Richard Cloudesley, the owner of the Cloudesley estate in Barnsbury from the early 16th century, died in 1517. He seems to have feared posthumous difficulties, as contemporary sources at the time of his death describe him as being in a distressed state of mind, his body "restless, on the score of some sinne by him peradventure committed". A "wondrous commotion" and "tremblements
de terre" in the earth near his burial place at
St Mary's Church, Islington were ended only after an exorcism "at dede of night, nothing lothe, using divers divine exercises at torche light, set at rest the unrulie spirit of the sayde Cloudesley, and the earthe did returne aneare to its pristine shape". This was later related in an anonymous penny pamphlet of 1842 entitled
The Islington Ghost!. Cloudesley bequeathed of land called the “Stony Fields” to the
parish of St Mary's, asking that yearly forever a solemn
obit (a mass for the dead) should be said for the repose of his soul. He also bequeathed in his will an allowance of straw for the prisoners of
Newgate,
King's Bench,
Marshalsea prisons and the mad inmates of
Bedlam, grants valued at 6s 8d each year for the poor, gowns for the poor, road repairs, and a number of other bequests. These are still administered by the Cloudesley Charity. The land survived the
Reformation unconfiscated, and was used as meadow or pasture for the next three centuries, often for overnight grazing for cattle being herded to
Smithfield Market. In 1809 the
Corporation of London considered it as an alternative site for Smithfield, and the estate was valued then at nearly £23,000. The proposal did not proceed, and the market eventually removed to
Copenhagen Fields in 1855. By 1811, the land had become more valuable as a site for housing during the building boom which was starting in Islington, and a
private Act of that year enabled the trustees to grant 99-year building leases. Topographer
Samuel Lewis wrote in 1842 that “the greatest spur to building in the neighbourhood [was] given by the letting of the Stonefield estate on building leases in the year 1824” (although building actually started with Cloudesley Terrace on
Liverpool Road in 1818). Subsequent construction on the long, narrow Stony Field site (also known as the Stonefield Estate or Cloudesley Estate) created Cloudesley Square, Cloudesley Road, Cloudesley Street, and Stonefield Street, with a mixture of
third rate and
fourth rate houses intended for single family occupation by middle class and professional residents, and tradesmen and skilled craftsmen. Cloudesley Square was the earliest Barnsbury square to be built, in 1826–29, on a building lease taken by Pentonville carpenter John Emmett, father of architect
John Thomas Emmett.
Charles Booth’s
poverty map of c.1890 shows Cloudesley Square households as "Fairly comfortable. Good ordinary earnings". By 1895 the Cloudesley Charity's income from the estate consisted of ground rents from around 240 houses on leases which would fall in between 1899 and 1916. As with much of Islington at this time, houses built for single families became multi-occupation, with rooms rented cheaply. Barnsbury had become a crowded working-class neighbourhood. "The estate" it was said in 1937, "must now be considered as one which comprises tenement houses". Most of the estate consisting the ground rents of 71 houses and 2 shops was auctioned in 1937. Maintenance costs still exceeded rents, and in the 1970s the trustees sold off several long leaseholds, although by 1980 the Charity still owned property in Cloudesley Square, Cloudesley Road, and Cloudesley Street, including two blocks of mansion flats. With the return of middle class and professional residents from the 1960s, many of the houses are now owner-occupied and house values have soared. The Cloudesley Charity still owns around 100 property units on the estate. ==Description==