Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF FINSBURY
The Borough of Finsbury was subsumed into Islington in 1965, but the former
Finsbury Town
Hall
(now a dance academy) still stands, an attractive building from 1899, whose name is spelt
out in magenta glass on the delicate wrought-iron canopy that juts out into Rosebery Avenue.
As the plaque outside states, the district was the first to boast an Asian MP,
Dadabhai Nairoji
,
who was elected (after a recount) as a Liberal MP in 1892 with a majority of five. In keeping
with its radical pedigree, the borough went on to elect several Communist councillors and
became known popularly as the “People's Republic of Finsbury”. The council commissioned
Georgian-born Berthold Lubetkin to design the modernist
Finsbury Health Centre
on Pine
Street, off Exmouth Market, described by Jonathan Glancey as “a remarkable outpost of Soviet
thinking and neo-Constructivist architecture in a part of central London wracked with rickets
and TB”. Lubetkin's later
Spa Green Estate
, the council flats further north on the opposite side
of Rosebery Avenue from Sadler's Wells, featured novelties such as rubbish shutes and an
aerofoil roof to help tenants dry their clothes.
10
London Patriotic Society from 1872, and later the Social Democratic Federation's
Twentieth Century Press, this is where
Lenin
edited seventeen editions of the Bolshevik
paper
Iskra
in 1902-03. he library itself, founded in 1933 in response to the topic
burnings in Nazi Germany, is open to members only. However, visitors are welcome to
view the “workerist”
Hastings Mural
from 1935, and the poky little back room where
Lenin worked on
Iskra
. Stuffed with busts, the latter is maintained as a kind of shrine,
and there's a copy of Rodchenko's red-and-black chess set for good measure, too.
St James's Church
Clerkenwell Close • Mon-Fri 9.30am-5.30pm • Free •
T
020 7251 1190,
W
jc-church.org •
!
Farringdon
The area north of Clerkenwell Green was once occupied by the Benedictine nunnery
of St Mary. The buildings have long since vanished, though the current church of
St James
on Clerkenwell Close, from 1792,
is the descendant of the convent church.
A plain, galleried building decorated in Wedgwood blue and white, its most interesting
features are the twin staircases for the galleries at the west end, both of which were
fitted with wrought-iron guards to prevent parishioners from glimpsing any ladies'
ankles as they ascended.
St John's Gate
St John's Lane • Mon-Sat 10am-5pm • Free •
T
020 7324 4005,
W
museumstjohn.org.uk •
!
Farringdon
St John's Gate
was built in Kentish ragstone in 1502 as the southern entrance to the
Priory of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, the oldest of Clerkenwell's religious
establishments. The Knights of St John, or Knights Hospitaller, were responsible for the
defence of the Holy Land, and the Clerkenwell priory was established as the order's
headquarters in the 1140s. The priory was sacked by Wat Tyler's poll-tax rebels in 1381
on the lookout for the prior, Robert Hales, who was responsible for collecting the tax;
Hales was eventually discovered at the Tower, dragged out and beheaded on Tower Hill.
Following the Reformation, the Knights moved to Malta, and the Gate housed the
Master of Revels, the Elizabethan censor, and later a Latin-speaking coffee house run by
Richard Hogarth, father of the painter, William. Today, the gatehouse is the headquarters
of the
St John Ambulance
,
a voluntary first-aid service, established in 1877.
The main room of the gatehouse
museum
traces the development of the Order before
its expulsion in 1540 by Henry VIII. There's masonry from the old priory, crusader
coins and a small arms collection salvaged from the knights' armoury on Rhodes. The
museum's other gallery tells the story of the St John Ambulance, featuring a display of
early uniforms and equipment. And if you're lucky, there'll be a uniformed nurse on
hand to bring the exhibition to life.
