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 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
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 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
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
Finsbury Park station is at the meeting point of three London boroughs – Islington, Hackney and Haringey. Now a busy intersection between several railway lines and two lines on the London Underground it was originally just a small, almost unnoticed, pause for the mainline trains of the Great Northern Railway as they cut across the … Read More
This discreet wall plate on a school in Bath Street, Finsbury commemorates the ‘French Hospital’, founded in 1718. Then this Islington Borough green historic plaque marked the adjacent site of the rather more sinister-sounding City Pest House, established in 1593; sadly, it appears to have been mislaid during some recent building work. Bath Street … Read More
Introduction The area of Finsbury has a strong connection with Medicine, and to start off, here is a post that looks at the Bethlehem Hospital – in the City of London, but just outside the Moorgate. The hospital led to many Doctors and Physicians living in the area around Finsbury Circus, and this led to … Read More
Squeezed tightly into the corner where Carleton Road meets Tufnell Park Road is the unusual building shown above. Known as The Rock Tower, it has a large circular central section, with attached structures of various shapes and sizes, and a separate bell tower – now linked to the building by a modern extension. The Rock … Read More
If you happen to find yourself in Barnsbury on a Tuesday afternoon, then I can recommend a visit to London’s smallest nature reserve. This is Barnsbury Wood and it has equally small opening hours; just 2-4pm on Tuesday afternoons (although slightly longer in the month of August). The wood is the creation of George Thornhill … Read More