It’s another grey and cool day today (15°C, 59°F) but not raining, fortunately. Despite the official temperature, it didn’t feel all that cold and conditiions were quite pleasant.
I have mentioned the Shakespeare’s Head pub in Arlington Way several times but there are in fact two pubs in that street. Here is a picture of the second one.
The Harlequin Inn
Although the Harlequin Inn looks like a converted house (which it may well be), it has existed as a pub since 1848. I don’t know when it acquired the name but I think it was fairly early on. It is appropriate because the Sadler’s Wells Theatre is just around the corner from here and is where Joseph Grimaldi performed his famous roles as the character Harlequin, though the pub came into being a little after his time.
Perhaps you remember me describing Finsbury Town Hall in my post Sneeze like a vampaire! Here is a reminder of it.
Finsbury Town Hall
If you look at the extreme left of the picture, you can see that the building makes a corner and that the railings stand out from the building itself. This is because there is acccess here, via a metal staircase, to the basement area. This is what you can see down there.
Entrance to the subterranean rooms
This may not seem very interesting until you notice that the doorway, protected by a stout concrete screen, leads under the street. This is in fact the entrance to an air raid shelter built in 1939-40, and which extends under Garnault Place, the street behind me as I take this photo. “Air raid shelter” might suggest something small but this structure is quite elaborate. It is descibed on the site Subterranea Britannica as follows:
In 1939-1940 a temporary civil defence reporting centre was set up in the basement of the town hall while a permanent two level control centre was excavated by ‘cut and cover’ beneath Garnault Place. There had been some objections from the Ministry of Home Security about the cost of the new control to a small borough like Finsbury but with several key targets in the area, notably the Metropolitan Water Board HQ on the opposite side of Rosebery Avenue, the construction was authorised.
…
The two level bunker was accessed down steps from the basement of the town hall. The upper floor was designed as a two room air raid shelter for town hall staff (one room for 94 persons and the other for 91) with the control centre located on the lower floor. External walls were 6’ 6” thick.
There is a lot more about it on the cited page but rather than transcribe it all here, I will leave you to read it there, if you wish to do so.
The name Garnault (there is a Garnault Mews as well as a Garnault Place) caught our attention: Where did that come from? Is it a Huguenot name?
The streets took their name as a memorial to Samuel Garnault (died 11 March, 1827), onetime Treasurer to the New River Company. The name is indeed Huguenot, as we read in The Lost City of London – Before the Great Fire of 1666:
The Garnaults, incidentally, were a Huguenot family who arrived as refugees in Enfield in 1684. Michael Garnault bought a former Tudor mansion called Bowling Green House in Bulls Cross in 1724, and various members of the family continued to live there until 1812 (the site is now occupied by Myddelton House, built by the Bowles family in 1818).
We now made our way across Rosebery Avenue into Amwell Street. Where this striking façade claims the curious explorer’s attention.
Church of St Peter and St Paul
It is the Church of St Peter and St Paul (Roman Catholic) and is now Grade II listed.
It was not always a Roman Catholic church, however. Designed by John Blyth, it was built in 1833-5 for Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion, being named, first, Northampton Tabernacle, then Rosoman Street Mission, a non-conformist chapel, before finally becoming the Roman Catholic Church. This “recycling” of church buildings between various different denominations, and even between different religions, may seem strange but is by no means uncommon.
The name “Rosoman Street Mission” was probably chosen because the lower part of what was later known as Amwell Street, was called Upper Rosoman Street.
This corner-site house caught my eye. As you can see, it is number 13, Amwell Street.
F. Bowman
Clearly, the number 13 did not deter the original Frederick Bowman who established his business here as a non-ferrous foundry and engineer’s pattern makers in 1865. There seem to have been at least two generations of F. Bowmans. I don’t know when the business closed but it is in tune with its longevity that the original shop front still remains even though the premises have been converted for residential use. The Bowman family did not live here themselves but had a house at 95 Rosoman Street. For more details, see this page on the site A London Inheritance.
We continued up Amwell Street, heading for Myddelton’s and our daily coffee but before arriving there, my attention was caught once more by another histioric site.
Clerkenwell Parochial C of E Primary School
The name is a bit of a mouthful but at least states what the building is for. This is one of the two entrances and still bears its original name of “BOYS’ SCHOOL”. There is a corresponding entrance for girls further down the street though I do not think that the implied segregation of the sexes is still practised.
I cannot do better than retail two fine paragraphs from the Survey of London: Volume 47, Northern Clerkenwell and Pentonville, quoted on the site British History Online:
The school was built in 1828–9 to replace the 70-year-old schoolhouse at the corner of Aylesbury Street and Jerusalem Passage, where the lease expired in 1830. Negotiations for building ground on the New River Company’s estate were opened in 1825 by the governors (led by the embezzler John Scott) and a lease was ultimately secured at nominal rent. This was for a former iron-pipe yard, opposite the company’s works yard, which had became redundant with the completion of the wooden-pipe replacement programme (see page 188).
The school, designed by the architect John Blyth with input from W. C. Mylne for the New River Company, opened in 1830 having cost about £3,500. About half came from voluntary contributions, and £500 from the National School Society, whose system the parish had adopted in 1816. Long and low, it is built of whitish brick in a gaunt Tudor style (Ill. 259), with separate entrance bays for boys and girls to the north and south respectively. The adjoin ing schoolmaster’s house is somewhat set back, with a great fig tree alongside.
John Blyth, you may recall, was responsible for the building that became the Church of St Peter and St Paul (see above). The fig tree, incidentally, still exists and is visible from the street. It has grown so enormous that metal supports have had to be put in place to prevent it collapsing under its own weight.
As for us, a few more steps brought us to Myddelton’s where, after a brief wait for another customer to conclude his purchases, we obtained our coffees and rushed off home to consume them before they grew too cold.
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