Caledonian Road (London)

The Caledonian Road, in Islington, North London is a road, about one and half miles long, running north-south from Camden Road near the junction with Holloway Road to Pentonville Road in the south. It is often known colloquially as the "Cally" and forms the entirety of the A5203.

The street is mostly residential from Camden Road until Caledonian Road tube station. There are many new residential developments around the station including student accommodation. Just south of the station is Pentonville Prison near the bridge carrying the North London Line. South of here, the road is mostly lined by shops, many of which are boarded up or of low socio-economic status. This area is quite poor compared to the north end and the shops mostly serve the council estates bordering the road. The road crosses the Regents Canal and south of here are more trendy shops and restaurants that have appeared in recent years because of the King's Cross developments. The road ends at Pentonville Road near King's Cross railway station and the border of Camden. Housmans Bookshop, specialist radical book and magazine retailers, established in 1945, can be found here at No.5, as well as the offices of "Peace News".

History

It was privately built in 1826 as a toll road by the Battle Bridge and Holloway Road Co. to link the New Road with Holloway Road (which is part of the Great North Road), providing a new link to the West End from the north. It was first known as Chalk Road but changed its name after the Royal Caledonian Asylum, for the children of poor exiled Scots, was built here in 1828. (This building has since been demolished. It occupied the site of local authority housing called the Caledonian Estate built 1900-7.)

The first residential buildings on Caledonian Road were Thornhill Terrace (Nos 106-146) built in 1832. Other terraces were built in the 1840s. Pentonville Prison was built on the road in 1842 immediately to the south of the Asylum. The Caledonian road was utilised by cattle drovers on their way to Smithfield until 1852 when the Metropolitan Cattle Market was transferred here by the City of London Corporation and became known as the Caledonian Market. Drovers' lodgings, five public houses, and two hotels were put up around the market, and the Corporation built a block of working-class dwellings c. 1865.

Transport

*Caledonian Road tube station
*Caledonian Road and Barnsbury station

References

*"Caledonian Road" in Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert (1983) "The London Encyclopedia"
*'Islington: Growth: Holloway and Tollington', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8: Islington and Stoke Newington parishes (1985), pp. 29-37. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=1374&strquery=Caledonian Road. Date accessed: 09 November 2007.