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Biddestone Park, also known as Biddestone Road Open Space, is a small park next to the busy Holloway Road. It was formerly the site of Loraine Place, a long terrace of housing built in 1832 when the area was gradually being developed. By 1936 Loraine Place was demolished and replaced by the LCC Loraine Estate of 6 five-storeyed blocks, later rebuilt in 1984. By 1952 the OS map marks a playground between Holloway Road and Biddestone Road south of the LCC estate that would later form the future site of the park, adjacent to which was the Caledonian Presbyterian Church, established here from c.1846. Biddestone Road Open Space was renovated in 2016 with new landscaping and play facilities marking the launch of Love Islington Parks initiative.
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* on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens
Bunhill is probably a corruption of 'Bone Hill', and the area has been a site of burial for upwards of 1,000 years. The Corporation of London had originally enclosed this site for a new burial ground for plague victims just outside the City walls, but it was subsequently leased for a private cemetery. Bunhill Fields was established in 1665 and became the country's pre-eminent Nonconformist cemetery. Between 1665-1854, when it was closed for burials, some 123,000 interments took place, the oldest existing memorial that of Theophilus Gale, d.1678. Among many important Nonconformists buried here are John Bunyan, Susannah Wesley (mother of Charles and John Wesley), Isaac Watts, Daniel Defoe and William Blake. In 1868 it was converted into public gardens by the Corporation of London, when new walls and gates were erected, paths laid out and trees planted. Following bomb damage, after WWII the north area was largely cleared and laid out as a garden and the south area re-landscaped with 5 railed areas containing over 2000 monuments.
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Caledonian Park was formed upon part of the former Copenhagen Fields that between 1852 and 1939 were the site of the Metropolitan Cattle Market. Prior to this they were open fields and a popular rural resort until the early C19th where sports such as cricket were played. The market closed at the outbreak of WWII and never re-opened. The area was eventually cleared, and the public park was laid out and opened in 1958. In the 1960s the park was planted with ornamental gardens and the early 1980s saw many trees planted.
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Canonbury Square was developed in the early C19th on land owned by the Marquess of Northampton. Before the square was fully built it was divided by Canonbury Road and consequently had two garden enclosures, which were formed by c.1840. Initially private, the gardens were first opened to the public in 1884 and later conveyed by the Marquess to Islington Borough Council. The layout of the gardens changed in the 1950s, and in 2006 Loire Valley Wines Legacy Gardens enabled a major makeover, which included a small vineyard and rose bed in the west garden reflecting the planting of the vineyards in the Loire Valley.
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The Manor of Canonbury is so-called for its one-time ownership by the Priory of St Bartholomew, dating back to Henry III's reign. The manor was purchased in 1570 by Sir John Spencer and inherited by his daughter whose husband became Earl of Northampton in 1618, and whose family continues to own the property. Canonbury Tower adjoins the main Canonbury House, and was leased separately from the 1650s and both had a number of illustrious tenants. The Tower was used as the Tower Theatre from the 1960s to 2003, and is now managed by Canonbury Tower Charitable Trust. In the small garden is a mulberry tree said to be planted in the early C17th when Sir Francis Bacon was tenant.
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In 1371 Charterhouse was founded by Sir Walter de Manny (1310-1372) as a Carthusian priory on Spital Croft to commemorate the 'Great Pestilence'; today a series of enclosed gardens within the Charterhouse Precincts form the setting for the remains of the priory. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries a Tudor mansion was built here in 1545. In 1614, under the will of the owner Thomas Sutton, it was endowed as an almshouse and school, Sutton's Hospital in the Charterhouse. The almshouse remains but the school moved in 1872. The largest of the enclosed gardens is Preachers Court Garden. Charterhouse Square did not take shape as a formal residential square until the C17th when the pentagonal garden was laid out with walks lined with mature lime trees, bordered on three sides by mansions and on the north by the old priory buildings. Charterhouse Square Gardens, formerly only open to key-holders, is now open to the public on a regular basis following re-landscaping works that respected the historic character.
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The churchyard of Christ Church Highbury is a triangular plot that forms the northern tip of Highbury Fields. Christ Church was built in 1848 by Thomas Allom of Balham, who was later surveyor of the Ladbroke Estate in North Kensington. The site along with £100 was donated by Henry Dawes, a descendent of John Dawes of Highbury Place and Canonbury. The churchyard is laid to grass, with shrubs around the perimeter, and surrounded by reproduction railings dating from c.1980. Trees include notable robinia, horse chestnut and sycamore. Opposite the church is a fine cast iron and granite clock tower, erected in 1897.
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The central garden at Claremont Close is an oval space that acts as a focus for the surrounding eight blocks of flats erected in 1935/6, the last 'square' to be built by the New River Company. The site had previously served as cattle layers for beasts en route to Smithfield Market, and by the 1840s there were livery stables and service buildings here. When the flats were built in 1935 two houses were removed in order to provide better access.
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Claremont Square was developed around the Upper Pond or 'New Reservoir' of the New River Company, which had been provided in 1708/9 as an extension of the New River Head to serve this area of Islington. The railed reservoir had garden walks around it that were only accessible to the privileged few. The terraced houses of Claremont Square were built when the New River Company began to develop their estate for housing in the 1820s. In the 1850s the reservoir was drained, covered and turfed over, the central area raised and enclosed by a high brick wall so that the former reservoir became a high flat-topped mound with steep sides.
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Not strictly speaking a village green, Clerkenwell Green was open space between St John's Priory and St Mary's Nunnery and was once the centre of the village. In the C17th houses of the nobility and the wealthy were built here and the Green was planted with trees, which later blew down in 1796. By the C18th there was a pound, pillory and watch house here, with a turnstile at the entrance of Clerkenwell Close.
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The Cloister Garden of the Priory Church of the Order of St John of Jerusalem was laid out by Lord Mottistone when the bomb-damaged church was restored in 1955-58, as a memorial to members of St John's Ambulance from London District. Overlooking the garden is a crucifix by Cecil Thomas of 1960, and 2 brick arches on the south wall of the adjacent church are believed to be where an early C16th chapel pierced the walls. After the Priory was dissolved the buildings had a number of uses, the church later becoming a parish church in 1722/3, but now back in use by the Order of St John. Until recently the garden was largely grass with a central fountain, but has been re-landscaped with funding from HLF and the Wellcome Trust and now contains medieval herbs of the monastic period. It is entered via the fine Docwra Family Memorial Gateway off St John's Square.
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The square is named for Sir Richard Cloudesley, who had an estate here from the early C16th. In 1811 the Estate Trustees were permitted to let building leases and the Cloudesley Estate, also called Stonefield, was planned from 1812. Cloudesley Square, begun in c.1825, was the centre of the estate, with Holy Trinity Church built in 1826-29 to serve the growing population. Around the church is a hexagonal railed garden, essentially a strip of grass with a path and a number of mature trees.