In St John’s Path

There is a particular ramshackle quality to this quarter of London that especially appeals to me, where every street is either winding around a corner or sloping away down the hill, or both. Many of my formative experiences as a writer occurred in Clerkenwell, since from 1990 I rented a tiny office in Clerkenwell Close for ten years or so, and went there every day to write. When I could not write, I wandered the streets which became familiar to me as the urban landscape of my contemplation and, over time, I learnt something of their history too.

I wander around Clerkenwell and I think about the Mystery plays performed by clerks on the Green in the medieval era, about how the Close still follows the former cloister of the Priory of St John, about Wat Tyler addressing his rebel force upon the Green, about Oliver Cromwell’s House in Clerkenwell Close that had orchards down to the Fleet River, about the monstrous Middlesex House of Detention where thousands met their deaths, about Joseph Grimaldi playing at Sadler’s Wells, about Charles Dickens sitting with his reporter’s notebook in the Court House, about Vladimir Ilyich Lenin having a drink in the Crown, about Arnold Bennett’s Riceyman Steps and George Gissing’s The Nether World - two magnificent Clerkenwell novels – and, more recently, I think of Colin O’Brien photographing car crashes in the Clerkenwell Rd.

In Britton St

St John’s Gate, where Hogarth’s father ran a Latin-speaking Coffee House

Old Court House, Clerkenwell Green, where Dickens served as a cub reporter

Door at the rear of the Court House

On Clerkenwell Green

St James, Clerkenwell, by James Carr 1792

At the rear of the church

The church gates

In Pear Tree Court

In Amwell St

In Wilmington Sq

In Clerkenwell Close, where Oliver met the Artful Dodger in ‘Oliver Twist’

The old wall of the former Middlesex House of Detention

St James Clerkenwell

Farmiloe Building, St John St

In Passing Alley

Finsbury Savings Bank, Sekforde St since 1840 – customers included Charles Dickens

Sekforde Arms, since 1838

Sekforde St

Sekforde Arms

In Hayward’s Place

Woodbridge Chapel

Gleave & Co, Watch Repair Supplies, Albemarle Way

In Herbal Hill

In Back Hill

The Castle in Cowcross St since 1830

Coach & Horses in Ray St since 1808

Clerkenwell Fire Station, formerly Britain’s oldest 1872- 2014

Our Most Holy Redeemer, Exmouth Market

In Exmouth Market

Exmouth Arms since 1825

In Cafe Kick

Farringdon Tool Supplies, Exmouth Market

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