The area west of Caledonian Road was further affected by the sale c.
1852 of Copenhagen House and 72 a. to the Corporation of London, which
demolished the house and built the Metropolitan Cattle Market on 30 a.,
opened in 1855. (fn. 3)
Drovers' lodgings, five public houses, and two hotels were put up
around the market, and the Corporation built a block of working-class
dwellings c. 1865. (fn. 4)
In
the 1850s building began on Cubitt's land, but the railway, prison, and
market made poor neighbours and houses had to be designed for artisans
and clerks rather than the wealthier residents catered for south of
Offord Road. The 1 a. on the west side of Caledonian Road was leased in
1853 to Henry Law, who built the 14 houses in Arthur Terrace fronting
Caledonian Road (nos. 353-79 odd), with a workshop added to the first
house and a stable yard at the back. (fn. 5)
Law continued Arthur Terrace on the opposite side of Caledonian Road
with seven houses (? nos. 418-406 even) in the block between Market
(later Wheelwright) and Cumberland (later Ponder) streets in 1856. (fn. 6)
In 1853 Thompson and Crosswell started building south of the prison
with the City of Rome public house and some houses at the east end of
both streets, but the south side of Market Street was completed only in
1863 and the north side of Cumberland Street in 1866, the south side
being sold to the railway. (fn. 7)
In the same period building joined Roman Road to the streets spreading
westward from Holloway Road. Some houses in Roman Road were occupied in
1858, (fn. 8)
and in 1860 leases were granted for houses built by William Dennis
behind the Caledonian asylum and in three new streets linking Roman and
Westbourne roads. (fn. 9)
In Hollingsworth Road a little farther east Mrs. Mary Tealby started a
temporary home for lost dogs in stables behind nos. 15 and 16, raising
funds from friends. After her death in 1865 the home was carried on by
a committee which included her brother the Revd. Edward Bates. Although
ridiculed by press and public, the home received benefactions and by
1869 was admitting an average of 850 dogs a month, with c. 200
kept there at any one time. Complaints about the noise in a residential
area prompted a move in 1871 to more suitable premises, where the
enterprise became the Battersea Dogs' Home. (fn. 10)
The
remaining open land north of the market was built over in the 1860s and
early 1870s. Penn Road, with St. Luke's church and the houses behind
Camden Road, was built in the 1860s, as was the south-west side of
Hillmarton Road, (fn. 11)
but the angle between Hillmarton and Caledonian roads was filled a
little later. Hungerford Road was partially built up by 1862, from
either end, and more houses there were leased in 1873. (fn. 12)
The houses between Camden Road and the market, influenced by the
proximity to Tufnell Park, were substantial terraced and detached
buildings.
Further growth took the form of infilling and
additions to the industrial premises near the market, until some
rebuilding was done by local authorities. The district was not uniform
in character and some middle-class streets near Camden Road contrasted
with the market area and pockets of severe overcrowding. A ragged
school was needed for Holloway by 1846, housed in Brand Street off
Hornsey Road, (fn. 13)
where the houses had to be limed and cleansed in 1849, when one family
was sleeping on a damp floor and three others had to be supplied with
bedsteads, (fn. 14)
and the area nearby centred on Queensland Road was found to be poor and
of very low moral character at the end of the century. The same was
true of the area around St. James's and Wellington streets, while in
Belle Isle the inhabitants, although not among the poorest, were rough.
(fn. 15)
In 1929 four areas of Lower Holloway were in the second highest
category of overcrowding with 1.50 to 1.75 persons to a room: between
Eden Grove and Sheringham Road, between Liverpool and Wellington roads,
between Blundell and Brewery roads, south of the market, and in
Queensland Road and along Drayton Park to the railway line. The area
west of Liverpool Road and housing at the Metropolitan market had 1.25
to 1.50 persons, while the least crowded areas, with less than 1 person
to a room, were Furlong Road and Crane Grove near St. Mary Magdalene's
and between Camden and Hungerford roads and either side of Hillmarton
Road. The remainder had a density of 1 to 1.25. (fn. 16)
The
L.C.C. undertook much rehousing. In 1901 it bought the 2-a. Caledonian
asylum and after the occupants had moved out in 1903 replaced the
building with 5 five-storeyed blocks containing 272 flats around a
garden, designed by a Mr. Riley and completed in 1906. (fn. 17)
The L.C.C. also rebuilt two of the worse areas at Brand Street and
George's Road, known together as the Ring Cross estate and completed in
1928. At Brand Street two blocks with shops fronting Hornsey Road
called Branston and Rollit houses were built to house 292 people, and
Rollit Street was laid out to replace Brand Street. The cleared site
extended from Hornsey Road to the Northern Polytechnic, built in
Holloway Road in 1896, and the east end of the site was used for an
extension to the polytechnic. (fn. 18)
The north side of George's Road around Hartnoll Street was rebuilt in
1929 with Radford House, five-storeyed blocks containing 111 flats, and
the smaller four-storeyed Hartnoll House with 24 flats for cheaper
letting to slum tenants. A garden was laid out in 1930, and c.
1 a. in the south-west corner was used for Hope Street (Ring Cross)
primary school and Barnsbury Central school for boys, opened 1931. (fn. 19) Between 1934 and 1942 the L.C.C. also built 6 five-storeyed blocks on the site of Loraine Place, Holloway Road. (fn. 20)
The
greatest changes took place after the Second World War, at the cattle
market, and at Westbourne Road. The Corporation of London sold
Corporation Buildings to the borough council in 1935 and the 28-a. site
of the Metropolitan market to the L.C.C. after the market's closure in
1939. The 'flea market' known as the Caledonian market which had also
been held there moved to Bermondsey Square, Bermondsey (Surr.). (fn. 21)
The G.L.C. and Islington L.B. cleared Corporation Buildings and various
halls and sheds from 1965, leaving the central clock tower as a
landmark. Caledonian Market estate, with 271 dwellings designed by
Farber & Bartholomew, was built c. 1967 (fn. 22)
on the south side of the road and west of the clock tower; open space
was left both around the tower and south of Market Road, where public
gardens and sports grounds included an astro-turf football pitch first
used in 1971. (fn. 23)
Two blocks of eleven-storeyed flats were also built between Rowstock
Gardens and Camden Road, with some four-storeyed blocks of masionettes.
In the 1970s two- and three-storeyed flats and houses were built east
of the clock tower grounds and an eight- and a four-storeyed block
farther east on the south side of North Road, the rest of the road
being filled with industrial premises. The other large scheme involved
clearing a decayed area between Bride Street and George's Road, where
housing problems had been made worse by families displaced from
Barnsbury seeking cheap private accommodation; the area was compared
unfavourably with the worst city ghettoes in the U.S.A. (fn. 24)
In the 1970s the housing between Roman Way and Westbourne Road was
replaced by two-storeyed houses and open spaces, with some roads closed
to traffic, and old houses retained on the outskirts were gradually
rehabilitated.
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