• Village Islington

    Amid the cafes, estate agents and fashionable shops of Upper Street, today’s Islington has some clues to its rural and agricultural past. It was a different place 250 years ago. People came to enjoy the cleaner air and escape the City of London. It was a major route out of London and was dominated by ... Read More

  • Barnsbury’s Bygone Businesses

    A wander from Angel to Caledonian Road following a trail of evocative signage and advertisements for trades and brands of the past in this leafy residential area of Islington. Find out about beer retailers, chemists, instrument makers, garages, hardware, insulation and so much more

  • Local London Guiding Day

    The contribution to the day from Clerkenwell & Islington Guides is: From Archers to Wizards Meeting point: Outside Angel tube station, by the benches in front of NatWest bank, Islington High Street, N1 8XX. Five hundred years of Islington history told through the people who influenced politics and culture. Meet the man who gave us ... Read More

  • Canonbury Tower Tour

    Canonbury Tower Tour

    Canonbury Tower was built in the late 16th century and is a rare survivor of Tudor domestic architecture in London. The Tower was added onto a manor house built in the early 1500s as the country retreat of the Canons of St Bartholomew’s Priory in Smithfield. On this 90-minute tour you’ll see the existing Tudor ... Read More

  • Promenades, Punks, and Pints of Port: Islington’s Lost Entertainments

    Angel station

    On this two-hour tour we'll be walking through the many ways that Islington has met that most unusual of human needs: the need to have fun. Fun, like all culture, is subject to the whims of fashion, and Islington is littered with traces of activities and institutions that have gone from ubiquity to obscurity. We'll ... Read More

  • Canonbury Tower Tour

    Canonbury Tower Tour

    Canonbury Tower was built in the late 16th century and is a rare survivor of Tudor domestic architecture in London. The Tower was added onto a manor house built in the early 1500s as the country retreat of the Canons of St Bartholomew’s Priory in Smithfield. On this 90-minute tour you’ll see the existing Tudor ... Read More

  • Promenades, Punks, and Pints of Port: Islington’s Lost Entertainments

    Angel station

    On this two-hour tour we'll be walking through the many ways that Islington has met that most unusual of human needs: the need to have fun. Fun, like all culture, is subject to the whims of fashion, and Islington is littered with traces of activities and institutions that have gone from ubiquity to obscurity. We'll ... Read More

  • Meet the Guides

    Would you like to become a Clerkenwell & Islington tour guide? This is an opportunity to find out more our next Clerkenwell & Islington Tour Guiding course starting in January 2024 and what it's like being a local tour guide. Our guides (including the course tutors) will take you on a taster walk to show ... Read More

  • Islington’s Big Screens – a cinematic walking tour

    A stroll through more than 100 years of Islington cinema-going; all between Angel and Essex Road stations. We’ll encounter Victorian showmen, architectural wonders and tales of bad behaviour in the stalls. Come to discover hidden gems and hear what a night ‘at the flicks’ was like decades before multiplexes. In addition to such landmarks as ... Read More

  • Evolving Islington

    Discover how Islington developed from a rural settlement and centre for dairy farming into the diverse, bustling area it is today. In 1086 the Domesday Book reported that Islington contained just 27 households. Today its quarter-of-a-million residents live in an area that boasts world-class cultural venues but also less green space than any other London ... Read More