Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Following the Great Fire, Clerkenwell was settled by craftsmen, including newly
arrived French Huguenots, excluded from the City guilds. At the same time, the
springs that give the place its name were rediscovered (and are still visible through
the window of 14-16 Farringdon Lane), and Clerkenwell became a popular
spa resort
for a century or so. During the nineteenth century, the district's springs and streams
became cholera-infested sewers, and the area became an overpopulated
slum area
,
home to three prisons and the setting for Fagin's Den in Dickens'
Oliver Twist
.
Victorian slum clearances and wartime bombing took their toll, the population
declined and by the 1980s, the area's traditional trades - locksmithing, clockmaking,
printing and jewellery - all but disappeared. Nowadays, the area is characterized by
media and design companies (particularly architects), with trendy bars and restaurants
catering for the area's loft-dwelling residents.
10
Hatton Garden
W
hatton-garden.net
Hatton Garden
, connecting Holborn Circus (see p.147) with Little Italy (see p.151),
is no beauty spot, but, as the centre of the city's
diamond and jewellery
trade
since
medieval times,
it's an intriguing place to visit during the week. There are over fifty
shops and, as in Antwerp and New York, ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jews dominate the
business here as middlemen. Near the top of Hatton Garden, there's a plaque
commemorating
Hiram Maxim
(1840-1916), the American inventor who perfected
the automatic gun named after him in the workshops at no. 57.
East of Hatton Garden, off Greville Street, lies
Bleeding Heart Yard
, a key location in
Dickens'
Little Dorrit
. The name refers to the gruesome 1626 murder of Lady Hatton,
who sold her soul to the devil, so the story goes. One night, during a ball at nearby
Hatton House, the devil came to collect, and all trace of her vanished except her heart,
which was found bleeding and throbbing on the pavement.
Parallel to Hatton Garden, take a wander through
Leather Lane Market
,
a weekday
lunchtime market selling everything from fruit and veg to clothes and electrical gear.
Mount Pleasant and the British Postal Museum
Rosebery Ave
•
Postal Museum Mon-Fri 10am-5pm, Thurs till 7pm, plus second Sat of month 10am-5pm (closed the following Mon) •
Free •
T
020 7239 2570,
W
postalheritage.org.uk •
!
Farringdon
Halfway up Rosebery Avenue
- built in the 1890s to link Clerkenwell Road with
Islington to the north - stands
Mount Pleasant
, opened in 1889 and at one time the
largest sorting of
ce in the world. A third of all inland mail passes through here, and
originally much of it was brought by the post of
ce's own underground railway
network,
Mail Rail
(
W
mailrail.co.uk). Opened in 1927 and similar in design to the tube,
the railway was fully automatic, sending driverless trucks between London's sorting
o
ces and train stations at speeds of up to 35mph. Unfortunately, all 23 miles of this
2ft-gauge railway were mothballed in 2003. Philatelists, meanwhile, should head to the
British Postal Museum
, by the side of the sorting of
ce on Phoenix Place, which puts
on small exhibitions drawn from its vast archive.
Exmouth Market
Food market Mon-Fri noon-3pm •
W
exmouth-market.com •
!
Farringdon
Opposite Mount Pleasant is
Exmouth Market
, the heart of today's vibrant Clerkenwell.
Apart from a surviving pie-and-mash shop, the street is now characterized by modish
shops, bars and restaurants, and a small
foodie market
, at its busiest towards the end of
the week. A blue plaque at no.56 pays tribute to
Joey
Grimaldi
(1778-1837), son of
Italian immigrants and the “Father of Clowns”, who first appeared on stage at nearby
