Islington Green is a small triangle of open land at the convergence of

Upper Street Upper Street is the main street of the Islington district of inner north London, and carries the A1 road. It begins at the junction of the A1 and Liverpool Road, continuing on from Islington High Street which runs from the crossroads at Penton ...

and

Essex Road Essex Road is a main road in Islington, London. It is part of the A104 and connects Islington High Street with Balls Pond Road via Essex Road railway station. Location The road is about long. It starts as continuation of Islington Green, whic ...

(once called Lower Street) in the

London Borough of Islington The London Borough of Islington ( ) is a London borough in Inner London. Whilst the majority of the district is located in north London, the borough also includes a significant area to the south which forms part of central London. Islington has ...

. It roughly marks the northern boundary between the modern district of

Angel In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles inclu ...

and Islington proper. Historically it is not an old

village green A village green is a common open area within a village or other settlement. Historically, a village green was common grassland with a pond for watering cattle and other stock, often at the edge of a rural settlement, used for gathering cattle t ...

like others in London (for example,

Shacklewell Shacklewell is a small locality to the east of Roman Ermine Street (now the A10), in the London Borough of Hackney.'Hackney: Shacklewell', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 10, Hackney, ed. T F T Baker (London, 1995), pp. 35–38. ...

Green), but a surviving patch of

common land Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person who has a ...

Newington Green Newington Green is an open space in North London that straddles the border between Islington and Hackney. It gives its name to the surrounding area, roughly bounded by Ball's Pond Road to the south, Petherton Road to the west, Green Lanes and ...

to the north, that was carved out of old manorial wasteland where local farmers and tenants had free

grazing rights Grazing rights is the right of a user to allow their livestock to feed (graze) in a given area. United States Grazing rights have never been codified in United States law, because such common-law rights derive from the English concept of the ...

. The original land was far more extensive but was largely built over in the 19th century. Since 2015 the site has been protected as a Centenary Field with Fields in Trust, part of the

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

commemorative programme protecting parks and green spaces in perpetuity. In 1885, Henry Vigar-Harries described Islington Green "where the young love to skip in buoyant glee when the summer sun gladdens the air" and how "within a mile and a half from this spot there are 1,030 public houses and beer shops". hugh myddleton islington green 1

The green contains a memorial to the dead of both world wars as well as a statue of Sir Hugh Myddleton, designer of the New River that was so important to London's water supply from the 17th century onwards. The statue incorporates a fountain, which is no longer functioning. The New River itself once terminated about a kilometre to the south in Finsbury, but the section that can be still walked in modern times, the New River Walk, ends just to the north of the green off

. The north side of the green also carries a plaque to the once-famous Collins's Music Hall, which burned down in 1958. A Waterstone's bookshop now occupies the site.

Transport

Angel tube station Angel is a London Underground station in the Angel, London, Angel area of the London Borough of Islington. It is on the Bank and Monument stations, Bank branch of the Northern line, between King's Cross St Pancras tube station, King's Cross St. ...

* Essex Road railway station

References

External links

{{commonscat-inline, Islington Green Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Islington Islington