Clerks' Well Clerkenwell took its name from the Clerks' Well in Farringdon Lane ( was the
Middle English genitive plural of , a variant of , meaning literate person or clergyman). The first surviving reference to the name is from 1100. In the
Middle Ages, the
London Parish clerks performed annual
mystery plays there, based on biblical themes. Part of the well remains visible, incorporated into a 1980s building called Well Court. It is visible through a window of that building on Farringdon Lane. Access to the well is managed by
Islington Local History Centre and visits can be arranged by appointment.
Monastic traditions The monastic
Order of the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem had its English headquarters at the
Priory of Clerkenwell. (
The Blessed Gerard founded the order to provide medical assistance during
the crusades.)
St John's Gate (built by Sir
Thomas Docwra in 1504) survives in the rebuilt form of the Priory Gate. Its gateway, erected in 1504 in St John's Square, served various purposes after the
Dissolution of the Monasteries. For example, it was the birthplace of the ''
Gentleman's Magazine'' in 1731, and the scene of
Dr Johnson's work in connection with that journal. In modern times the gatehouse again became associated with the order and was in the early 20th century the headquarters of the
St John Ambulance Association. An
Early English crypt remains beneath the chapel of the order, which was otherwise mostly rebuilt in the 1950s after wartime bombing. The notorious deception of the "
Cock Lane Ghost", in which Johnson took great interest, was perpetrated nearby. Adjoining the priory was
St Mary's nunnery of the Benedictine order, now entirely disappeared, and
St James's Church, rebuilt in 1792 on the site of the original church which was partly of
Norman provenance. The
Charterhouse, near the boundary with the
City of London, was originally a
Carthusian monastery. Following the
Dissolution of the Monasteries the Charterhouse became a private mansion and one owner, Thomas Sutton, subsequently left it with an endowment as a school and
almshouse. The almshouse remains but the school relocated to Surrey and its part of the site is now a campus of
Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Black Mary's Hole Black Mary’s Hole was a locality and small rural settlement in a low-lying area on the eastern, Clerkenwell side of the valley of the
River Fleet. The area included fields called
Black Mary’s Hole, and
Robin Hood’s Field, which together with the name of the former local pub,
The Fox at Bay, seem to reflect the lawlessness of the area. The locality was also known as a meeting place for gay men. .
New River Head The construction of the
New River between 1604 and 1613 resulted in the creation of the
New River Head in Clerkenwell, on what is now
Rosebery Avenue. The New River was constructed to supply London with fresh drinking water from
Hertfordshire, and the New River Head originally consisted of a circular reservoir, the Round Pond and an associated building, the Water House. From here water was fed into a network of wooden mains which conveyed water to the cisterns of London. Over the years the New River Head complex expanded with the addition of further reservoirs and pumping stations, driven by
windmill,
horse gin and, eventually,
steam engine. In 1820, the
New River Company, owners of the river, moved its offices into an enlarged Water House, beginning an association of the site with the administration of London's water supply that was to last some 170 years. In 1920, the
Metropolitan Water Board opened a new office building at New River Head, and this remained the headquarters for London's water supply up to the privatisation of the
Thames Water Authority in 1989. The site is now largely in residential use, including both converted buildings and newly built apartment blocks. after whom the nearby Mylne Street and Chadwell Street are named. The estate is a series of streets and terraces in neo-Classical, Greek revival style. The place names reference the New River company, including Amwell Street (after the New River's source in Hertfordshire) and River Street.
Lloyd Baker Estate The Lloyd Baker estate was laid out immediately to the west of the New River estate from 1820 to 1840. It takes its name from the family of
Bishop William Lloyd who inherited the land from his godmother
Flower Backhouse, Countess of Clarendon, a shareholder in the New River company. The estate is characterised by neo-classical pedimented villas and garden squares.
Notoriety As it was a suburb beyond the confines of the
London Wall, Clerkenwell was outside the jurisdiction of the somewhat puritanical City fathers. Consequently, "base tenements and houses of unlawful and disorderly resort" sprang up, with a "great number of dissolute, loose, and insolent people harboured in such and the like noisome and disorderly houses, as namely poor cottages, and habitations of beggars and people without trade, stables, inns, alehouses, taverns, garden-houses converted to dwellings, ordinaries, dicing houses, bowling alleys, and brothel houses". During the Elizabethan era Clerkenwell contained a notorious brothel quarter. In Shakespeare's
Henry IV, Part 2, Falstaff complains about Justice Shallow boasting of "the wildness of his youth, and the feats he has done about Turnbull Street". Known now as Turnmill Street and adjoining
Farringdon station, it had an infamous reputation for brothel-keeping and was described in Sugden's
Topographical Dictionary as "the most disreputable street in London, a haunt of thieves and loose women". The
Clerkenwell Bridewell, a prison and correctional institute for prostitutes and vagrants, was known for savage punishment and endemic sexual corruption.
Prisons Clerkenwell was also the location of three prisons: the
Clerkenwell Bridewell,
Coldbath Fields Prison (later Clerkenwell Gaol) and the
New Prison, later the
Clerkenwell House of Detention, notorious as the scene of the
Clerkenwell Outrage in 1867, an attempted prison break by
Fenians who killed many in the tenement houses on Corporation Row in trying to blow a hole in the prison wall. The House of Detention was demolished in 1890 but the extensive vaults and cells beneath, now known as the Clerkenwell Catacombs, remained. They were reopened as air raid shelters during the Blitz, and for a few years were open as a minor tourist attraction. Various film scenes have been shot in the catacombs.
Industrial Revolution The
Industrial Revolution changed the area greatly. It became a centre for
breweries,
distilleries and the printing industry. It gained an especial reputation for the
making of clocks,
marine chronometers and
watches, which activity once employed many people from around the area. Flourishing craft workshops still carry on some of the traditional trades, such as jewellery-making. Clerkenwell was home to Witherbys, a printing company who have now split ownership, with the printers having relocated to north London and the publishers to
Scotland . It was during the Industrial Revolution that Clerkenwell became known as London's Italian district, although the total number of Italian residents probably numbered no more than 2,000 at any one time. The Kodak United Company opened a factory and storefront at 41–43 Clerkenwell and took advantage of the surplus of unemployed jewelers and watchmakers to build their stereoscopic and folding pocket cameras that they produced and repaired. The location also allowed them easy access to the chemicals required for their bromide based papers and negatives. During World War II, they were relocated for security reasons because of the fear that Axis bombs would destroy the photographic equipment used for the war effort.
Clerkenwell Green Clerkenwell Green lies at the centre of the old village, by the church, and has a mixture of housing, offices and pubs, dominated by the imposing former
Middlesex Sessions House. It was built in 1782, extended during the
Victorian era, and by the early 21st century used as a
Masonic hall. The name is something of a historical relic – Clerkenwell Green has had no grass for over 300 years. However, in conveying some impression of its history, it gives the appearance of one of the better-preserved village centres in what is now
central London. In
Charles Dickens's
Oliver Twist, Clerkenwell Green is where
Fagin and the
Artful Dodger induct Oliver into
pickpocketing amongst shoppers in the busy market once held there. In his words it is "an open square in Clerkenwell, which is yet called, by some perversion of terms the Green", despite lacking any "greenery". Indeed, Dickens knew the area well and was a customer of the Finsbury Savings Bank on
Sekforde Street, which links Clerkenwell Green to St John Street.
Hockley-in-the-Hole was an area of Clerkenwell Green where
bull-baiting,
bear-baiting and similar activities occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Radicalism Clerkenwell Green has been associated with radicalism, from the
Lollards in the 16th century, the
Chartists in the 19th century and
communists in the early 20th century. In 1902,
Vladimir Lenin moved the publication of the
Iskra (Spark) to the British
Social Democratic Federation at 37a Clerkenwell Green, and issues 22 to 38 were indeed edited there. At that time
Vladimir Lenin resided on Percy Circus, less than half a mile north of Clerkenwell Green. In 1903, the newspaper was moved to
Geneva. It is said that Lenin and a young
Joseph Stalin met in the Crown and Anchor pub (now The Crown Tavern) when the latter was visiting London in 1903. In the 1920s and 1930s, 37a Clerkenwell Green was a venue for Communist Party meetings, and the
Marx Memorial Library was founded on the same site in 1933. In 1942 the
local borough council erected a controversial bust of
Vladimir Lenin at the site of a
new block of flats in Holford Square (the bust was removed in the 1950s). Clerkenwell's tradition of left-leaning publication continued until late 2008 with
The Guardian and
The Observer having their headquarters on Farringdon Road, a short walk from the Green. Their new offices are a short distance away in
King's Cross. In 2011, an
anti-cuts protest march departed from Clerkenwell and ended with a rally at
Trafalgar Square demanding trade union rights, human rights and international solidarity.
Local government Clerkenwell St James was an ancient parish in the
Finsbury division of the
Ossulstone hundred of
Middlesex. Part of the parish of St James was split off as the parish of St John in 1723. However, for civil matters they remained a single parish. The
Clerkenwell Vestry became a nominating authority to the
Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855. Under the
Metropolis Management Act 1855 any parish that exceeded 2,000
ratepayers was to be divided into wards; as such the parish of St James & St John Clerkenwell was divided into five wards (electing
vestrymen): No. 1 (12), No. 2 (15), No. 3 (12), No. 4 (18) and No. 5 (15). The area of the metropolitan board became the
County of London in 1889. A reform of local government in 1900 abolished the Clerkenwell Vestry and the parish became part of the
Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury.
Alexandra Park, an exclave of the parish, was transferred to
Hornsey, Middlesex at the same time. Clerkenwell Town Hall, which had been built on
Rosebery Avenue in 1895, became
Finsbury Town Hall.
Finsbury became part of the
London Borough of Islington in 1965 and the old town hall lay empty and deteriorating for many years. It has since been sold to the Urdang Dance Academy.
Post-war de-industrialisation and revival After the
Second World War Clerkenwell suffered from
industrial decline and many of the premises occupied by the engineering, printing publishing and meat and food trades (the last mostly around Smithfield) fell empty. Several acclaimed council housing estates were commissioned by
Finsbury Borough Council. Modernist architect and Russian émigré
Berthold Lubetkin's listed Spa Green Estate, constructed 1943–1950, has recently been restored. The
Finsbury Estate, constructed in 1968 to the designs of Joseph Emberton includes flats, since altered and re-clad. A general revival and gentrification process began in the 1980s, and the area is now known for loft-living in some of the former industrial buildings. It also has
young professionals, nightclubs and restaurants and is home to many professional offices as an overspill for the nearby
City of London and
West End. Amongst other sectors, there is a notable concentration of design professions around Clerkenwell, and supporting industries such as high-end designer furniture showrooms. It is claimed that the area has the highest concentration of architects and building professionals in the world. Many of London's leading architectural practices have offices in the area. ==Entertainment==