Caledonian Road
This posting is of the north east quarter of the square
Post to the quarter square to the south Barnsbury
Post to the quarter square to the south west Ladykillers
Main square to the west
South east quarter square Camden Town
South west quarter square Camden Road
Main square to the east
Quarter square to the north east Highbury Corner
Quarter square to the north west Arundel Square
Islington and Highbury Corner
Armour Close
Four houses by London Borough of Islington by HFI Architects. Housing Design Award winner 2010. Shoehorned into an old garage site.
Atlas Mews
This is part of the London Borough of Islington’s Westbourne Estate which was designed by Eric Lyons Cadbury-Brown Metcalf & Cunningham and built in 1976. It provided 268 houses, 132 flats, a sheltered housing, a community centre, a medical centre and shops. It replaced terraced housing.
Balmoral Grove
Trading estate in a cul de sac which once had terraced housing. It is now being redeveloped with mixed use units including housing.
Blundell Street
6 The Old Brewery. Now Quarto Publishers. This is part of the site of Crosse & Blackwell's vinegar brewery. It was converted in 1990 by Stewan Moss of Bennett Moss Construction from a 19th stable block putting an atrium in the mews yard.
Brewery Road
Crosse and Blackwell vinegar brewery. This was entered from the south side of the road and dated from 1876. Crosse and Blackwall, pickle manufacturers, based in Soho Square may have taken this over from bankrupt Gerrish and Brown. It was extensively rebuilt in the 1881 but was burnt down in 1907. It included oone of the largest vats in the world holding 115,000 gallons
Bride Street
Part of an area owned by Pocock family members in the early 19th and named them after their City coal wharf. The area was known as Pocock’s Fields.
95 The Jolly Sisters. Pub. This was called the New Queens Head until 1999. It was built pre-1850 and was a Whitbread House.
62 St Giles Christian Mission on the site of the congregational chapel. This was originally founded in 1860 at Seven Dials. It moved to buildings of the Arundel Square Congregational Chapel in 1935. The chapel was partly rebuilt and became a centre for religious and social work, lectures, meetings etc
60 Arundel Square Congregational chapel. This began in a temporary chapel in 1861 in York Place, Barnsbury. The Arundel Square church and school opened in 1863 and was later expanded. It closed in 1931 and was used by free Baptists 1931-1935, and then sold to the Saint Giles Christian mission
Caledonian Road
This was a turnpike road built on the line of an old lane by the Battle Bridge and Holloway Road Company. It was initially a toll road. It was first called Chalk Road but changed its name for the Royal Caledonian Asylum,
Pentonville Prison. This is a Category B/C men's prison. It was designed by Col Joshua Jebb, Royal Engineers first Surveyor General of Prisons, in association with William Crawford and Whitworth Russell for convicts awaiting transportation. It opened in 1842 and was the second national prison to be designed and built by the Home Department. It had a central hall with five radiating wings, all visible to staff at the centre called ‘the separate system’. It was a depersonalized, mechanized, centralized and integrated system. Prisoners were forbidden to speak to each other and mental disturbances were common. It became the model for British prisons. Executions were carried out here from 1902 until 1961. . The main range is large, but it is not as forbidding as many other prisons. There has been recent damming report of conditions there.
419 this is a café called “Breakout “but it was previously the Caledonian Arms pub. Described as “bareknuckle Irish boozer with Gaelish signage and brawling on the pavement outside”.
Gordon’s Brewery was opened here in 1852. Alexander Gordon had come to London from Deeside and had been apprenticed to a Dundee brewer. He came to London to work for Truman and later worked for Deptford and Millwall engineers. His Caledonian Road Brewery was followed by another in Peckham opened in 1876. The Caledonian Road brewery ceased trading during the early years of the Great War.
427 The Cally. This pub was originally the Balmoral Castle. Dating from at least the 1860s. It was later called McLoachlin's and then the Eagle. It has been The Calley since 2013.
Caledonian Road Presbyterian Church, It was a ragstone building in Gothic style built by John Barnett & Birch in 1853. In 1868 it was transferred to the Bishop of London’s Fund and became St. Matthias's Church.
St. Matthias. This opened in 1868 as chapel of ease to in what had been the Caledonian Road. Presbyterian Church. The nave was used as sports hall in the 1970s. It was declared redundant in 1978 and demolished.
Royal Caledonian Asylum. This moved here in 1827-8 from Hatton Garden. It was built by George Tappen, for the Highland Society of London and intended for the orphaned children of poor exiled Scots. All the children wore kilts Its Greek revival frontage stood as the on only building in the area. In 1902 it moved to Bushey because of the closeness of the prison
408 Caledonian Estate. When the Caledonian Asylum closed in 1904 the London County Council purchased the site 1906 for the second phase of LCC housing, 1900-7. It was probably designed by J. G. Stephenson of the LCC Housing Branch. There are five blocks with Scottish names, two parallel to the street, with a bold entrance arch, the rest round a large court closed at the comers by brick arches and access to the flats from iron balconies. It is enlivened with Arts and Crafts details.
430 St Giles Christian Mission. Home for discharged prisoners – this was one of several such institutions owned by the Mission, who also provided breakfasts, and the gospel, to prisoners on release.
Caledonian Road Methodist Church. This was originally a Primitive Methodist Church for a congregation who had met in the area since the 1860s. This chapel was built in 1870. It became Caledonian Road. Methodist Church in 1932. The building is thought to be one of the best in Islington.
455 Plaque to Carlo Gatti ice depot. It says “A large ice well was built here in 1862 by Carlo Gatti to hold 1500 tons of Norwegian ice.” It is described as “a brick-built, windowless, 'round house,' with some sort of machinery surmounting its roof.”
Police Station. This is now out of police use and converted to flats. A police station is shown here on the 1871 OS map.
468 Pocock Arms. Closed and in other use. Dated from the 1840s.
Caledonian Road Station. Opened in 1906 it lies between Holloway Road and Kings Cross on the Piccadilly Line built by the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway. It is a Leslie Green designed station with frontages with rows of large arches; ox-blood faience tiles outside, cream- and brown-tiled inside with handsome lettering. The station continues to use lifts, never having been upgraded to escalators. The lifts descend directly to platform level with no secondary staircases which means the station is advertised as "Step Free”. Two original lifts were removed and the shafts used for ventilation but the portals are still there. The original station is essentially intact although the ticket hall has been modernised and some detailing has been changed on the frontage. The glazed elevation at the back is a control room. A wooden fire hydrant is original. . The original name board survives and is a design ancestor of the LT roundel.
Caledonian Road Board School. London County Council building, 1904
Cottage Road
This leads to the Islington Waste Recycling Centre, (in the square to the north)
Davy Close
This was previously part of St.Clements Street
St. Clement’s Church. Designed by George Gilbert Scott, and built by, Dove Brothers, in 1865. This is a brick church which was lit by gas from the time it was built. From 1966, it was used by the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint John the Baptist. It has since been converted to flats.
Memorial. This is a war memorial but there is no mention of a war on it. There is a list of names, on each side of the cross, a small shield and the inscription ‘Greater love hath no man than this’.
Church hall. This was damaged in the Second World War and rebuilt in 1956 and was consecrated to be used as St.Clements Church. Saint Clements’s united with Saint David, West Holloway. It is now housing. It is adjacent to the church.
Faraday Close
Northern District Telephone Exchange. This has been in use here since 1906 and apparently is an adaption of the Sandemanian Chapel which sources seem to suggest remains inside. It was extended in 1923. It is now known as Lower Holloway Exchange and serves Barnsbury and Lower Holloway, and had NORth telephone numbers until the late 1960s. The building has had a considerable amount of additional structures added since the 1920s and subsequently.
Brass plate on the floor inside the building. This is fixed in the parquet floor at the site of Faraday’s pew when this telephone exchange was a Sandemanian chapel.
Plaque. This was on the wall marking the location of the preaching platform, and unveiled by Lord Kelvin in 1906. It is now in the Royal Institution collection and was once mounted above a public telephone in their reception area. It said “Erected by the staff of the National Telephone Company Limited to commemorate the fact that Michael Faraday used to worship here from 1862 till the date of his death in 1867. From 1862 to 1899 this building was the Meeting House of the Sandemanians, of which body Michael Faraday was an Elder. This plate marks the position which he usually occupied on the platform. The position of his pew is indicated by a plate on the floor.”
Sandemanian Meeting House. This dated from from 1862 when the congregation moved from Paul's Alley. It was a simple building of white brick with two rows of raised seats at far end for elders. Michael Faraday was an elder until 1864. In 1901 the meeting moved to Highbury Crescent
Lough Road
This was previously Wellington Road, and before that Pack Horse Lane
Lough Road Centre. This offers short breaks for the carers of disabled children.
New River College. This is a consortium of three Pupil Referral Units (PRU) split across four sites.. The Secondary PRU is based at here.
Wellington Road School. This began as a temporary board school opened in 1879. A new school was built in 1893 in the London School Board three-decker style, with a school house and rear entrance on Westbourne Road. In 1947 it was renamed Alfred Prichard primary and closed before 1965. The building was later used by Our Lady of Sacred Heart as an annexe. The school buildings in this area were used by a number of schools
Paradise Park. Park and urban farm set up on areas previously housing. It is aimed at family days out; with children activities, a nursery and an adventure playground.
Mackenzie Road
This was previously called St. James Road
Roman Way
10 Railway Tavern. Now flats
47 Alfred Tavern. demolished
109 Union Brewery. This belonged to Frederick Blogg pre 1869 and then became the Union Brewery (Barnsbury). It was dissolved in 1902and was sited at the rear of the Caledonian Asylum
109 Two Brewers. pub
114 City of Rome Tavern. Later called the Jug O’Punch. Now flats.
Wellington Mews
Wellington Mews. Flats in a 6-storey Victorian prison officers’ block
Westbourne Road
St David. This was originally built by 1935-6 E. L. Blackburne in 1866-9 but burned down and was rebuilt by T.F. Ford. It continued in use by Anglicans until 1984 but had been shared with a Greek Orthodox congregation who continued to use it until 2004. This is now Hope Church. Islington and has recently reopened as a sister church to St.Mary Magdalen in Holloway Road and has been redesigned as a community building. A Danish School also functions in the building.
Sources
AIM 25. Web site
Archer, Nature Conservation in Islington
Brtitish History Online. Islington. Web site
Cantor. Michael Faraday, Sandemanian and Scientist:
Children’s Homes. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Cosh. The squares of Islington
Day, London Underground
Field. London Place Names
GLIAS. Newsletter
London Borough of Islington. Web site.
London Remembers. Web site
Lucas. London
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Pub History. Web site
Royal Deeside. Web site
Social Housing History. Web site
Wikipedia. As appropriate
Willatts. Streets with a Story
Armour Close
Four houses by London Borough of Islington by HFI Architects. Housing Design Award winner 2010. Shoehorned into an old garage site.
Atlas Mews
This is part of the London Borough of Islington’s Westbourne Estate which was designed by Eric Lyons Cadbury-Brown Metcalf & Cunningham and built in 1976. It provided 268 houses, 132 flats, a sheltered housing, a community centre, a medical centre and shops. It replaced terraced housing.
Balmoral Grove
Trading estate in a cul de sac which once had terraced housing. It is now being redeveloped with mixed use units including housing.
Blundell Street
6 The Old Brewery. Now Quarto Publishers. This is part of the site of Crosse & Blackwell's vinegar brewery. It was converted in 1990 by Stewan Moss of Bennett Moss Construction from a 19th stable block putting an atrium in the mews yard.
Brewery Road
Crosse and Blackwell vinegar brewery. This was entered from the south side of the road and dated from 1876. Crosse and Blackwall, pickle manufacturers, based in Soho Square may have taken this over from bankrupt Gerrish and Brown. It was extensively rebuilt in the 1881 but was burnt down in 1907. It included oone of the largest vats in the world holding 115,000 gallons
Bride Street
Part of an area owned by Pocock family members in the early 19th and named them after their City coal wharf. The area was known as Pocock’s Fields.
95 The Jolly Sisters. Pub. This was called the New Queens Head until 1999. It was built pre-1850 and was a Whitbread House.
62 St Giles Christian Mission on the site of the congregational chapel. This was originally founded in 1860 at Seven Dials. It moved to buildings of the Arundel Square Congregational Chapel in 1935. The chapel was partly rebuilt and became a centre for religious and social work, lectures, meetings etc
60 Arundel Square Congregational chapel. This began in a temporary chapel in 1861 in York Place, Barnsbury. The Arundel Square church and school opened in 1863 and was later expanded. It closed in 1931 and was used by free Baptists 1931-1935, and then sold to the Saint Giles Christian mission
Caledonian Road
This was a turnpike road built on the line of an old lane by the Battle Bridge and Holloway Road Company. It was initially a toll road. It was first called Chalk Road but changed its name for the Royal Caledonian Asylum,
Pentonville Prison. This is a Category B/C men's prison. It was designed by Col Joshua Jebb, Royal Engineers first Surveyor General of Prisons, in association with William Crawford and Whitworth Russell for convicts awaiting transportation. It opened in 1842 and was the second national prison to be designed and built by the Home Department. It had a central hall with five radiating wings, all visible to staff at the centre called ‘the separate system’. It was a depersonalized, mechanized, centralized and integrated system. Prisoners were forbidden to speak to each other and mental disturbances were common. It became the model for British prisons. Executions were carried out here from 1902 until 1961. . The main range is large, but it is not as forbidding as many other prisons. There has been recent damming report of conditions there.
419 this is a café called “Breakout “but it was previously the Caledonian Arms pub. Described as “bareknuckle Irish boozer with Gaelish signage and brawling on the pavement outside”.
Gordon’s Brewery was opened here in 1852. Alexander Gordon had come to London from Deeside and had been apprenticed to a Dundee brewer. He came to London to work for Truman and later worked for Deptford and Millwall engineers. His Caledonian Road Brewery was followed by another in Peckham opened in 1876. The Caledonian Road brewery ceased trading during the early years of the Great War.
427 The Cally. This pub was originally the Balmoral Castle. Dating from at least the 1860s. It was later called McLoachlin's and then the Eagle. It has been The Calley since 2013.
Caledonian Road Presbyterian Church, It was a ragstone building in Gothic style built by John Barnett & Birch in 1853. In 1868 it was transferred to the Bishop of London’s Fund and became St. Matthias's Church.
St. Matthias. This opened in 1868 as chapel of ease to in what had been the Caledonian Road. Presbyterian Church. The nave was used as sports hall in the 1970s. It was declared redundant in 1978 and demolished.
Royal Caledonian Asylum. This moved here in 1827-8 from Hatton Garden. It was built by George Tappen, for the Highland Society of London and intended for the orphaned children of poor exiled Scots. All the children wore kilts Its Greek revival frontage stood as the on only building in the area. In 1902 it moved to Bushey because of the closeness of the prison
408 Caledonian Estate. When the Caledonian Asylum closed in 1904 the London County Council purchased the site 1906 for the second phase of LCC housing, 1900-7. It was probably designed by J. G. Stephenson of the LCC Housing Branch. There are five blocks with Scottish names, two parallel to the street, with a bold entrance arch, the rest round a large court closed at the comers by brick arches and access to the flats from iron balconies. It is enlivened with Arts and Crafts details.
430 St Giles Christian Mission. Home for discharged prisoners – this was one of several such institutions owned by the Mission, who also provided breakfasts, and the gospel, to prisoners on release.
Caledonian Road Methodist Church. This was originally a Primitive Methodist Church for a congregation who had met in the area since the 1860s. This chapel was built in 1870. It became Caledonian Road. Methodist Church in 1932. The building is thought to be one of the best in Islington.
455 Plaque to Carlo Gatti ice depot. It says “A large ice well was built here in 1862 by Carlo Gatti to hold 1500 tons of Norwegian ice.” It is described as “a brick-built, windowless, 'round house,' with some sort of machinery surmounting its roof.”
Police Station. This is now out of police use and converted to flats. A police station is shown here on the 1871 OS map.
468 Pocock Arms. Closed and in other use. Dated from the 1840s.
Caledonian Road Station. Opened in 1906 it lies between Holloway Road and Kings Cross on the Piccadilly Line built by the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway. It is a Leslie Green designed station with frontages with rows of large arches; ox-blood faience tiles outside, cream- and brown-tiled inside with handsome lettering. The station continues to use lifts, never having been upgraded to escalators. The lifts descend directly to platform level with no secondary staircases which means the station is advertised as "Step Free”. Two original lifts were removed and the shafts used for ventilation but the portals are still there. The original station is essentially intact although the ticket hall has been modernised and some detailing has been changed on the frontage. The glazed elevation at the back is a control room. A wooden fire hydrant is original. . The original name board survives and is a design ancestor of the LT roundel.
Caledonian Road Board School. London County Council building, 1904
Cottage Road
This leads to the Islington Waste Recycling Centre, (in the square to the north)
Davy Close
This was previously part of St.Clements Street
St. Clement’s Church. Designed by George Gilbert Scott, and built by, Dove Brothers, in 1865. This is a brick church which was lit by gas from the time it was built. From 1966, it was used by the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint John the Baptist. It has since been converted to flats.
Memorial. This is a war memorial but there is no mention of a war on it. There is a list of names, on each side of the cross, a small shield and the inscription ‘Greater love hath no man than this’.
Church hall. This was damaged in the Second World War and rebuilt in 1956 and was consecrated to be used as St.Clements Church. Saint Clements’s united with Saint David, West Holloway. It is now housing. It is adjacent to the church.
Faraday Close
Northern District Telephone Exchange. This has been in use here since 1906 and apparently is an adaption of the Sandemanian Chapel which sources seem to suggest remains inside. It was extended in 1923. It is now known as Lower Holloway Exchange and serves Barnsbury and Lower Holloway, and had NORth telephone numbers until the late 1960s. The building has had a considerable amount of additional structures added since the 1920s and subsequently.
Brass plate on the floor inside the building. This is fixed in the parquet floor at the site of Faraday’s pew when this telephone exchange was a Sandemanian chapel.
Plaque. This was on the wall marking the location of the preaching platform, and unveiled by Lord Kelvin in 1906. It is now in the Royal Institution collection and was once mounted above a public telephone in their reception area. It said “Erected by the staff of the National Telephone Company Limited to commemorate the fact that Michael Faraday used to worship here from 1862 till the date of his death in 1867. From 1862 to 1899 this building was the Meeting House of the Sandemanians, of which body Michael Faraday was an Elder. This plate marks the position which he usually occupied on the platform. The position of his pew is indicated by a plate on the floor.”
Sandemanian Meeting House. This dated from from 1862 when the congregation moved from Paul's Alley. It was a simple building of white brick with two rows of raised seats at far end for elders. Michael Faraday was an elder until 1864. In 1901 the meeting moved to Highbury Crescent
Lough Road
This was previously Wellington Road, and before that Pack Horse Lane
Lough Road Centre. This offers short breaks for the carers of disabled children.
New River College. This is a consortium of three Pupil Referral Units (PRU) split across four sites.. The Secondary PRU is based at here.
Wellington Road School. This began as a temporary board school opened in 1879. A new school was built in 1893 in the London School Board three-decker style, with a school house and rear entrance on Westbourne Road. In 1947 it was renamed Alfred Prichard primary and closed before 1965. The building was later used by Our Lady of Sacred Heart as an annexe. The school buildings in this area were used by a number of schools
Paradise Park. Park and urban farm set up on areas previously housing. It is aimed at family days out; with children activities, a nursery and an adventure playground.
Mackenzie Road
This was previously called St. James Road
Roman Way
10 Railway Tavern. Now flats
47 Alfred Tavern. demolished
109 Union Brewery. This belonged to Frederick Blogg pre 1869 and then became the Union Brewery (Barnsbury). It was dissolved in 1902and was sited at the rear of the Caledonian Asylum
109 Two Brewers. pub
114 City of Rome Tavern. Later called the Jug O’Punch. Now flats.
Wellington Mews
Wellington Mews. Flats in a 6-storey Victorian prison officers’ block
Westbourne Road
St David. This was originally built by 1935-6 E. L. Blackburne in 1866-9 but burned down and was rebuilt by T.F. Ford. It continued in use by Anglicans until 1984 but had been shared with a Greek Orthodox congregation who continued to use it until 2004. This is now Hope Church. Islington and has recently reopened as a sister church to St.Mary Magdalen in Holloway Road and has been redesigned as a community building. A Danish School also functions in the building.
Sources
AIM 25. Web site
Archer, Nature Conservation in Islington
Brtitish History Online. Islington. Web site
Cantor. Michael Faraday, Sandemanian and Scientist:
Children’s Homes. Web site
Clunn. The Face of London
Cosh. The squares of Islington
Day, London Underground
Field. London Place Names
GLIAS. Newsletter
London Borough of Islington. Web site.
London Remembers. Web site
Lucas. London
Pevsner and Cherry. London North
Pub History. Web site
Royal Deeside. Web site
Social Housing History. Web site
Wikipedia. As appropriate
Willatts. Streets with a Story
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