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Islington Leasing

Did You Know?

Islington is home to more restaurants than there are days in a year, if you were to eat in a different restaurant each day you wouldn’t quite have tried them all by the end of the year. Offering everything from tasty Mediterranean to traditional Ecuadorian, Islington has everything to satisfy any craving.

The famous Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix feature its headquarters at 12 Grimmauld Place, a fictitious street in Islington. Douglas Adams set The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in Islington, with characters inspired by people from the area.

Islington has been home to two major ethnic groups, in the 1850s part of the area became home to a large amount of Italian immigrants, although not as many may live there now, a strong presence can still be felt with the famous St. Peter’s Italian Church located here. There are also many Irish immigrants here, boasting the second highest Irish population after the Borough of Brent.

The King’s Head Theatre and Pub in Islington is the second oldest operating pub theatre in the UK and is the first pub theatre since the days of Shakespeare, as it opened in 1970. The theatre offers plays from comedy’s to musical numbers while the front of the building is home to the Victorian pub offering classic British food, wines and ales.

Forming along the path of the Great North Road, the Borough of Islington began as a village named “Giseldone” from the Saxons, otherwise known as “Gisla’s Hill”.  The village quickly became more important as a source for the city’s water, and this also made it a good place for growing vegetables that supplied London with food. 

Besides Mr. Adams, a great number of other well-known individuals have called Islington home over the years.  These persons include Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, actress Minnie Driver, Thomas Cromwell, Gillian Anderson, Daniel DeFoe, Naomi Harris, George Orwell, and more.

London Arsenal FC has called Islington home for over one-hundred years.  The club moved to Arsenal Stadium in Highbury in 1913, appropriately dropping the “Woolwich” part of the team name to become, simply, “The Arsenal.”

Do you live in Islington? You're in good company: Islington is the most densely populated borough in the UK according to the 2011 census, with 138.7 people per hectare, compared to an average of 52.0 for London as a whole.

As Islington lay outside the confines of the London Wall, it was outside the jurisdiction of the somewhat puritanical City elders, much like the area south of the river. Thus it became an area for entertainments and amusements, with theatres, inns, alehouses, taverns, bowling alleys and, of course, brothels.

In the 1850s, the south-western part of Clerkenwell in Islington was known as London's "Little Italy". Around 2,000 Italians had settled in the area, along with Italian businesses like organ builders Chiappa Ltd and the Terroni deli (both still in the area). St Peter's Italian Church on Clerkenwell Road was consecrated in 1863

Islington has the second highest proportion of Irish people in the country, behind the London Borough of Brent.