The north side of Albemarle Way is the interesting side. (The south side is mainly just the backs of former warehouses in Clerkenwell Road.)
Albemarle Way was originally created in the 1730s on part of the former garden of Ailesbury House. The development was carried out by Joseph Cook, a rag merchant and carpenter, who built about twenty houses using mostly local craftsmen, who took building leases on individual plots.
It seems that the first occupiers were not too bothered about sanitary conditions. In October 1731, the inhabitants of ‘Cook’s buildings in and about Albemarl Street’ were asked by the Sewers Commission of London to explain their reluctance to pay for connecting their drains to the common sewer.
Albemarle Street was named after The Second Duke of Albemarle. He had married the daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, and they lived together in Newcastle House in Clerkenwell Close. The house became known as Albemarle House. The widowed ‘mad duchess’, as she became known locally, lived at Albemarle House until her death in 1734.
The south side of Albemarle Way was demolished in 1877 to make way for the new Clerkenwell Road. The north side of Albemarle Way was mostly rebuilt as commercial or light-industrial premises.
The corner building has an address in St John’s Square.
This is a photo of the row of houses along the street from No. 1 at the St John’s Square end almost to St John Street.
This is how Albemarle Street looked in 1950.
Albemarle Street is so narrow that I couldn’t take shots of the whole of the front of any building. So these photos are of the individual interesting shop frontages.
No. 2 Albemarle Way is the only one of Joseph Cook’s original houses from the 1730s to survive, although the front was replaced in 1878.
Visual House at No. 8 Albemarle Way – maybe not quite as visual as the other shops.
The building on the corner with St John Street, is the home of Gleave & Co, one of the remaining watch repairers in the area.
Much of the south side of Albemarle Way is taken up by the backs of buildings whose entrances are in Clerkenwell Road. The first is No. 80 Clerkenwell Road. The one with scaffolding is No. 82 Clerkenwell Road.
There are a couple of back entrances with their own Albemarle Way street numbers in the large building which
