Newington Green

Coordinates: 51°33′5.53″N 0°5′6.38″W / 51.5515361°N 0.0851056°W / 51.5515361; -0.0851056
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Newington Green
Newington Green looking northwest from Mildmay Park
London borough
Ceremonial countyGreater London
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townLONDON
Postcode districtN16 N5
Dialling code020
PoliceMetropolitan
FireLondon
AmbulanceLondon
Islington South & Finsbury
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    Newington Green is an open space in North London between Islington and Hackney. It gives its name to the surrounding area, roughly bounded by Ball's Pond Road to the south, Petherton Road to the west, Green Lanes and Matthias Road to the north, and Boleyn Road to the east. The Green is in N16 and the area is covered by the N16, N1 and N5 postcodes. Newington Green Meeting House is situated near the park.

    Origin

    The first record of the area is as 'Neutone' in the

    medieval settlement, and the prevailing activity was agriculture, growing hay and food for the inhabitants of nearby London. By the 15th 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.[3] By the 1490s it was fringed by cottages, homesteads and crofts on the three sides in Newington Barrow manor in Islington.[3] The north side was divided between the manors of Stoke Newington and Brownswood in South Hornsey.[3]

    Royal visitors and prominent residents

    King Henry VIII, who hunted in the area

    In the 16th century the area had connections with the court of King

    stags and wild boars
    that roamed the surrounding forest.

    In 1523, a resident of the north side of the Green, the future

    Cardinal Wolsey), became engaged to Anne Boleyn.[4] Lord Percy had not sought permission either from his father or from the king, causing Wolsey to scold him and his father to forbid the marriage. Later, in 1536, the 6th earl found himself a member of the jury that convicted Anne of adultery. His home, Brook House, stood at the northeast 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 divided into tenements for the poor.[5]

    In 1535, Henry VIII's chief minister (the equivalent of today's

    Dissolution of the Monasteries
    (1536-1541) and their transfer into Crown ownership. Other Canonbury Tower residents included:

    Samuel Pepys

    The 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys was sent to Newington Green and Kingsland by his mother in order to benefit from the fresh air and open spaces of what was then a rural area.[7]

    Mildmay

    A map showing the Mildmay ward of Islington Metropolitan Borough as it appeared in 1916.

    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 (formerly Ann Boleyn's Walk), Wolsey Road and Queen Elizabeth's Walk. Many other thoroughfares are named after the Mildmay estate, including Mildmay Park, Mildmay Grove North and Mildmay Grove South.

    Chancellor of the Exchequer under Elizabeth I. He was one of the special commissioners in the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, and founded Emmanuel College, Cambridge
    in 1584.

    His grandson

    knighthood and his estates and sentenced to life imprisonment
    .

    Mildmay Mission Hospital was founded in the 1890s, inspired by the work of the Reverend William Pennefather during the cholera epidemic of 1866. It was absorbed into the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948, and in the 1980s began pioneering work into the treatment of patients with HIV/AIDS, which it continues.[8] In February 2024, the North London line and West London line of the London Overground were announced to be renamed the 'Mildmay line' after the hospital for August.[9]

    Mildmay Park, located on the street of the same name, was a station on the North London Railway. Opened in 1880, it closed in 1934. The station building was demolished in 1987, but remnants of the platforms can still be seen at track level.

    Nonconformists and the Dissenting Academies

    The area became the home of

    Restoration, some Protestants chose to remain in England and maintain their faith openly, but they had to live with the restrictions the state placed upon them. They moved to places tolerant of them; often they set up educational establishments, known in general as dissenting academies, which were intellectually and morally more rigorous than the universities.[10] One such place was Newington Green, then still an agricultural village, but conveniently near London.[11]) Oliver Cromwell
    's family had links there: his great-granddaughter Mary was born at the Green on 11 April 1691.

    A

    John Coakley Lettsome and the Anglican pacifist Vicesimus Knox
    .

    One such academy was set up on north of the Green, run by

    Samuel Wesley, father of John Wesley, the great religious leader. A later schoolmaster was the Rev. James Burgh, author of The Dignity of Human Nature and Thoughts on Education, who opened his Dissenting Academy on the green in 1750 and sent his pupils to the church there.[13]

    Unitarian Church, Price and Wollstonecraft

    The Unitarian church was built in 1708.

    In 1708 the

    John and Ann Jebb. Price was fortunate in forming close friendships among his neighbours and congregants. One was Thomas Rogers, father of poet and banker Samuel Rogers, a merchant turned banker who had married into a long-established Dissenting family and lived at No. 56 the Green.[16] Another was the Rev. James Burgh, author of The Dignity of Human Nature and Thoughts on Education, who opened his Dissenting Academy on the green in 1750 and sent his pupils to Price's sermons.[17] Price, Rogers, and Burgh formed a dining club, eating at each other's houses in rotation.[18] When Joseph Priestley's support of dissent led to the riots named after him, he fled Birmingham
    and headed for the sanctuary of Newington Green, where Rogers took him in.

    One of the most important residents of the Green was the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who moved her fledgling school for girls from Islington to Newington Green in 1784.[19] It was Mrs Burgh, widow of the educationalist, who used her influence to find the young schoolmistress a house to rent and 20 students to fill it.[20] The flavour of the village and the approach of these Rational Dissenters appealed to Wollstonecraft: they were hard-working, humane, critical but uncynical, and respectful towards women.[21] The ideas Wollstonecraft ingested from the sermons at NGUC pushed her towards a political awakening.[22] A couple of years after she left Newington Green, these seeds germinated into A Vindication of the Rights of Men, a response to Burke's denunciation of the French Revolution and attack on Price. In 1792 she published the work for which she is best remembered, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in the spirit of rationalism extending Price's arguments about equality to women.[23] Newington Green had made its mark on Mary, and through this founding work of feminist philosophy, on the world. A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft was unveiled in Newington Green on November 10, 2020.[24]

    The New River

    The New River in Clissold Park.

    In 1602, it was proposed that a

    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 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.[25]

    In 1808, Rochemont Barbauld was appointed minister to Newington Green Unitarian Church. His wife, Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825), was a prolific writer, admired by Samuel Johnson and William Wordsworth.[26] She enjoyed a long friendship with Joseph Priestley and William Enfield, starting from their years together at the Warrington Academy in the 1760s, where her father was a tutor. She wrote poems (including a tribute to Priestley), hymns, children's literature, and political and religious tracts. She was an abolitionist, addressing one of her works to William Wilberforce. In 1793, he saw her contribution to the Pamphlet War, "Sins of the Government, Sins of the Nation". Two years later she wrote The Rights of Women, but this was not published until her death thirty years later. Rochemont eventually went violently insane, attacked his wife and committed suicide by drowning himself in the river.

    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.

    Synagogues and Jewish life

    Other religious institutions existed nearby. Jews fleeing the

    synagogues of London, with Jacob Koussevitzsky as its cantor from 1936.[27]

    For a period from the end of the nineteenth century, the Newington Green Area was host to a large Jewish population, which was beginning to leave the East End and move northwards towards Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill. The original Adath Israel orthodox congregation was founded in 1911 and its first permanent building was in Alma Road, off Green Lanes, before moving on towards Stoke Newington and the other side of Clissold Park in the 1950s.

    A large

    Poets Road Synagogue was the home of one of the world's leading cantors, a member of the Kusevitsky family.[28] At its height in 1960, the Poets Road Synagogue had 463 male seat-holders.[29]
    The synagogue remained active until it closed down in the late 1960s, as the remaining Jewish population moved on further afield and its site was sold. In 1970, the building and its stained glass windows were demolished and replaced by a block of council flats.

    19th century

    In the early part of the 19th century, there was a change in the character of Newington Green. After a patient struggle of 150 years, the

    Dickensian poverty, evident in cholera epidemics and rampant malnutrition, made social responsibility an urgent necessity.[32] The minister who guided the first 25 years of this (1839–1864) was Thomas Cromwell, FSA (1792–1870). (Like many Anglican vicars,[33] one of his hobbies was local history.) In 1840, a Sunday school was set up for poor children, and soon thereafter a Domestic Mission Society, to visit the poor in their homes. A library and a savings club emphasised self-help. A regular day school ran from 1860 for ten years, until primary education became the responsibility of the state with the passing of the Elementary Education Act 1870
    .

    The "small but energetic community" continued to campaign on the larger political stage.

    Provident Society, and teetotalism (abstinence from alcohol) support for adults and children. Other issues of concern were education, social reform and women's suffrage
    .

    Some individuals who lived at the Green during this period included

    Thomas Rees, the minister after Barbauld, who was a leading authority of the history of Unitarianism, and made connections with the Unitarian Church of Transylvania. Alexander Gilchrist, son of another minister, was the biographer of William Blake. Andrew Pritchard improved the microscope and studied microscopic organisms; he was a friend of Michael Faraday and for him, science and religion were one. He led the Newington Green Conversation Society, membership restricted to 16, a successor to the Mutual Instruction Society.[35] Marian Pritchard is described as an unsung heroine, and "one of the leaders of modern Unitarianism". She set up Oxford Summer Schools for the training of Sunday School teachers and Winifred House Invalid Children's Convalescent Home.[36] John Stuart Mill recalls his family living in Newington Green "from 1810 to the end of 1813"; it was at the time "an almost rustic neighbourhood", and it was during walks with his father before breakfast "generally in the green lanes towards Hornsey" ("my earliest recollections of green fields and wild flowers") that John Stuart would recount to James Mill what he had learnt reading the previous day.[37]

    20th century

    Then came 1914, and the horrors of

    landmine blast: they just moved to the schoolhouse. After the war, the ministry focused on building bridges between races and faiths, e.g. with the Jewish community of North London, and was recognised by the World Congress of Faiths. Services were often attended by local politicians, including the mayor of Stoke Newington. Leaders for the national Unitarian movement continued to be found within the congregation at Newington Green.[39]

    In 1979 the Newington Green Action Group (NGAG) was formed with the aim of regenerating the area. NGAG worked with Islington Council on this project and traffic calming measures were installed to ease the notorious local congestion, with additional pedestrian crossings providing easier and safer access to the Green on foot. The Green was regenerated to include more lawn space, a play area and a café. New planting has enhanced the Green and was chosen to encourage biodiversity.[citation needed]

    21st century

    The Green in 2007

    Newington Green has grown in popularity with the local community, evinced by the children that now play in the formerly deserted park, which is once more being used like a village green. Community groups hold fairs on the Green and NGAG has organised many events including the annual Jazz on the Green and Open Garden Squares day. These improvements are such that, in 2006, Newington Green won the first of many Green Flag Awards (the national standard for parks and green spaces in England and Wales, sponsored by Keep Britain Tidy). It has also won the Green Heritage Site Award for several years running, which is sponsored by English Heritage.[40] In 2010 NGAG teamed up with the Mayville Gardening Club and the King Henry's Walk Community Garden; the Newington Green area was awarded a High Silver Gilt Royal Horticultural Society Urban Communities Award, as part of the London in Bloom Scheme.

    The Newington Green Action Group also published a local history book The Village That Changed the World: A History of Newington Green London N16 by Alex Allardyce in 2008, which won the Walter Bor Award the following year.

    Newington Green and Newington Green Road to the south constitute the commercial and cultural centre of the district. This area shares in the

    Turkish Cypriot
    community in the area, members of whom run many of the local grocery stores.

    Since the millennium, two new ministers at the Unitarian Church have injected energy into the Green and added to its events and publicity. Cathal (Cal) Courtney, characterised as a "radical spirit" who had made a "remarkable spiritual journey",

    huge march against the Iraq War.[42] He used his inaugural column in the N16 magazine to address the international furore around Gene Robinson's election as bishop.[43] He was written about as the Right-On Reverend in The Oldie's monthly "East of Islington" column.[44] Courtney revived the Richard Price Memorial Lecture, which had last been given in 1981.[42] NGUC now sponsors it annually, to "(address) a topical or important aspect of liberty, reason and ethics."[45]

    The current minister is Andrew (Andy) Pakula,

    full legal marriage.[48] The BBC called it a "gay rights church" for its unanimous committee vote suspending full wedding services.[49]

    NGUC celebrated its tercentenary in 2008 under the slogan "300 years of dissent", marking this with events such as planting a

    Ottoman classical music.[51] (Newington Green has a strong Turkish population.) The following year it commemorated the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mary Wollstonecraft, attaching a large banner to the railings outside the building, proclaiming it the "birthplace of feminism", in a nod to the formative years that she spent worshipping there.[52][53] NGUC sponsored a series of events, including a return visit and lecture by biographer Barbara Taylor; a panel discussion about women and power, between female politicians Diane Abbott MP, Jean Lambert MEP, and Emily Thornberry MP; an art exhibition entitled Mother of Feminism; a concert featuring Carol Grimes and Adey Grummet to raise money for Stop the Traffik, an anti-trafficking charity; a tombstone tribute at St Pancras Old Church; a birthday cake baked by men; and other activities.[54][55]

    Weekly poetry readings are held at NGUC. It participates in the annual festival of architecture, Open House London. It hosts occasional concerts, such as that given by the London Gallery Quire,[56] and the Psallite Women's Choir.[57]

    Listed buildings

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

    This outlying area of Islington carries a surprising wealth of historic architecture and Newington Green has become a conservation area. On the west side of the Green (numbers 52–55) is London's oldest surviving brick

    Grade I listed. These were built in 1658, and 100 years later were home to Price and Rogers. Over the subsequent centuries many changes were made, internally and externally, in particular adding an extra storey to one of the middle houses and replacing its narrow staircase with a wider one with mid-Georgian detailing. At an unknown date the windows were enlarged and changed from mediaeval oak and leaded light mullion and transom pattern to Georgian vertically sliding sash windows.[58]
    In the 1880s the floor levels of the front rooms were lowered to street level and shop fronts were added to all of them. In the 1980s the houses were in such poor condition that there was a serious danger of them collapsing. The Greater London Council bought three of them, carried out major structural repairs and sold them on to private clients.

    In 1994 conservation architects Roger Mears Architects were appointed to repair and/or reinstate the hugely significant plasterwork, panelling, doors, windows and other joinery and to return the houses to use as single family dwellings. New brick ground floor frontages replaced the shopfronts, to a design appropriate to the elevations above, and the first floor brick cornice was reinstated.[59] Residential London, particularly outside Westminster and the City, is essentially an 18th- or 19th-century city. Even in the centre, there are few brick houses this old, pre-dating the Great Fire of 1666. One of the properties has been extensively renovated under the guidance of Bere Architects (Islington).

    The Green also has two Grade II listed buildings. To the north is the Unitarian Church, which celebrated its tercentenary in 2008. The original 1708 building was financed with £300 from goldsmith Edward Harrison.[60] It was a "substantial brick building, of nearly square form, with the high, tiled, projecting roof, common at its era".[61] "Historic views show that the original façade had a small pediment against a large hipped roof, with a central oval window below."[62] This building was substantially extended and improved in the mid-19th century. An internal gallery was built to increase the seating available, and a few years later the roof and apse were renewed, and a "stuccoed frontage" was built, "mirroring the original façade with a three-bay front with two round-headed windows, but with added Tuscan pilasters and a large pediment".[63] In the mid-20th century, the building was damaged by enemy action. In 1953 its architectural importance was recognised as a Grade II listed building.[64]

    Institutions

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

    Angel Chiropody is a post-60's example of Brutalist Architecture

    To the west is its neighbour, the former headquarters of the

    James Hudson Taylor in 1865 and responsible for 18,000 converts to Christianity.[65]

    References

    1. ^ "Neutone | Domesday Book". opendomesday.org. Retrieved 17 April 2023.
    2. ^ "Islington: Growth, Highbury | British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 17 April 2023.
    3. ^ a b c "Stoke Newington: Growth, Newington Green | British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 17 April 2023.
    4. ^ "Anne Boleyn | Biography, Children, Portrait, Death, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 8 August 2022.
    5. ^ "Appendix: Nos. 1-7 Upper Clapton Road | British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 17 April 2023.
    6. ^ History of Canonbury Tower Archived 19 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine, hosted by Canonbury Masonic Research Centre
    7. ^ Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin
    8. ^ "Hospitals". Derelict London.
    9. ^ Stokes, Tim; Edwards, Tom (15 February 2024). "London Overground: New names for its six lines revealed". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
    10. ^ Thorncroft p5
    11. ^ Allardyce, pp22–23
    12. ISBN 9780140167610
      .
    13. ^ a b Gordon, Lyndall (2005). Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft. Virago Press. pp. 562. Page 42.
    14. doi:10.1215/00982601-27-1-1
    15. ^ Allardyce, p18.
    16. ^ Thorncroft, Michael (1958). Trust in Freedom: The Story of Newington Green Unitarian Church 1708–1958. London: Private publication for the trustees of the church. p. 35. p15.
    17. ^ Gordon, p42.
    18. ^ Allardyce, p23.
    19. ^ Gordon, p40.
    20. ISBN 9780684810935
      .
    21. ISBN 9780140167610
      . p51.
    22. ^ Gordon, p51 passim.
    23. ^ Tomalin, p61.
    24. ^ Brown, Mark (10 November 2020). "Mary Wollstonecraft finally honoured with statue after 200 years". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
    25. ^ The Story of the New River (Thames Water) Archived 11 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine accessed 12 Dec 2007
    26. ^ Thorncroft, p19
    27. ^ Allardyce, p39.
    28. ^ Jacob Koussevitzky 1903–1959 By Rabbi Geoffrey Shisler http://www.chazzanut.com/articles/j_kussevitsky.html
    29. ^ "JCR-UK: Former Dalston (United) Synagogue, Poer's Road, Canonbury, London N5, England".
    30. ^ Thorncroft, p20.
    31. ^ Allardyce, p33.
    32. ^ Thorncroft, pp2–23.
    33. ^ cf William Bedwell (1561–1632), Vicar of Tottenham nearby, and W.A. Diggens, Vicar of St Keverne, Cornwall 1896–1913 Index
    34. ^ Thorncroft, p25.
    35. ^ Thorncroft, pp23–24.
    36. ^ Thorncroft, p28, and throughout ch7 The Lights Go Out.
    37. ^ Mill, John Stuart (1952). Autobiography. London: Oxford University Press. p. 343. pp. 5 & 6.
    38. ^ Thorncroft, p31.
    39. ^ Thorncroft, pp32–33.
    40. ^ English Heritage page explaining awards
    41. ^ N16 magazine, issue 18 (Summer 2003) Photo and brief biography. "Dissent in Newington Green" by Rab MacWilliam Archived 4 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
    42. ^ a b N16 magazine, issue 18 (Summer 2003) "Dissent in Newington Green" by Rab MacWilliam Archived 4 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
    43. ^ "Christian charity?" by Cal Courtney. Spring 2005. N16 magazine. Archived 29 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine
    44. ^ Amazon page on the book
    45. ^ Lecture List entry
    46. ^ "Right, so just what do you do all day?" by Aida Edemariam, 19 May 2009 The Guardian
    47. ^ "Church minister: homophobia is the real sin" by Katrina Bishop. 18 March 2009 Islington Now[permanent dead link]
    48. ^ "Radicalism and Richard Price" by Rhasan Brunner, in Newington Green Now and Then: N16 magazine, December 2008[permanent dead link]
    49. ^ "Gay rights church bans weddings", 8 April 2008 BBC News
    50. ^ 25 Feb 2009 Newington Green Action Group Archived 24 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine
    51. ^ New Unity tercentenary page
    52. ^ "Strength in Unity?" by Judith Evans. 19 March 2009 The Guardian
    53. ^ "Festival for ‘first feminist’" by Peter Gruner, 17 April 2009, Islington Tribune
    54. ^ "Birthplace of Feminism" by Guy Bentham, in N16, issue 41, spring 2009
    55. ^ New Unity Wollstonecraft page
    56. ^ 20 Sept 2008 Newington Green Action Group Archived 24 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine
    57. ^ 4 Oct 2008 Newington Green Action Group Archived 24 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine
    58. ^ "Sash Windows". Roger Mears Architects. 25 October 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
    59. ^ "Newington Green". Roger Mears Architects. 15 September 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
    60. ^ Thorncroft, p8
    61. ^ History and Topography of the Parish of St Mary, Islington by Samuel Lewis, 1842, cited in Allardyce, p9.
    62. Hackney Council Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
    63. ^ Allardyce, p35.
    64. ^ "UNITARIAN CHAPEL", Images of England photo and description
    65. ^ Allardyce, p36.

    Further reading

    • The Village that Changed the World: A History of Newington Green London N16 by Alex Allardyce.
    • Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft by Lyndall Gordon. Little, Brown: 2005.
    • Her Own Woman: The Life of Mary Wollstonecraft by Diane Jacobs. Simon & Schuster: 2001.
    • Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination by Barbara Taylor. CUP: 2003.
    • Trust in Freedom: The Story of Newington Green Unitarian Church 1708–1958 by Michael Thorncroft. Privately printed for church trustees, 1958.
      • Chapter titles: The Fertile Soil; The Church is Built; The Early Years (1714–1758); The Age of Richard Price; New Causes for Old; The Ideal of Service; The Lights Go Out; The Present Day.
    • The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft by Claire Tomalin. Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1974.
    • "Gentrification: how was it for you?" Mandy Richards, The Guardian, 20 April 2005.

    External links

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