Newington Green

Newington Green looking northwest from Mildmay Park. Traffic calming and an abundance of pedestrian crossings have restored the green's value as an amenity. (October 2005)

Newington Green is an open space in Islington, London that gives its name to the surrounding area. (The north side of the square is actually in Hackney, but it is sensible to treat the green as a unit.) The Newington Green area is roughly bounded by Ball's Pond Road to the south, Petherton Road to the west, the line Green Lanes-Mathias Road to the north, and Boleyn Road to the east.

Origins

The first record of the area is as 'Neutone' in the Domesday Survey of 1086, when it still formed part of the demesne of St Paul’s Cathedral.

The thirteenth century saw Newton become Newington, whilst the prefix 'Stoke' was added in the area to the north, distinguishing it from Newington Barrow or Newington Berners in Islington. Newington Barrow later became known as Highbury, after the manor house built on a hill.

Probably a medieval settlement, the prevailing activity was agriculture, growing hay and food for the inhabitants of the nearby City of London. By the fifteenth century the area had become more prosperous and in 1445 there were a good number of Londoners living in the hamlet. The name Newington Green was first mentioned in 1480. By the 1490s it was fringed by cottages, homesteads, and crofts on the three sides in Newington Barrow manor in Islington. The north side was divided between the manors or Stoke Newington and Brownswood in South Hornsey.

Royal Visitors and Ministers

Henry VIII. Hunted in the area.

In the sixteenth century the area saw a few connections to the court of Henry VIII. The King himself used to use a house on the south side of the Green as a resort for hunting the wild bulls, stags and wild boars that were roamed the surrounding forest.

In 1523 a resident of the north side of the Green, the future 6th Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy was betrothed to Anne Boleyn. At the time he was page to Cardinal Wolsey. Lord Percy had not sought permission from either his father or the king, causing Wolsey to scold him and his father to refuse the marriage. He later found himself a member of the jury that convicted Queen Anne of adultery. His home, Brook House, stood at the North East corner of the square. It contained a central courtyard and was decorated with gilded and painted wainscotting. It was later demolished, renamed Bishop's Place and was divided into tenements for the poor.

In 1535 Henry VIII's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, took up residence at Canonbury Tower to the south of the area, from where he organised the dissolution of the monasteries and their transfer into royal ownership. Just a year later Cromwell was accused of treason and executed on spurious evidence. Another of the Tower's residents was Francis Bacon.

Mildmay

Newington Green's history is marked by several streets in the area taking their name from this period, such as King Henry’s Walk, Boleyn Road (formally Ann Boleyn’s Walk) and Queen Elizabeth’s Walk. Many other thoroughfares are named after the Mildmay estate. In the seventeenth century Sir Walter Mildmay was the Chancellor of the Exchequer under Elizabeth I. He was one of the judges at the trial of Charles I in 1649.

His grandson Sir Henry Mildmay served as MP and was Master of the Jewel House for Charles I. Henry was critical of the King's religious policies, supported Parliament during the civil wars and attended the King's trial. After the restoration Henry was arrested for his part in the regicide, but granted leniency because he had refused to sign the King's death warrant. Instead of the death penalty he was sent to the Tower of London, stripped of his knighthood and his estates, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

These days Newington Green has largely absorbed the settlement of Mildmay, which took its name from the family. Its designation is still used by the local council and can be seen in the names of many local streets to the south-east of the green. Mildmay may have started on the road to eclipse as early as 1934, when its North London Railway station, Mildmay Park, on the road of the same name, was closed. The old station building was demolished in 1987, but remnants of the old platforms can still be seen at track level. The area has also suffered by being wedged between areas with far more well-established identities, Newington Green itself, prosperous Canonbury and dynamic Dalston in the London Borough of Hackney

Thinkers and Philosophers

The Unitarian chapel was built in 1708. (October 2005)

The area became the home of non-conformists during the seventeenth century, including a Dissenting Academy north of the Green, run by Charles Morton (later vice-president of Harvard University). One of the academy's students was Daniel Defoe, the writer, journalist and spy famous for his Robinson Crusoe novel. Another pupil was the controversial poet Samuel Wesley (son of one of the first Presbyterians, the Rev. John Westley, rector of Winterborne Whitechurch, Dorset).

On 11 April 1691 Mary Cromwell, great grand-daughter of Oliver Cromwell, was born at Newington Green.

In 1708 the Unitarian chapel was built on the north side of the Green. Its members and ministers included the philosopher Richard Price (a close friend of Joseph Priestly - co-discoverer of oxygen). Another minister was William Godwin, a journalist, novelist and forefather of the anarchist movement, now more famous for his wife - and fellow chapel member - Mary Wollstonecraft. The pioneering feminist writer and reformer was a congregant at the chapel from 1782 to 1785 and delivered a famous speech there condemning slavery. From 1784 to 1785 she also ran a school for girls on the green. She died ten days after the birth of their daughter, the novelist and writer of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley.

The New River

In 1602 it was propsed that a new river should be constructed to provide London with its first clean, fresh water. Sir Hugh Myddleton, a Welsh goldsmith and philanthropist, was given the responsibility and in 1609 he built a canal from the Hertfordshire rivers of Chadwell and Amwell, 38 miles to the New River Head reservoir at Amwell Street in Clerkenwell. Originally open to the air, the aqueduct flowed down the centre of the present day Petherton Road. It was later covered for sanitary reasons.

In 1946 the supply was redirected at Stoke Newington and in 1990 the New River was replaced by deep mains. Part of the New River’s original course through Canonbury has now been turned into an ornamental walk.

The Green Today

52-55 Newington Green - London's oldest surviving brick terrace, dated 1658. (November 2005)

The Green, far from being one of Islington's pleasant and well-manicured squares, was for many years more of a large, leafy traffic island that straddled the border between Islington and Hackney. However, a recent project has installed traffic calming measures that have eased the notorious local congestion, with additional pedestrian crossings that mean strollers no longer risk life and limb in the quest for a bit of greenery. The square itself was renovated in 2005 to include more lawn space, a play area and new café. So the Green has grown in popularity with the local multi-cultural community, evinced by the children that now play in the formerly deserted park.

Once again community groups hold fairs on the Green and the Newington Green Action Group has organised the annual Jazz on the Green and Open Garden Squares day. New planting has greatly enhanced the southern end of the Green, with plans to re-plant the north side of the Green and to include plants that will encourage biodiversity.

These improvements are such that in 2007, Newington Green won a Green Flag Award (the national standard for parks and green spaces in England and Wales) for the second time. Newington Green also won the prestigious Green Heritage Site award in 2007 (which is sponsored by English Heritage.

Newington Green, and Newington Green Road to the south, constitutes the commercial and cultural centre of the district. This area shares in the gentrification of Islington and Stoke Newington, so the old shopping area has now been supplemented by a number of new and trendy shops, bars and restaurants.

Listed Buildings

The China Inland Mission, one of two Grade 2 listed buildings on Newington Green. (October 2005)

This outlying area of Islington carries a surprising wealth of historic architecture and Newington Green has become a Conservation Area. To the west of the Green, numbers 52-55 Newington Green constitute London's oldest surviving brick terrace and are, unsurprisingly, Grade I listed. These were built in 1658, with shop fronts added to all of them in the 1880s. The shops have now been removed on three of the houses (see picture), presumably restoring something like their original appearance. Residential London, particularly outside Westminster and the City, is essentially a 19th-century city. Even in the centre, there are no brick houses this old, pre-dating the Great Fire of 1666. Two of the properties have been extensively renovated under the guidance of Bere Architects (Islington).

The Green also has two Grade II listed buildings, the China Inland Mission on the west side and to the north the Unitarian Church which will celebrate its tercentenary in 2008.