Clerkenwell in Middlesex County England History and Geography

CLERKENWELL, an extensive and populous parish, in the Finsbury division of the hundred of OSSULSTONE, county of MIDDLESEX, anciently one of the northern suburbs, but now adjoining the city of London, containing 39.105 inhabitants. The name of this parish originated from an anctent well, round which the parish clerks of London were in the habit of assembling at certain periods, for the performance of sacred dramas, and noticed in the reign of Henry II. by Fitz-Stephen, under the appellation of Fons Clericorum. The parish is not mentioned in Domesday-book, being probably at the time of the survey an undistinguished portion of the great forest of Middlesex, or perhaps included in the parish of Islington, which, under the name Iseldone, is noticed in that record. The site appears to have been well adapted to the celebration of those sacred festivals for which it was selected, from being in the centre of gently rising grounds, which formed an extensive and natural amphitheatre, for the accommodation of the numerous spectators who attended on such occasions. The most celebrated of these festivals took place in 1391, in the reign of Richard II., and continued for three days, during which several sacred dramas were performed by the clerks, in presence of the king and queen, attended by the whole court. About the year 1100, Sir Jordan Brisset and his wife founded a priory here for nuns of the Benedictine order, dedicated to St. Mary, the site being now occupied by the parish church of St. James: the revenue, at the dissolution, was £282. 16. 5. The same Jordan founded also an hospital for Knights Hospitallers of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, which was liberally endowed with lands, and invested with many privileges by several successive monarchs; the lord prior had precedence of all lay barons in parliament, and power over all preceptories and smaller establishments of that order in the kingdom; the revenue, at the dissolution, was £2385. 12. 8.: this institution was partly restored in the reign of Philip and Mary, but was suppressed in that of Elizabeth: the remains are the gate, in the later style of English architecture, now a private residence, and the vaults of the old church, in the Norman character, upon the site of which St. John's chapel was subsequently erected. The establishment of these monasteries naturally drew around them a number of dependent dwellings, but the parish made little progress in the number of its inhabitants prior to the time of Elizabeth, in whose reign, with the exception of some ';banquetting houses and summer houses,' it contained only a few straggling cottages, and some good houses in the immediate neighbourhood of the religious houses; its increase was afterwards more rapid, and in 1619 several noblement and gentlemen were numbered among its inhabitants. Since then, the erection of numerous pleasant streets and well built houses, and the more recent laying out of Spa-fields and its neighbourhood, in a variety of new streets and squares, have rendered this one of the most populous parishes in the vicinity of the metropolis.

Among the more recent improvements may be noticed Claremont-square, a range of well built houses, in the centre of which is the reservoir of the New River water-works, surrounded by a high embankment planted with shrubs; Wilmington and Myddelton squares, and numerous spacious streets and ranges of modern and respectable buildings. St. John's street and Goswell-street roads, the former leading from Smithfield, and the latter from Aldersgate, are the principal thoroughfares: the parish is lighted with gas, and the path-ways are well flagged; it is within the limits of the new police establishment under Mr. Peel's act: the inhabitants are supplied with water by the New River Company, whose works are situated in this parish; where the stupendous undertaking of bringing the new river from Amwell, near Ware in Hertfordshire, terminated. This enterprise was first projected in the reign of Elizabeth, and in the following reign, James I. granted an act of parliament enabling the mayor and commonalty of London to carry it into effect; but the commissioners, dreading the difficulty and expense of the undertaking, made no advances for some years. In 1609, Mr. Hugh Myddelton, citizen and goldsmith of London, made proposals to the common council of the city to undertake the work at his own risk, and to complete it in four years, for which purpose the commissioners transferred to him the powers with which they had been invested by the act. After having persevered in the enterprise till the water was brought to Enfield, the city refusing to grant him any pecuniary assistance, Mr. Myddelton applied to the king, who agreed to pay him one half of the expense, on condition of having a moiety of the concern transferred to him, and at various times, from Easter 1612, to Michaelmas 1614, advanced sums of money amounting in the whole to £6347.4. 11½., with which assistance the work was completed on the 29th of September, 1613, on the afternoon of which day, the lord mayor and corporation went in state to the ';great cistern,' called the New River Head, in this parish, when, after an oration delivered by a person especially selected, the flood gates were thrown open, and the water rushed from the river into the cistern, amidst the joyous acclamation of an assembled multitude. The river, from its source at Amwell to Spa-fields, is thirty-eight miles, three quarters, and sixteen poles in length: there are nearly three hundred bridges erected over it, and its course is continued through the varying levels of the districts through which it passes, by means of forty sluices. The property of the company was divided into seventy-two shares, of which one half was vested in Mr. Myddelton and twenty-eight other persons incorporated by charter of James I. in 1619, who are proprietors of the thirty-six shares, constituting what is called the adventurers' moiety; the other moiety, vested in the crown, was regranted by Charles I. to Sir Hugh Myddelton, who had been created a baronet on the 22d of October, 1622: an adventurer's share in this company has been sold for £14,000. The Regent's canal passes on the north side of the parish, and enters a tunnel near White Conduit-house; after proceeding in a direct line for nearly one thousand yards, in the course of which it passes under the New River, it terminates about twenty yards eastward from that part of it which flows between Colnbrooke-row and the City Road.

Of the numerous wells with which this parish abounded, several were in great repute for their medicinal properties, and houses of public entertainment were erected near their site: of these, which were generally tea-gardens, and rendered more attractive by musical performances, the chief were Bagnigge Wells, White Conduit House, New Tunbridge Wells, and Islington Spa, all still remaining; of those which have for many years been discontinued, were the Pantheon in Spa-fields, now a chapel belonging to a congregation in Lady Hunting-don's connexion; the Cold Bath, in Cold Bath fields, of which the bath alone is still frequented; the Mulberry and Vineyard gardens; the celebrated Bear garden at Hockley in the Hole; and Sadler's Wells, near the New River Head, which has for many years been converted into a theatre. There are slight vestiges of the Fons Clericorum, or Clerks'well, on the site of which the houses in the close have been built, consisting chiefly of a pump, over which is an inscription. The manufacture of clocks and watches, of which the several parts form distinct and separate departments of the trade, has for more than a century been carried on here to a considerable extent: when the duty on clocks and watches was imposed in 1791, by act of parliament, not less than seven thousand of the inhabitants were deprived of employment, and obliged to have recourse to parochial aid: there are considerable manufactories for church and turret clocks, and for the heavier kinds of mechanical tools and engines; also some extensive distilleries and soap-manufactories. The sessions for the county, and the meetings of the county magistrates, for the assessment of the county rates, and for other affairs, are held at the sessions house on Clerkenwell green, which was erected at an expense of £13,000; it is a spacious and handsome edifice fronted with stone, having in the centre four pillars of the Ionic order, rising from a rustic basement and supporting a pediment in the tympanum, and on each side of which are emblematical figures in basso relievo; the entrance by a flight of steps opens into a hall thirty-four fect square, lighted by a dome which surmounts the building; from this hall, in which are the offices of the county treasurer and clerk of the peace, a double flight of steps leads into the court-room, which is of a semicircular form, commodiously arranged for the business of the sessions, and furnished with galleries for the accommodation of auditors: there are on this story, rooms for the grand jury, for the commissioners of the land and assessed taxes, for the meetings of the magistrates, and for other purposes. The new prison, for the confinement of prisoners awaiting their trial at the sessions, was erected on the site of the old bridewell, in 1780, at an expense of £2500; it was partly rebuilt and greatly enlarged in 1818, and comprises a house for the governor, a chapel, twenty wards, ten day-rooms, and twelve airing-yards, for the classification of prisoners, and two infirmaries, one for males and the other for females. The house of correction in Cold Bath Fields was erected in 1794, at an expense of £70,000; it is a spacious brick building enclosed with high walls, including a spacious area divided into eighteen airing-yards, in one of which is a tread-mill upon an improved principle: there are eighteen day-rooms, but the classification is imperfect, from the numerous commitments, which greatly exceed the number for which it was originally built: the prisoners are employed in productive labour, and receive a portion of their earnings on their discharge. Clerkenwell manor, formerly denominated the manor of St. John of Jerusalem, includes several out-portions of the parishes of St.Sepulchre, St. Luke (Old-street), and Hornsey, with those parts of the parish of Clerkenwell called the liberties of Cold Bath Fields, St. John of Jerusalem, Clerkenwell Close, Wood Close, and Pentonville: constables and headboroughs for these liberties are chosen by the inhabitants of each, and presented at the manorial court for the approbation of the proprietor. The custom of borough English, whereby the youngest son inherits, prevails in the parish.

This district was formerly called the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell, and the church of St. James was the only church within it; it is now divided into two districts, one called St. James', and the other St. John's, both in the archdeaconry and diocese of London. The living of St. James' is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the inhabitants of both districts, paying church and poor rates: the church is a modern structure of brick, with a handsome stone steeple, erected on the site of the ancient church of the priory of St. Mary, which had been previously modernised, but which, prior to its being taken down, for the erection of the present edifice, retained many vestiges of its Norman character, and contained the ashes of the last prioress of the nunnery, the last prior of St. John's; Weever the antiquary; Bishop Burnet, and many other distinguished characters. The living of St. John's is a rectory not in charge, in the gift of the Crown: the church was formed out of the choir of a church anciently belonging to the priory of the Knights Hospitallers, by the commissioners appointed under the act for building fifty new churches, passed in the tenth of Queen Anne's reign, by virtue of which a district was annexed to it, and the benefice constituted a rectory in 1723. Notwithstanding it enjoys the privilege of religious rites, the incumbent of St. James' is entitled to the surplice-fees: there is a separate churchwarden for St. John's church, but the inhabitants of both districts contribute to the repairs of both churches, and the same overseers of the poor act for the whole. St.Mark's church, in Myddelton-square, containing one thousand nine hundred and seventy-one sittings, of which one thousand four hundred and thirty-one are free, was erected in 1826, by a grant from the parliamentary commissioners, at an expense of £14,365.6.6: it is a neat edifice in the later style of English architecture, with a handsome western front and a square tower with pierced parapet and pinnacles: the living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the present incumbent of St.James', during his life-time, and afterwards in that of the Bishop of London. The chapel at Pentonville, a neat modern edifice of brick, ornamented with stone, and having a small cupola, was erected in 1791, for a chapel of ease to St.James. Spa-Fields chapel formerly a theatre for public amusement, was appropriated for a place of worship by the late Countess of Huntingdon, who for many years resided at the chapel house adjoining; and at her decease it was vested in trustees, with other chapels in various parts of the kingdom, agreeably to her will: there are likewise places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, Wesleyan and other Methodists, a Scotch church, and a Welch chapel. The parish has the right of sending six scholars to the free grammar school, founded by Lady Alice Owen, for natives of this parish and of that of Islington, and of having three boys in Christ's hospital, under the will of Giles Russell, Esq., who in 1669 devised property to that establishment, for nine boys of the town of Sherborne, in the county of Dorset, and of the parishes of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, and St. James', Clerkenwell. The charity school, for one hundred and twenty boys, and one hundred girls, many of whom are clothed, was founded and is partly supported by subscription; it has been endowed with funds producing £138. 9. 11. per annum. The National schools, for five hundred boys and five hundred girls, erected in 1829, by means of a grant of £500 from the society, form a spacious and handsome range of building in the Elizabethan style of architecture. The London Female Penitentiary asylum, at Pentonville, established in 1807, is a large range of building, comprising an infirmary, and apartments for one hundred females, who are chiefly employed in needlework and domestic occupations, to qualify them for service: since the establishment of this institution, one thousand four hundred and sixty-nine females have been received into it, of whom the greater number has been placed out in respectable situations, or restored to their friends. The Finsbury Dispensary was established in 1780, since which time it has extended relief to more than one hundred and fifty thousand of the labouring and necessitous poor; the number of patients annually relieved is on the average four thousand. A portion of the Roman Watling-street, and the river of Wells, the Fleta of the Romans, form part of the boundaries of the parish. Among the distinguished natives and residents of Clerkenwell, may be enumerated, Sir Thomas Chaloner, Bishop Burnet, Sir John Oldcastle, Baron Cobham, and Cave, who established the Gentleman's Magazine, and whose printing-office was over St. John's gate.

From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale