Clerkenwell Close has a history of embarrassing the London Borough of Islington’s Planning Department. Read about No. 40 Clerkenwell Close and then No. 15 Clerkenwell Close below.
The stretch of frontage now occupied by Nos 1 – 5 and Nos. 8 – 13 Clerkenwell Close were formerly occupied by an 18th-century house. In the 1950s and early 60s the buildings here and in Nos 33–36 Clerkenwell Green which were next to them were mostly in ruins, and the site was all cleared by the London County Council as part of a plan to make Clerkenwell Green and St James’s churchyard into a single open space. This scheme was abandoned in the late 1960s and the land remained undeveloped. But in the 1980s Islington Borough Council began their own mixed use development on the site, including workshops, shops, flats and maisonettes. There were also gardens, pedestrianized courtyards and walkways in the space between. The development was carried out in 1985 using designs by the Council’s Architect’s Department. The design and materials were intended specifically to blend in with the surviving Georgian-looking buildings nearby.
No. 6 Clerkenwell Close survived the site clearance of Nos. 1 – 5 Clerkenwell Close. It is the only house left of a row of houses built in the 1830s. The interesting iron cresting above the shop front was added in 1884. From 1896 until 2000 it was occupied a family of dealers in cycles and more recently auto-spares.
Pubs in Clerkenwell are rarely built on virgin ground. They all seem to be built on the site of former public house, often stretching way back in time. Going back to the 18th century, there was a public house named the Three Johns on this corner. The name was changed in 1774 to the Oxford Arms, and again in 1783 to the Three Kings. That pub was knocked down in 1871 and replace with the building we see today. The tiled ground-floor front was probably added during alterations in 1938.
Nos. 8 – 14 Clerkenwell was built by the London Borough of Islington in the 1980s as part of the courtyard development also comprising Nos. 1 – 5 Clerkenwell Close and extending through to Nos. 33–36 Clerkenwell Green (as described more fully above under Nos. 1 – 5 Clerkenwell Close).
No. 15 Clerkenwell Close was designed by architect Amin Taha, and completed in 2017. The building’s stone façade was controversial when it appeared, as it had not been fully detailed in the building’s planning documents, and Islington Council did not appreciate what they had in fact approved until the true shock of the apparently unfinished framework appeared for all to see. Islington Council called for the building’s demolition, but this was overturned on appeal. The building won a RIBA National Award in 2018 and in 2021 was nominated for the Stirling Prize. It has become part of the visual scenery and no longer shocks.
Opposite the churchyard, the west side of the Close up to the Peabody estate comprises an unremarkable group of mostly commercial buildings. Some are converted Victorian warehouses, variously restored or reconstructed, others modern pastiches.
No. 16 Clerkenwell Close was built in 1898. It was first occupied by pencil-makers, and more recently by pencil-pushers.
Nos 17–18 Clerkenwell Close are not original warehouses, unlike No. 16 Clerkenwell Close. There was already a factory here which had been built in the 1880s. For some reason, the owners in the 1980s, decided to tear it down and replace it with a replica or at least similar factory-warehouse.
Challoner House, No. 19 Clerkenwell Close, was built in the 1860s. Nos 20 and 21 were two three-storey houses built somewhat earlier in the 1820s, although they have been considerably altered and extended over the years.
Nos 19 to 21 stand on part of the site of Challoner or Cromwell House, which was a famous mansion of the 17th century. Challoner House was the home in the early 1600s of the courtier and chemist Sir Thomas Chaloner, or Challoner who was a friend of King James I. Its later name, Cromwell House, comes from an unlikely tradition that Oliver Cromwell lived there at some time. But the family did clearly have a connection with Cromwell. Two of Sir Thomas Chaloner’s sons, James and Thomas, were ‘regicides’ – signatories to the execution of King Charles I.
The architects of the mid-1980s brick office building which is Nos 42–46 Clerkenwell Close were not the architecturally adventurous types. They simply created a facsimile (but with better plumbing) of the artisans cottages built here in the 1790s.
Nos. 47 and 48 Clerkenwell Close, built in the early 1790s, are the two remaining houses from the original row of six houses, which were originally Nos. 1–6 Newcastle Place, but later called Nos. 47–52 Clerkenwell Close. Not only are Nos. 47 and 48 the sole survivors of the row of six, they are also the sole survivors of an estate of more than forty houses build on the former grounds of Newcastle House. These were all designed and built by James Carr whose main project was re-building St James’ Church. The houses were mainly occupied by artisans and craftsmen, many of them in the clock, watch and jewellery trades.
Beyond the churchyard and church, heading back to Clerkenwell Green, there are several three-storey brick-faced buildings which were created when St James’s Church was undergoing reconstruction in 1792. The first two are Nos. 53 and 54 Clerkenwell Close. They have been used for small businesses for most of their lives. They were fully restored for shop and residential use in the 1980s. No. 55 Clerkenwell Close was built in the 1780s as part of the Crown public house at No. 43 Clerkenwell Green, but No. 55 later became separately owned as it is today.
There is a pub, the Horseshoe, at No. 24 Clerkenwell Close. The original late 18th-century pub is out of sight at the back. The two-storey, white-painted pub you see from the front is just that – a front added in the 1840s or 1850s. Once inside, you enter the hidden recesses behind the visible part. Next to the Horseshoe, is a pair of house – Nos 25 and 26 Clerkenwell Close – dating from the early 1800s. They were separate houses until recently when they are combined into a single shop at ground level with flats above.
No. 40 Clerkenwell Close, designed by the Peter Tigg Partnership, was once described as ‘gloriously illiterate in the Docklands Post-Modern style’. There was a bit of a scandal about it in 1988 when it was unveiled. Islington Council claimed that permission had not been given for the facing materials: yellow brick, reflective glass, and silver-grey panels. They said they would never have approved that. In fact, what had happened was that they had passed the design, but mistakenly thinking they were approving an earlier more traditional design submitted by a different architect for another developer. It has all been changed anyway now – the silver-grey panels have been replaced with blue-green.
Clerkenwell Workshops, Nos 27 – 31 Clerkenwell Close were built in 1897 as the central stores for the London School Board. Although they appear reassuringly familiar, they are apparently the only buildings of their type in London.
Essentially the new buildings were formed of two warehouses—a long, curving furniture store fronting Clerkenwell Close, and a rectangular stationery and needlework store at the back of the site, and an entrance gateway leading to a covered yard between them. Both were brick built, with timber upper floors on steel joists encased in concrete, supported on cast-iron columns and brick piers.
In architectural style terms, the buildings are said to be in the School Board manner (severe and utilitarian). But actually they were made to be quite attractive. The curved street-facing building in particular is faced in red and yellow brick, with blue engineering brick on the ground floor. The buildings have large segmental–headed windows, and carved pediments over the entrances. An extra storey was added to the street-facing building in 1920
For many years, the buildings were passed between various London education authorities. Later they were used as craft workshops. Maybe that is when they gained the Clerkenwell Workshops name. But since about 2000 the buildings have been used as office and design studios with an exceptional café – restaurant in the ground floor.
