London Districts: Islington (Documentary)

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Union Chapel is now a not-for-profit organisation offering itself as an award-winning venue for gigs and artistic performance. Generated income is reinvested into its conservation and community schemes.

Islington is the capital district inside the London Borough of Islington and was first named by the Saxons ‘Giseldone’ in 1005 to mean ‘Gisla's hill’. It lost the G over time and mutated into ‘Isledon’, before taking its modern form in the 1700s.

Canonbury is renowned for its stunning Regency architecture and beautifully laid out streets with ever-lasting novelty for even the most local residents visiting. The land was generally granted to the Canons family of the St Bartholomew's Priory in 1253 and thus became known as ‘Canonbury’ in 1373 aka the ‘manor of the Canons’.
 
The name ‘Angel’ primarily stems from the ‘Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary’, a celebration of the biblical account of Archangel Gabriel’s conversation with a 12-ish year old Mary that she’d conceive a son by the power of the Holy Spirit to be called Jesus, the son of God.
 
The equivalent of Travelodges or Premiere Inns, acted as airport hotels of their time lining almost all the frontages along Upper Street. They catered particularly to those bringing livestock to London from the north; overnight guests travelling to the City who didn’t want to risk highway robbery on the dangerous last stretch of their journey.

Islington Town Hall here held the UK’s first legal, same-sex marriage in 2014. It’s planted firmly on the main thoroughfare (Upper Street) with medieval origins. Like most areas, it was merely agricultural land up until the 1700s.

The Almeida theatre puts on a diverse range of drama production. Successful plays have often been transferred to West End theatres.

The Little Angel of 1961 is one of just three puppet theatres in the country and actually makes the figures in its workshop aswell to help keep puppetry alive and children amazed.

The posh-meets-street vibe is a magnet for dozens of celebrity locals like David Oyelowo, Peaches Geldof, Frank Warren, Leona Lewis, Boris Johnson, Kathy Burke, Douglas Adams, Andy Serkis, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as well as what seems like half the cast of EastEnders.

The retro, single-Screen on the Green cinema includes 48 premium double sofas equipped with blankets and an integrated bar and stage. In 1976, Buzzcocks and The Clash supported The Sex Pistols here and someone proposed to someone on the iconic neon light facade.

For a balanced mixture of antique, vintage, gift and coffee shops alongside pubs and bric-a-brac market stalls; the pedestrianised Camden Passage is a mere stone’s throw from Angel station. General markets occur between Wednesday and Sunday with a dedicated book market on Thursdays and Fridays. It's a fascinating alternative away from the bog standard high street selection as you just never know what gems you might find browsing around here.

The 9 mile Regent’s Canal runs mostly underground here owing to the nearly 900-metre long, Islington Tunnel created across 3 years by explosives and sheer physical strength. The lack of any adjacent towpath, ruled out the possibility of raw horsepower pulling the engineless boats through it.
 
The boaters solution saw them place planks across the front of the boat, lay on their sides on those planks, and then use their legs on the tunnel walls to painstakingly walk the boat through it. This is where the term ‘Leg it’ came from.

The most important coaching inn was renamed from Sheepcote to The Angel in 1638, which then inspired the locality title and later its Underground station. Angel Tube station can boast having the deepest dug train platforms below ground in London and the longest escalators of all 270 stations on the network; these ones are about 10 metres taller than Nelson's Column.
 
Waddington’s helped bring worldwide fame to Angel in 1935 by including it in the British version of the famous board game, Monopoly.