Barnsbury

Barnsbury must surely be one of the most extensive and best-preserved Georgian/early-Victorian districts in London, and yet I wonder how many people visit it. The buildings are relatively small in scale - including many cottages and cottage-size semi's and terraces - and it's not half so well-known as, say, the overblown and much less interesting Notting Hill. The period properties were doubtless much restored in the great wave of gentrification that swept north London in the 1960s/1970s, but I suspect - although I'm willing to be corrected - the district never quite fell into the same extensive slumdom that afflicted more southerly parts of Islington. Anyway, here are some snapshots ...

I started from the Holloway Road, walking through the garden of (?derelict) St. Mary Magdalene. Across Liverpool Road, and down Ellington Street, I spotted this neglected solution to household pollution  - a peculiar construction, supposed to allow any falling soot to pour down onto the roof, rather than back down the chimney into the house. I'm fairly sure these were roundly mocked in the 19C as ineffective ...

 

A left turn into Arundel Square - which, unusually for the area, boasts houses equivalent in grandeur to those in Bayswater and Notting Hill. You get some idea of the size of the properties on the north side from this great example of window-tax avoidance (or possibly the owner disliked sunlight,since this useful blog post suggests the properties were built post abolition of the window tax) ...

The houses on the east have lovely ornate window-guards (or planter-guards? - I have always wondered if that was the original purpose for these iron decorations) ...

You get a better class of refuse in this part of town ...

Heading south on Thornhill Road, a very typical and beautifully proportioned 'villa' ...

Turning west in Barnsbury Square, spring is in the air ...

Houses situated in the corner of the square which wouldn't be amiss in Mayfair or St. James's ...

and more nice ironwork around the windows ...

A very plain but pleasant semi-detached in Thornhill Grove ...

Stucco-free brick on Lofting Road - but still a rather nice house ...

Some of its neighbours are even prettier ...

From Lofting Road back to Thornhill Road, past the quaint Albion pub, and to a plain but beautifully framed 'ghost sign' on the corner of Richmond Avenue ...

Richmond Avenue, sloping down towards Kings Cross, famously contains some ridiculous, joyful early 19C quirks - rows of sphinxes guarding Egypto-Georgian doorways, each studiously celebrating the battle of the Nile ...

The Egyptiana window guards here are completely marvellous ...

And some householders have really got into the spirit of the thing (were the eyes painted originally? it's perfectly possible, although I wonder if the rest of the sphinx was likewise coloured - now they are either dull white, grey or black) ...

As you get towards King's Cross, naturally the properties become squished closer together and altogether cheaper, like in Matilda Street ...

And then chocolate-box Barnsbury yields to the high-density housing of the twentieth century ...

That said, the Barnsbury Estate and its surroundings look well-maintained and respectable in their own way ... 

I finish my walk at Angel, with one of the nicest pieces of 'street art' in London, on Godson Street ... back to the 21st century ...

From Stoke Newington to Stratford

Clapton Common, the winged figures on a distant steeple, the church of the Agapemonites, whose 'spiritual brides' flocked to the bizarre cult's charismatic leaders and gave themselves (cough) body and soul. For more about them, read Sarah Wise's excellent Inconvenient People.

A pigeon ostracised by crows in Springfield Park ...

The true shape of the world revealed in shadows ...

The River Lea. Or possibly Lee. No-one seems sure ...

Two Hackney residents ...

A Victorian weir:

Angular bricks and graffiti ...

Virtually illegible on an overhead bridge ...

Desirable residence with excellent canal-side views; in need of light refurbishment ...

Spacious living-room, with excellent transport links ...

Reflecting only our emptiness ... the Olympic Legacy ...

Garden Doors

What can I say? I like garden doors. Here are some fine examples:

The Colonnade, WC1

Gough Street, WC1

Dundee Street, E1

Bouverie Road, N16

Prideaux Place, WC1

Lloyd Baker Land

The sign below is one of my favourites in London ...

It nestles inconspicuously in the doorway of a peculiar tacked-on property in Lloyd Baker Street, Islington (carefully marked for you below), sadly no longer a chemist and druggist's ...

The great thing about the estate, apart from generally lovely early-19C buildings (it was laid out in the 1820s and 1830s in the main), is the fact that it sits on a relatively steep hill, rolling down to the Fleet Valley (aka King's Cross Road). Any street on a slope has immediate charm. Wharton Street contains some of the grander houses, although still not terribly large ...

Lloyd Baker Street has smaller houses, with very cute first floor windows ...

There's a particularly nice alleyway off Lloyd Baker Square (although its marks where the 20C interrupts the original housing with a council estate, and may be 20C in origin) ...

and there's the odd architectural quirk ...

... but I can't really do the area justice (check out nearby Percy Circus, for instance, which boasts a 'Lenin lived here' plaque). I recommend you explore it for yourself ...

And while you're at it, look for this corner house in Granville Square. Can you spot what's amiss?

Something wrong with that, surely? Lovecraftian geometry in Islington.

UPDATE:

Thanks to Suzanne for the link to British History Online (always worth checking) which shows the original estate layout. As suspected, the alley shown above did not exist - looks like it was a passage leading to a back yard.

For considerable detail about the estate, see the relevant page - here.

The Law Courts' Clock

The Royal Courts of Justice, also known to the Victorians as the New Law Courts, which were opened by Queen Victoria on 4 December 1882 (a rare public event for the mournful monarch).The building work for the courts had involved clearance of some of the worst slums in central London, which were replaced by this ...

The courts are a Gothic masterpiece (some would say monstrosity; personally I love them) designed by George Street; and present countless intriguing aspects ...

But the bit I adore most is the 'janus' (two identical faces) clock on the clock tower, at the very end of the Strand ...

It is, let's be honest, quite barmy. But I've never read much about it, so I thought I'd dig through the (electronic) archives and, typically, the Illustrated London News has all we need to know ...

The clock projecting over the street at Temple Bar, 100 ft high, from the south-eastern tower of the Royal Courts of Justice, was set working on Tuesday week, together with the six bells, the largest of which, striking the hours, weighs above three tons, and has a fine, deep, soft tone, of very agreeable quality. This bell is of 5 ft 10 in. diameter across the lips, 5 ft. high to the top of the crown and 5.75 in. thick at the sound-bow; it is composed of seventeen parts of copper to five parts of Cornish tin. The works of the clock are within the tower, so that the weight on the iron brackets hidden within the stonework is only that of the dials and the hands, or between 6 cwt. and 7 cwt. altogether. Of the clock, the chief points to note are that it is fitted with a Denison's gravity escapement and a patent remontoir arrangement, by which the minute hand is made to move like that of the clock at St. James's Palace - which was constructed by the same makers - every half minute. A compensating pendulam, 15 ft. in length, with a bob weighing 3 cwt., gives two seconds beats. The dials on each side, the one facing up the Strand, and the other facing down Fleet-street, are of 8 ft. 6 in. diameter, and are framed of cast-iron, with white opal glass, so placed as to be illuminated at night with very good effect. The manufacturers of the clock and bells are Messrs. Gillett and Co., of Croydon.

Illustrated London News, 29 December 1883 

So, now we know it was made in Croydon. But do the bells still ring? I must confess I've never noticed them - but perhaps I've mistaken them for church bells.

Can anyone tell me?