Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ORTON IN ISLINGTON
Playwright
Joe Orton
and his lover
Kenneth Halliwell
lived together for sixteen years,
spending the last eight years of their lives in a top-floor bedsit at 25 Noel Rd, to the east of
Upper Street, where the Regent's Canal emerges from the Islington tunnel. It's ironic that the
borough council has seen fit to erect a plaque on the house commemorating the couple,
when it was instrumental in pressing for harsh prison sentences after both men were found
guilty of stealing and defacing local library books in 1962. A few of the wittily doctored books
are now on display at the
Islington Museum
(see p.151).
Six months in prison worked wonders for Orton's writing, as he himself said: “Being in the
nick brought detachment to my writing”. It also brought him success, with irreverent comedies
like
Loot
,
Entertaining Mr Sloane
and
What the Butler Saw
playing to sell-out audiences in the
West End and on Broadway. Orton's meteoric fame and his sexual profligacy drove Halliwell to
despair, however, and on August 9, 1967, Halliwell finally cracked - beating Orton to death
with a hammer and then killing himself with a drug overdose. Their ashes were mixed together
and scattered over the grass at
Golders Green Crematorium
(see p.307). Apart from the
local public toilets, Orton's favourite hangout was the appropriately entitled
Island Queen
pub
(see p.396), at the end of Noel Road.
Canonbury Square
Islington's most perfect Regency set piece,
Canonbury Square
is centred on a smartly
maintained flower garden, but blighted by tra
c ploughing up Canonbury Road. In
1928,
Evelyn Waugh
moved into the first floor of no. 17 with his wife Evelyn Gardiner
(they called themselves “He-Evelyn” and “She-Evelyn”). In those days, the square was
nothing like as salubrious as it is now. In fact, it was precisely the square's squalor that
appealed to
George Orwell
, who moved into the top floor of no. 27 in 1944, with his
wife and son, having been bombed out of his digs in St John's Wood; he later used it as
the prototype for Winston Smith's home in
1984
.
20
Canonbury Tower
Guided tours contact
T
020 7359 6888,
W
canonburytower.org.uk
Immediately to the northeast of the square stands the last remaining relic of Islington's
bygone days as a rural retreat, the red-brick
Canonbury Tower
, originally part of a
Tudor mansion built for the prior of St Bartholomew in the City. The very top floor
boasts three Elizabethan interiors, with carved oak panelling and fireplaces carved with
Freemasonic and Rosicrucian symbols from when the rooms were used by Renaissance
man Francis Bacon. The tower is currently looked after by the Canonbury Tower
Charitable Trust, who can organize guided tours.
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art
Canonbury Rd • Wed-Sat 11am-6pm, Sun noon-5pm, first Thurs of month until 9pm • £5 •
T
020 7704 9522,
W
estorickcollection
.com •
!
Highbury & Islington
Islington's most intriguing attraction is the
Estorick Collection
of Modern Italian Art
,
which occupies a Georgian mansion on Canonbury Square, with the entrance on
Canonbury Road. The most exciting works in the gallery are those of the early Italian
Futurists, although their founding manifesto of 1909 urged followers to “divert the
canals to flood the museums”! Futurism's mouthpiece was the fascist Filippo Marinetti,
a rich boy with a penchant for crashing fast cars, and, as evidenced by the photos, an
eye for natty waistcoats, complete with appliqué hands patting the pockets.
The permanent collection, spread out over the two upper floors, ranges from the
rainbow colours of
Music
by Luigi Russolo (inventor of the
intonarumori
- a sort of
avant-garde hurdy-gurdy), which is firmly Futurist, to a few portraits by Modigliani,
and a typically melancholic canvas by Symbolist painter, Giorgio de Chirico. One of
the strangest works is Medardo Rosso's wax sculpture
Woman with a Veil
, from 1893,
