm of Rivingtons the publishers.  Of this prolific family, with a dozen and more children in each generation from the early 18th century onwards, several sons entered either the publishing firm in St Paul's Churchyard or, later, the St John's Square printing office.  Alexander Rivington, founder son of Francis, the second-generation publisher, was famed as "Printer and Scholar,” and superintended the production of many learned publications.  He retired in 1868.  ' In the 1870s, after acquiring an extensive plant of Oriental type, Rivingtons became England's chief Oriental printers.  The firm removed in 1901 to their Little Sutton Street works, and subsequently became Clowes and Sons Ltd.

84, a later c 19 'flat iron' block, is topped off with attic workshop windows.

Chapel.  Beyond the Clarkes' house Wesleyan chapel was to be built in 1848, by a congregation, which had formerly met in nearby Wilderness Row.  It had a seating capacity of 1,300, and cost £3,800, and was designed by James Wilson of Bath in Decorated Gothic style, with a four-light window on its main east front towards the square.

Coach and Horses survives as a 1960s rebuilding.  Now a modern pub has a long history, having been rebuilt more than once.  In 1785 one April morning it was totally burnt out - astonishingly leaving unscathed the timber houses on either side, separated only by narrow alleyways.

Crypt of St John's.  The crypt has its gruesome effigy of Sir William Weston, the last Prior. The King's Master of the Revels was ensconced here in Elizabethan times. It was his job to license plays before they were performed - an early censor - and many of Shakespeare's and Marlowe's plays were licensed here. Later still, it was the home of one of the first British magazines, the Gentleman’s Magazine, under the editorship of Edward Cave, and has connections with Goldsmith and Garrick, and  Dr Johnson. This was one of the places where "Scratching Fanny,” the supposed Cock Lane ghost, claimed to display itself in 1763, but in this case failed to materialise.  The mysterious noises were eventually exposed as a fraud practised by the young daughter of William Parsons, officiating clerk of St Sepulchre's, who was gaoled for a his part in it, but had meanwhile cleaned up a small fortune from the curious crowds who flocked to the area to be entertained by this nonsense - including Johnson and Walpole, who like many others were disappointed of the sensation.  "Scratching Fanny's" coffin in the crypt was shown with many others to interested visitors, well into the 19th century.

Shop everything else was rebuilt in the late 19th century or later.  One of the oldest surviving buildings is the shop, date-plaque 1856, at the corner of Albemarle Way

Gate House, a glass and tile egg box replaced an 1849 Methodist chapel in the Gothic style demolished as redundant in 1957

Heritage Centre

House adjoining the SW corner was in the late 18th century the property of Mr Gabriel Gregory, carpenter, who in 1780 obtained permission from the Paving Commissioners to remove the North Postern in order to rebuild his house, thus leaving the south entrance to this narrow passage "open from the ground to the sky".  Accordingly the two gates were demolished and the passageway left open, as it is today.

Jerusalem Court, narrow and winding, was entered from the east side of the square by an archway, and incorporated pan of other ancient mansions, cut off from light by houses in Albemarle Street (now Way) to the south.  Rather improvidently, tall model dwellings were erected on the north side of this Court: "very unhealthy,” observed a Special Committee in December 1888, "without through ventilation, and such as should never have been built.”  Inspectors and medical officers referred the case, and half a dozen others, between Sanitary Committee and Vestry, making recommendations, while the wretched inhabitants still endured the abominable conditions.

Little St John's Square continuing westwards, beyond these relatively humble properties we reach further grand houses.  The odd extension, or "little square", at the north-west corner of the enclosure came into the hands of Dudley Lord North, through his son John's first wife, hence was sometimes known as "North's Court".  In 1708 this property was described as "a pretty area of new brick buildings, lately erected", and "a set of fairhouses, making three sides of a square" (that is, as an extension of the main 'square' presumably on Lord North's property.  Two of these were offices of Dove's, the printers (no.22 and later 21)

Memorial Garden.  Lord Mottistone paid. Garden of Remembrance on site of chapel. Outline of the church still in St John’s square. Site of church marked in bricks in the pavement. Round nave of a military order.

Methodist chapel demolished replaced by Gate House

Museum of the order of St.John.  The Museum in the gatehouse preserves many carved fragments, especially from the ornate late c12 chancel, and from large oriel windows of the late c15 or early c16. In the early c16, prominent members of the Priory staff had houses in the outer precinct; from one of these may come terracotta fragments, possibly of continental origin, found in excavations in Albion Place in 1990-4.

Penny Bank Chambers (1879), part of the Clerkenwell Road scheme, was built as a good example of model dwellings: it was restored as craft workshops in 1975.                                                  

Princess Alice pub, called after the disaster

Priory Church was left a shell by incendiaries in 1941, its 18th-century interior destroyed.  It now has a reconstructed facade containing a narthex in front of its 18th-century west front, and a plain interior within three later 15th/early 16th-century walls.  Only the 12th-century crypt was untouched by bomb

Site of St.John’s Priory.  Occupies the site of the courtyard of the priory. North postern until 1780. Sum given by Henry VIII to attack the Turks at Rhodes in 1182. Priory of St.John founded 1140 on land from Briant. Founded by Jordan Briset, Augustinian order of the Knights of St. John. They had a hospital for the sick in Jerusalem with lots of wounded crusaders in it. Lots of them joined the order with the black cross on a white background. Theoderic came to London with lots of knights and marched through the city with banners and spears to Clerkenwell - red cassock and white cross as military dress. As soldiers they undertook privateering activities and captured Rhodes, which was their headquarters. The Clerkenwell church had the round nave of a military order in 1522 Sulieman the Magnificent had captured Rhodes and the Knights had fled to Malta, so the London monks went there too. 1540 dissolved and the Prior died of a heart attack. The Duke of Somerset blew up the tower and used the stone to build Somerset House in the Strand. Crypt of St John

Smith & Co., makers of clock components (founded 1780), established their factory in 1812 on the site of another fine mansion, birthplace in 1727 of John Wilkes, the politician.  The firm, now non- ferrous metal Stockists,

St John's Gate, 1845 then a tavern, came under threat and was declared unsafe.  The architect W P Griffith luckily intervened to save it, and a substantial restoration was undertaker, including the creation of a new set of fake crenellations for the parapet.  In 1874 the Gate was, as we have seen, re-acquired by the revived Order, later the Most Venerable Order of St John, and has since served as its headquarters and (later) also as its Library and Museum.

St John's Square evolved from the inner courtyard of the priory; part of the court was regrettably lost to Clerkenwell Road, which now cuts it off from the medieval gatehouse in St John's Lane.  The priory buildings, used by the Office of Revels in the c16, began to be replaced by individual houses from c. 1630.  By the mid c19 these housed numerous specialized craftsmen, especially jewellers, watchmakers and printers.  The side of the square still has a pleasing c18 appearance.  A small open space, cut through by Victorian Clerkenwell Road, succeeds the mediaeval St John's Priory court surrounded by peripheral buildings. Of these only St John's Gate and the shell of the church remain above ground. Many of the Priory buildings survived until at least the late 17th century, occupied by members of the nobility. Large private mansions then replaced them, e.g. Bishop Burner's house on the west side, swallowed up in 1879 by Clerkenwell Road. From there in 1710 during the Sacheverell Riots, Burnet witnessed the Ann-Dissenting mob sacking St John's Church, at that" time used as a Presbyterian chapel.  Tudor old road started here and up.  Old Road to York Road, Maidenhead Lane.  37 years before 1826.  Wesleyan church, Gothic next to the gateway given to the London Mission Centre after 50 years.  Area of the court of the priory

Near the gate stands an old-world smithy; Smithfield's horse-drawn traffic provides plenty of work

St. John's Church 1185, consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.  1140 and 1180.  Destroyed in 1380 during the Peasants Revolt.  Rebuilt on the site of the priory church perpendicular. In 1723 and given a new west front and cupola. The parish church for Clerkenwell until 1931, then became the St.John's area church, bombed out in 1941 and now a simple hall inside. Church very dramatic quality unsurpassed. W.Taylor. St.John the Baptist. Altar. Plate, monuments. Paintings taken during the dissolution are back. Modern looking church. Many monuments.  Parts of the choir walls were incorporated in the 18th-century building; the original church had a round nave (as usual with the Order of St John) the outline of which is marked on the ground in the Square. In 1931 the church reverted to the order, but it was very severely damaged in 1941 by incendiary bombs. Rebuilding was begun in 1955 to designs by Lord Mottistone, and includes a public garden surrounded by a memorial cloister. Below the chancel survives the original Crypt, is a major 12^th treasure, the three west bays of which are pure Norman work of about 1140, while the two east bays and the side chapels were completed about 1170. . The nave of the Priory church has been twice destroyed. Its original circular nave, burnt out in 1381 during the Peasants' Revolt, and now marked by a double row of cobbles, was replaced in Perpendicular style to a rectangular plan. After the English Order's suppression in 1540 it served various uses, including as a private chapel. In 1723, restored at the expense of Simon Michell, it was given a new West front and a cupola, and used as a second parish church for Clerkenwell until 1931, when the modern Order of St John acquired it as their Priory church. The building with its elaborate Georgian galleries and fittings was entirely burnt out by incendiary bombs in 1941, and was subsequently restored as a simple hall church. The original crypt, however, has withstood fires, wars and bombs and is one of London's very few surviving 12th-century`buildings.  The exterior gives little sign that the crypt is one of  London's major c12 treasures. It lies below a choir, which was rebuilt in 1721-3 as a plain Georgian parish church, reusing parts of the medieval outer walls. After gutting in the Second World War the church was restored and extended in 1955-8 by Seely & Paget, and one sees first their one-storey Neo-Georgian elliptical narthex enclosing a new entrance for the crypt, and an early c18 wall visible above, of red brick with stone pilasters. The part of the medieval church has disappeared; it consisted in the c12 of a circular nave, inspired by the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, as was the practice of both this Order and the Templars. This was replaced by a more conventional aisled rectangle before 1381, when the church was sacked during the Peasants' Revolt. Both replacement nave and a massive tower added c. 1500 were destroyed by Protector Somerset after the Dissolution, to provide building material for Somerset House, leaving only the choir standing. Inside the narthex, a 020 double stair, intended for processions, descends to the crypt. On each side is visible the start of the curved c12 wall of the round nave, with bases of two c12 internal pilasters. The crypt is of two dates. The unaisled mid-c12 part has three bays with simple rib vaults and plain transverse arches, and a fourth bay where only springers to the vault survive. The ribs appear to have had applied plaster enrichment with chevron, originally painted red. The late c12 enlargement (probably complete at the consecration of 1185) added two bays, which extend transeptally for one bay on one side and two on the other.  These parts have the more elaborate mouldings of the late c12: triple-shafted responds, ribs with triple rolls, the centre one keeled, and transverse arches with pronounced angle rolls, transept is a vaulted chamber, from which the early c12 exterior wall is visible: ashlar-faced with pilasters with chamfered bases. The crypt was restored and refitted by J. 0. Scott in 1900-1 and 1904-7. Font Octagonal on a renewed quatrefoiled base. From the Preceptory at Hogshaw, Bucks. – Altar Frontal, embroidered with figures in ovals, Italian c1, brought from Florence. – Stained glass early c0, by Nicholson. - Monuments Sir William Weston, Prior of St John, 1540, emaciated corpse wrapped in a shroud and placed on a flat rush mat; a fragment of a larger tomb whose Gothic canopy is known from drawings. - Knight of St John, assumed to be Juan Ruiz de Vergara, proctor of the Langue of Castile in the Order of St John, originally in Valladolid Cathedral.  Given in 1914. Alabaster.  Recumbent effigy with sleeping son or page. Of a quality unsurpassed in London or England. Convincingly attributed to the Castilian sculptor Esteban Jordan. The pedestal was designed by C. M. 0. Scott, 1916.    The post-war church has a frugal whitewashed aisleless interior. At the end, responds of former aisles: late c1, with keeled shafts, four major, eight minor, important evidence of Transitional Gothic forms in London. Perpendicular windows. Two corbels high up relate to the former c18 gallery. Reredos.  Two big carved corsoles and a panel with cherubs' heads.  Early c18 doorway. In the Museum, two fine painted wings from late c15 Flemish altarpiece, formerly in the Priory church. The area of the church was laid out as a memorial garden after the war, approached through a Tuscan archway below a caretaker's flat. On the side of the church, blocked openings are visible between stone buttresses restored in 1907-8.  Some decoration, perhaps from the time of the early c16 Docwra Chapel which stood near the church. A cloister arcade. In its centre a Crucifixion by Cecil Thomas, 1951 with flat terminal panels in an Eric Gill tradition.

The Knights Hospitallers' Priory of St John, a wealthy establishment which became head of the Order in England, was founded c. 1144 by Jordan Briset or Bricett, a Suffolk landowner who held property in Clerkenwell.  Its precinct, covering about six acres, was bounded by Turnmill Street, Cowcross Street, St John Street and Clerkenwell Green. Within this, an inner precinct was entered by the gatehouse in St John's Lane, leading to the church in the present St John's Square the two brutally separated since the 1870s by Clerkenwell Road.  Gateway and church are the chief survivals, but scattered evidence of medieval foundations has been found beneath buildings in and around the square

Wesleyan Chapel, untouched by the 1879 roadworks, was burnt out in 1941 in war damage, temporarily reopened in 1949, but finally closed and demolished in 1957.

Wilkes's House Possibly a little to the east of Aylesbury House was one owned by a rich maltster, Israel Wilkes, father to the celebrated Radical politician John Wilkes, who was born here in 1727.  House and business were inherited by John's brother Heaton, who or before 1747 built a distillery adjoining it to the east.  John Wilkes is known have visited his brother's house as Alderman, at least in 1770.  From 1783 until 1810 the tenant was Francis Magniac, a famous merchant and goldsmith, and Colonel of the Clerkenwell Volunteers during the Napoleonic Wars With Daniel Beale who traded with China in musical automata and fancy mechanical clocks.  Later the premises became a warehouse for Dove's, the printers, whose offices and printing works were in the range of houses at the opposite corner of the square Actual ownership of the mansion and ground passed in 1793 to the Walpole family.  Eventually the house was demolished and the property acquired by J Smith and Sons, another clock making firm.  John Smith had begun as a manufacturer of watch and clock glasses, but in 1845 extended to actual clock making and built here the largest clock factory in Clerkenwell.  All branches of craftsmen were employed and all manufacturing processes covered, from brass founding to clock making and from seasoning timber to clock-case making.  Next door to Smith's the newly founded British Horological Institute, briefly had its offices in 1859, before moving to purpose-built headquarters in Northampton Square

Tompion Street

Was Lower Smith Street.  Became Tompion Street, appropriate enough for the area, though now a token name, being mostly destroyed in the war, and given way to topographically unrelated Council blocks.  Northampton Estate development.

Topham Street

Triangle

Maisonettes 1970s for the GLC. Overbearing. Replaced low rent scheme for the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, Compton Dwellings 1872.

Tysoe Street

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area, which had previously been used for meetings.  Peculiarity in the diagonal entry, whose line was determined by one of the network of old field-paths crossing New River land.  When bricks and mortar superseded fields, the new Clerkenwell street pattern crystallised the line of six old paths converging on what became the junction of Rosoman and Exmouth Streets.

Three Crowns. Supposed to be called after James I who united three crowns.

Upper Rosoman Street

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area which had previously been used for meetings

Vineyard Walk

Attempt to grow grapes. Then a pleasure ground 'Mont Plaisance'

Wakley Street

8 National Children's' Bureau

Walmsley Street

Northampton Square's original six intersecting streets were mostly renamed in the rationalisation of London names in 1935.  Lower Charles Street became Walmsley Street, after Dr Robert Walmsley d.1924, first Principal of the new Northampton Institute; but it disappeared under the 1966 building extension Lower Charles Street was originally an earlier lane Taylor's Row, 1792-4, renamed in 1814.

Warner Street

Coldbath fields. Huskisson and Towers fine chemicals

Chiappa building there with signs up. Empty

Warner House

Coach and Horses neo Jacobean 1900 – site of Hockley in the Hole Bear Garden.

Whiskin Street

Wilmington Square

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area, which had previously been used for meetings.  Wilmington Square was originally to have extended to Margaret Street; some houses appear in 1818 map as "building.”  Cromwell notes in 1828 that it was still unfinished, and presumably for financial reasons would be "completed in a form more circumscribed than was at first determined on, and with houses of a less lofty character" Accordingly the square was reduced in depth, with its north side built well short of Margaret Street, in 1829-31 Its style is simpler than the downhill south range, and of one storey less, achieving an equivalent skyline by a raised basement, above which is a pedestrian terrace adjoining the centre garden.(It could not be served by a road, for the road now ran behind the terrace. The west side was completed, though hardly occupied, by 1829, but is already shown in the 1828 map.  Curtailment of the square meant that it was tucked away in what was a backwater - until 1970s traffic management included it in a main lorry route.  Wilmington Square has come through war and social change not entirely unscathed. The square belongs to the group with 'unrelated terraces', like Canonbury.  Except for the slightly higher ground, and the reconstructed corner, all are of four floors plus basement.  The earlier side is fairly standard, stuccoed ground floors with circular-headed windows.  The somewhat heavy quality of this terrace is a reminder of what must have been the oppressive effect of Holford Square.  Back gardens disappeared long ago, when Wilson's John Street, incorporated as a terrace into Rosebery Avenue in the 1890s, and damaged in the Second World War, was rebuilt in the 1950s as Council flats.

1 end house sports a pediment.  Most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

1-5 is individual.

6-7 in the centre have balconies with continuous anthemion motif, nos.

8 door now recessed.

8-11 have been reconstructed laterally since the war, damaged in the war have been rebuilt and combined laterally, with a single front door.

10 1835 the Rev. W J Hall, whose book of psalms and hymns sold 4 million copies, lived here

1-12grand south terrace appeared only in 1824.  Much the most elaborate on the South side, all ground floors stuccoed and with circular-headed windows. The three centre houses and one at either end slightly advanced, rusticated, and with circular-headed first-floor windows as well.

12 is canted out to adapt to the diagonal entry of Tysoe Street.  In the late 1830s Wilson, its builder, occupied this house.  Oddly it had only a parapet with a wreath, reconstructed 1989 with a very basic pediment and, alas, no wreath, but a small pediment on the centre block, adorned with crossed laurel branches, harmonises this lopsidedness.  The stringcourse is raised to the base of the second-floor windows.

13-14. 1825, are distinguished from 15-21 only by their balconies.  Below the bedroom floor is a cornice, but no string course.  Panels inset below the ground-floor windows bring their bases down to threshold level.  Appeared only in 1824.

15-21 appear in Horwood's 1818 map, as "building"

18-21 have an interlaced design.  Now joined horizontally

20 The east side early became offices, and in 1888 Aubrey Beardsley was working in the office of the District Surveyor here.

21 the door and hallway extend to Merlin Street.  Front door double-panelled with circular mouldings, railings halberd with urn terminals.  Most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

22-24 destroyed in the 1930s for rebuilding as part of the austerely impressive Expressionist Police Flats block

25 On the end wall of blind windows break up the brickwork expanse. Most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

25-37, its entity as a 'terrace' is marked only by slightly advancing end houses and distinguishing them with round-headed first-floor windows.  Along its high pedestrian walk, has only three floors and basement, and like the other side has panels below the windows, and double-panelled doors, though without the circles.  Windows have individual balconies; some on the ground floor have window guards.

27 Herbert Spencer had run an office as a railway engineer here, quitting it for philosophy when the firm derailed.

31Its entity as a 'terrace' is marked only by slightly advancing the centre

37 most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.

38-39, the short range north of Attneave Street, were completed only in 1840, and in the 1960s were condemned as unsafe and rebuilt by the Council approximately in facsimile with a single central front door.  Tactful rebuilding flats behind replica fronts matching the square.  The centre not filled in until 1841.

40-47 approximately balancing the opposite nine of 13-21,

40 most of the end houses on all sides having 'extended' front doors.  Some have window guards rather than balconies.  The chief difference from the E side is the stringcourse between first and second floors.  Nos.

Gardens.  Managed by the vestry of Clerkenwell.  In 1895, when the neighbourhood had long been densely populated.  Lord Compton in the name of the Marquess of Northampton presented the square gardens, covering almost an acre, to Finsbury Vestry for public use.  With seats and flowerbeds it soon became an attractive and much needed small park.  This was at a time when its "uninteresting" early-19th century architecture was dismissed by contemporaries as the "hideously inartistic style of that period"

Wilmington Street

Another parcel, which belonged to the Northampton Estate, built up piecemeal 1819-31 by a builder, John Wilson.  11 squalid courts which developed on the Northampton lat between Wilmington Square and the Lloyd Baker Estate was cleared in the 1920s

Woodbridge Estate

A surprisingly complete early c19 enclave.  It belonged to the Sekforde Charity, used also to endow almshouse at Woodbridge, Suffolk, and was laid out from 1827 by C. Cockerell, surveyor to the charity, and his assistant.  Most of the building took place in the 1830s-40s.  Two new streets, Woodbridge Street and Sekforde Street, replaced a warren of small buildings that had grown up within the outer precinct of the nunnery.  The Sekforde Estate/ Woodbridge Estate was owned by Sekforde, Elizabeth Cooper and Master of the Guard of Recruits, by Christopher Saxon, Elizabethan surveyor.  There is an almshouse in Woodbridge where he was buried.  The Estate was built and the mansion demolished 1767.  Almshouse sundial in the six bits of 60 year lists, 1826 no act for leaves. Revenue of estate intended for the aged poor in Woodbridge. Developed the streets around.

Woodbridge Street

Woodbridge House in the angle of Woodbridge and Sekforde Streets.  The Sekforde (Woodbridge) Estate This land was owned by Thomas Sekforde, an Elizabethan lawyer and Master of the Coun of Requests. He was a patron of Christopher Saxton, the great Elizabethan surveyor and mapmaker. Sekforde retired about 1581 to an estate in Clerkenwell whose revenues he bequeathed to an almshouse he founded in his native town of Woodbridge, Suffolk, where he was buried in 1588. The estate was subsequently built over and the large mansion demolished, and in 1767 the almshouse governors divided the land into six pans on 60-year-leases. In 1826 a private Act of Parliament was secured for granting new 99-year building leases. Sekforde Estate was bounded by St John Street, Aylesbury Street, St James's Walk, Corporation Row and the wall of the House of Detention. Early lessees included two large distilleries, one of them Nicholson's (founded 1815), which in 1970 vacated the St John Street premises. The high boundary wall in Woodbridge Street dates from 1828. Woodbridge House, which still has the look of a small country mansion, backs on to the angle of Woodbridge and Sekforde Streets. Built on one of the original plots, it belonged at one time to George Friend, a gentleman-dyer to the East India Company, who erected his dye-houses nearby. The Clerkenwell Vestry Clerk, William Cook, acquired the property in 1807 and, hoping to renew the lease, removed the timber dye-houses and rebuilt the mansion for £4000, only to have a further lease refused. From 1848-70 the Finsbury Dispensary operated here: it had been founded in 1780 to provide free medicines for the poor and was housed variously in St John's Square, St. john Street and King Street. Woodbridge House's odd situation backing on to the corner was caused by the lay-out of Sekforde and Woodbridge Streets in 1828 Much of the NE range of Woodbridge Street, which had become ruinous or even destroyed, has been successfully reconstructed in facsimile by the Borough Council, and the other houses sensitively restored. The western leg of the street, long gutted for industrial use, has been restored behind the facades.

Yeoman's House is a private development of offices and units in a yard behind this range.

Old Woodbridge Chapel. built by Independent Calvinists in 1824 and in 1833 became it Clerkenwell and Islington Medical Mission, In  1898 it was bought by Water Cress and Flower Girls Mission – which became John Grooms.  It has a simple brick exterior, the front with round-arched upper windows, in keeping with the contemporary housing of the Sekforde Estate Galleried interior, reconstructed in the c19, now floored.  Features in films 'About a Boy’.,

Used to be pub called Noah's ark

Bank

Red Bull Theatre, contemporary with Shakespeare's Globe and Edward Alleyn's Fortune Theatre, once stood in Red Bull Yard, on the corner site of Nicholson's premises. Alleyn was among those who acted at the theatre, and Pepys is known to have visited it.

Wyclif Street?

Was Lower Ashby Street.  Northampton Estate.  Partly survives.  It was named after Castle Ashby, the Earls' Northamptonshire seat, and its eastern half.  Is now plain Ashby Street, while the western portion was renamed Wyclif Street in 1935.

35-36 British Horological Institute.  From 1860 -1978 rebuilt were the headquarters of the Institute, founded in 1858.  In this building, signals from Greenwich Observatory were received twice daily. The Institute removed in 1978 to Upton Hall, Newark.

Vicarage.  Built on the site of the Northampton Manor House, survives, serving for St James's.    

Wynyatt Street

Leases dating from 1800.

Moorgreen House

Southwood Court

Yardley Street

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area which had previously been used for meetings

Old peoples flats behind Victorian frontage.

Wilmington Armsoorgreen House

Southwood Court

Yardley Street

Spa Fields' had an association with radical activity, until streets covered the area which had previously been used for meetings

Old peoples flats behind Victorian frontage.

Wilmington Arms