The civil and ecclesiastical parish of St Luke's was created on 18 October 1733 (St Luke's Day), following the construction of the church of St Luke. The parish was formed from the part of the existing parish of St Giles Cripplegate that was outside the City of London.[1] The area covered by the parish is the same as that previously occupied by the landholding known as the Manor of Finsbury.[2]
The civil parish became officially known as "St Luke's Middlesex". The parish was historically in the county of Middlesex, and was included in the area of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855. Under the Metropolis Management Act 1855 any parish that exceeded 2,000 ratepayers was to be divided into wards; as such the incorporated vestry of St Luke was divided into five wards (electing vestrymen): No. 1 (12), No. 2 (6), No. 3 (9), No. 4 (12) and No. 5 (9).[4]
Parishes of Finsbury borough in 1911, showing St. Luke's in the east
The area of the former parish extends north from the City of London boundary to City Road, with a small part, around City Road Basin lying north of City Road. Goswell Road forms the western boundary with Clerkenwell, while the areas northern and eastern boundaries with the Shoreditch area of the London Borough of Hackney area have been adopted by the London Borough of Islington. St Luke's is inside the London Congestion Charging Zone, the Ultra Low Emission Zone, and is located in Zone 1. The nearest tube and railway stations are Barbican, Farringdon and Old Street.
Street name etymologies
St Luke's has no formal boundaries. Those used here form a rough triangle: City Road and Finsbury Pavement/Finsbury Square to the east, the boundary with the City of London to the south, and Goswell Road to the west.
Anchor Yard – after a former inn here of this name[7]
Angel Gate
Baldwin Street – after Richard Baldwin, Treasurer at St Bartholomew's Hospital when the street was built in 1811[8]
Baltic Street East and Baltic Street West – the streets here were built by a timber merchant c. 1810, who named them after trade-related activities; Baltic refers to the Baltic softwood trade[9][10]
Banner Street – after the Banner family, late 18th-century landowners in the area[11][12]
Bath Street – after the former Peerless Pool here, later turned into a bath; it was formerly Pest House Row, after a plague hospital built here in the Tudor era (demolished 1736)[16][17]
Cahill Street – thought to be named after a trustee of the Peabody Donation Fund, who redeveloped this former slum area in the 1880s[20]
Cayton Place and Cayton Street – renamed, after the village in Yorkshire, from New Street in 1805, to avoid confusion with other streets of this name[21]
Central Street – named thus in 1861, for it lay in the centre of St Luke's Parish[22][21]
Chequer Street – after the former Chequers tavern here[23][24]
Cherry Tree Walk
Chiswell Street – old term meaning stony/gravelly earth[25]or a corruption of 'Choice Well', denoting a source of clean water[26]
Dingley Place and Dingley Road – after Charles Dingley, who instigated the construction of City Road in 1756[30][28]
Domingo Street – the streets here were built by a timber merchant c. 1810, who named them after trade-related activities; Domingo is an alternative name for Hispaniola, a source of mahogany[31][10]
Dufferin Avenue and Dufferin Court – thought to be named after a trustee of the Peabody Donation Fund, who redeveloped this former slum area in the 1880s[20]
Errol Street – thought to be named after a trustee of the Peabody Donation Fund, who redeveloped this former slum area in the 1880s[20]
Gard Street – after a member of the nearby Orphan Working School[41]
Garrett Street – after a person of this name who was a member of the local parish vestry Works Committee[42][43]
Gee Street – after its 1784 builder, Osgood Gee[42][44]
George Gillett Court – for George Gillett, local politician in the early 20th century
Golden Lane – formerly Goldynglane, thought to be after a local property owner of the name Golding/Golda[45][46]
Goswell Road – there is dispute over the origins of the name, with some sources claiming the road was named after a nearby garden called 'Goswelle' or 'Goderell' which belonged to Robert de Ufford, 1st Earl of Suffolk,[47] while others state it derives from "God's Well", and the traditional pagan practice of well-worship,[48] or a former 'Gode Well' located here[49]
Hall Street – after James and Joseph Hall, who built the street in 1822[50][51]
Honduras Street – the streets here were built by a timber merchant c. 1810, who named them after trade-related activities; Honduras was a source of mahogany[31][10]
Hull Street – after its 18th-century builder, William Hulls[54][55]
Lamb's Buildings and Lamb's Passage – after its early 19th-century owner William (or Thomas) Lamb; it was formerly known as Great Swordbearers Alley[59][60]
Mallow Street – after the former mallow field located here[66][67]
Martha's Buildings
Masons Place and Masons Yard
Memel Court and Memel Street – the streets here were built by a timber merchant c. 1810, who named them after trade-related activities; Memel was a timber-exporting port in Germany (now Klaipėda in Lithuania)[31][10]
Moreland Street – after the Moreland family, prominent locally in the 19th century[72][73]
Mount Mills – after a former mount here supporting a windmill, later a chapel, and then in the Civil War a raised battery; it was levelled in 1750[74][75]
Nag's Head Court – after a former inn of this name[76]
Pear Tree Street – after the pear trees formerly grown here[83][84]
Peerless Street – site of the Peerless Pool, a bath used in the 18th century, thought to be a corruption of ‘perilous’[85][86]
Pickard Street – after a clergyman of this name who founded the Orphan Working School here in 1754[87][88]
President Street
Radnor Street – after the Earls of Radnor, who governed the French Hospital that was formerly here[39][40]
Red Cow Lane
Ropemaker Street – descriptive, after the rope making trade formerly located here[89][90]
Roscoe Street – thought to be named after a trustee of the Peabody Donation Fund, who redeveloped this former slum area in the 1880s[20]
St Agnes Well – after an ancient well thought to have been located about 200 metres to the east, at the junction of Old Street and Great Eastern Street. Remnants of the well can be found within Old Street station.[91]
Whitecross Street Market is a market with stalls arranged in Whitecross Street and the road closed to traffic. There is a small general market every weekday, and a larger food market on Thursdays and Fridays. It has occasional food festivals.[105]
The market dates to the 17th century, and was formerly one of London's great Sunday markets, although today trading is largely limited to lunchtimes.[106] By the end of the 19th century, the area had become a by-word for poverty and alcohol abuse. It became known as Squalors' Market.[107]
St Luke's Parochial Trust is an historic charity still operating in the St Luke's area, fulfilling its original purpose of improving the lives of local people. It has its origins in the gifts of land and money from benefactors to the ancient parish as far back as the 16th century. The charity owns and manages a busy community centre[108] on Central Street, from which a wide range of community activities and services are delivered and coordinated.
The community centre was originally the Central Street Board School, one of many Victorian era schools built and managed by the London School Board. The school closed during the Second World War whilst local school children were evacuated to the countryside to avoid the Blitz. The school reopened and operated after the war as the Frank Barnes School for the Deaf until the mid-1970s. St Luke's Parochial Trust purchased the building in 1979, and converted it to a community centre which was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1982.
London Sunday Trading in Social Investigation/Journalism - Curiosities of London Life, or Phases, Physiological and Social of the Great Metropolis, Charles Manby Smith (1853); accessed 13 April 2009
[Squalors' Market] in Social Investigation/Journalism - Unsentimental Journeys; or Byways of the Modern Babylon, James Greenwood (1867); accessed 13 April 2009
