Amy Levy, Pioneering Author

Out on the eastern most edge of Islington, on the border with Hackney, is an area known as Mildmay and, within it, the last resting place of the ashes of a notable young poet, novelist and essayist: her name was Amy Levy.  Today, if you wish to discover where she is located, you will have … Read More

Front of modern Angel Underground

Angel Tube Station

ANGEL TUBE STATION In our second Blog we are going to the tube station at the other end of Central Islington, Angel station. One of Angel’s claims to fame is being one of the light blue properties on the Monopoly board sharing the colour with Pentonville Road, also in Islington, and Euston Road. The station … Read More

Local shopping at the Broadway, Highbury Park

Highbury Park forms the middle section of the road that links Stroud Green to Canonbury, the sections at each end named Blackstock Road and Highbury Grove respectively.   On the western side of Highbury Park, either side of Sotheby Road, there are two elegant terraces of shops. Remnants of a vitreous enamel sign at the southern end show this was created as The Broadway, Highbury Park, part … Read More

Finsbury Park -What’s in a Name?

Finsbury Park is at the north-east tip of Islington and unusually the area is named after the large park, not the other way around.  The park itself was formally opened in 1869 – now Grade II listed it was the first municipal park to be authorised by its own Act of Parliament. It’s a long … Read More

A short pub Crawl in Archway

Archway has a number of pubs which date from the late Victorian period, when a change in licensing laws and the expansion of population in the area led to the building of ‘watering holes’ over a period of about  25 years up to 1899. So there is a range of architecture and internal design from … Read More

Copenhagen House and Fields

Copenhagen House Copenhagen House was a famous tavern & tea-garden which stood in what is now Caledonian Park, N7, from the early 17th century until 1855.  As a pleasure garden it attracted Londoners keen to take tea, play skittles or fives (an early version of squash, said  to have be invented here), watch boxing (and … Read More

Thomas Britton, the Musical Coalman

Born in Northamptonshire in 1654 and came to London as a boy to be apprenticed for seven years to a ‘vendor of small coals – charcoal’. He set up his own business in Jerusalem Passage. Passionate about music, a musician and book collector, Britton starts London’s first Music Society. Accessible only by a rather rickety … Read More