Merrie Islington: From Angel to Canonbury
Saxon drovers, Tudor towers, secret wells & the stories that built a village within a city
London · 10 stops · 2.2 km · ~1.1 h · Generated
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1. Angel Station & The Longest Escalator
Angel Underground Station, Islington High Street, London N1 9LQ
Look up toward the entrance of Angel station, and let me tell you something surprising. This is one of five Tube stations in London actually named after a pub. Not a saint, not a street... a Pub. An inn on this very site was called the Angel Inn by sixteen fourteen, and it became one of Islington's most famous landmarks. In the early eighteenth century, the Angel was the largest coaching house in a row of several along Islington High Street, serving travelers and cattle drovers heading into London from the north. These coaching inns were, in a sense, the airport hotels of their time.
And here's a delightful detail. Charles Dickens referenced the Angel in Oliver Twist, calling it the place where "London began in earnest." It's also believed that Thomas Paine began writing his famous book Rights of Man here in seventeen ninety. And if you've ever played the British version of Monopoly... "The Angel Islington" is a property on the board — one of the cheapest, reflecting how downmarket this area was for most of the twentieth century before its gentrification.
Now... step inside, and look down. With a vertical rise of ninety feet and a length of two hundred feet, the escalators at Angel station are the longest on the entire Underground network — and the fourth-longest in Western Europe. According to the Royal Academy of Engineering, Tube escalators travel at zero point seven five metres per second... which means a ride on Angel's giant takes about one minute and twenty seconds.
But why so deep? The station originally opened on the seventeenth of November, nineteen oh one, and it had a narrow island platform — just twelve feet wide in places — serving trains in both directions. It became notorious among commuters who feared being pushed toward the tracks during busy periods. In nineteen eighty-nine, filmmaker Molly Dineen captured the station's final chaotic days before its rebuild. Her documentary, Heart of the Angel, followed the night workers called "fluffers" — groups of women who cleaned human hair out of the tracks to avoid fire hazards — and gangs of men working with pickaxes in near pitch-black conditions. The film won the Documentary Award from the Royal Television Society.
The station was completely rebuilt between nineteen eighty-nine and nineteen ninety-two, and that's when these record-breaking escalators were installed.
And Then came the stunt that nobody expected. In two thousand and seven, a Norwegian man named Peter Olenick skied three hundred feet down this very escalator — reportedly reaching speeds close to thirty miles per hour. The viral YouTube video provoked a stern response from Transport for London, who called it — and I quote — "dangerous, stupid, and irresponsible." So please... take the escalator the traditional way. But as you ride it, remember — you're descending deeper than almost anyone else on the Tube today, into a tunnel that's been carrying Londoners since the reign of King Edward the Seventh.
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2. Sadler's Wells — From Medicinal Spa to World-Class Dance
Sadler's Wells Theatre, Rosebery Avenue, London EC1R 4TN
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3. The Peacock Inn — Where Tom Brown Slept
11 Islington High Street, London N1 9LQ
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4. Islington High Street's Raised Pavements
Islington High Street, London N1 0PS
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5. Camden Passage — The Hidden Cobbled Alley
Camden Passage, Islington, London N1 8EA
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6. Islington Green & Collins's Music Hall
Islington Green, Upper Street, London N1 2XH
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7. Screen on the Green Cinema
83 Upper Street, London N1 0NP
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8. The King's Head Theatre Pub
115 Upper Street, London N1 1QN
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9. Granita Restaurant Site — Where Blair Became PM
127 Upper Street, London N1 1QP
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10. Milner Square — The Eerily Oppressive Georgian Grid
Milner Square, London N1 1TN
