Fashionable Clerkenwell's Markets, Open Spaces and Historic Sites

Sadler's Wells is a leading venue for the performing arts and dance in London. Its cutting-edge mind-set as proven when Matthew Bourne premiered his all-male "Swan Lake" here in 1995.

Although today's building is contemporary, there long has been a theater on this site. In 1683, entrepreneur Dick Sadler erected a Musick House on what was then a country footpath. A few months into the building process he found a medieval well, which still exists today in the basement of the theater.
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Rosebery Avenue
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Open for performance times

In the 1800s Exmouth Market was a principal shopping street with jewelers, chemists, grocers and butchers as well as a street market with more than 100 stalls. Its contemporary version is a pretty semi-pedestrianized thoroughfare with lots of independent cafes, restaurants and shops.

A fine example of a venue sensitive to its history is bar and restaurant Medcalf's based in a former butcher's shop.

This street has hosted many creative personalities over the centuries, among them the many Italian immigrants who came in 1850s to live and work in the area. It was the home of Joseph Grimaldi, son of an Italian immigrant and the finest English clown. At its far end stands the Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer, London's only example of an Italian basilica-style church.
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Medcalf's
40 Exmouth Market
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Hours
Monday-Saturday Noon-Midnight
Sunday Noon-4pm

This park was originally a 17th century pleasure garden for the spas in the area following the arrival of the artificially created New River. The river was engineered to provide a new supply of drinking water for London. It then became a burial ground before it was turned into a children's playground in 1896.

The gardens were extended in recent years with hillocks, pergolas, cutting-edge architectural installations and a children's play area. Today it is a charming space for picnicking or contemplation alike.
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Skinner Street
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Hours
Daily 8am-Dusk

In the late 19th and early 20th century, this area was an overcrowded borough, with slum housing and serious health problems. Left-wing local government councilors of the 1920s developed what became known as the Finsbury Plan, an ambitious scheme for new health facilities, public buildings and housing, all funded through a local tax.

This fine example of 20th century modernism exemplifies that ethos. The health center, designed by influential Russian architect Berthold Lubetkin, incorporated a tuberculosis clinic, a foot clinic, a dental surgery, a solarium and a roof terrace. Lubetkin's philosophy was "Nothing is too good for ordinary people."
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17 Pine St.

Clerkenwell stretches down from the confines of Exmouth Market along what were once the banks of the River Fleet and are now the pavements of Farringdon Road and Farringdon Street.

You then arrive at Clerkenwell Green, an open space that lies at the center of the old village of Clerkenwell. It is made up of a fine mix of 18th century houses and a church, St. James, which sits on the site of the first nunnery to be built in London dating back to A.D. 1100.

The green was once very red in political ethos and served as a key meeting place for radical thinkers throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. It is said that Lenin and Stalin met at the the Crown pub at the beginning of the 20th century. This is now a fashionable middle-class quarter of central London and a center of the creative industries. Many architects and designers are based around here.

The largest wholesale meat market in the United Kingdom, pounds of flesh have been bought and sold at Smithfield for 800 years. This is the place to indulge your inner carnivore.

St. John's is highly regarded meat restaturant and bar that makes a good stop as the place to indulge in some fine eating and drinking. Chef Fergus Henderson believes that if you are going to eat meat it's only polite to eat the whole animal and carnivores order the pigs ears.

Smiths of Smithfield offers equally hearty modern European meals amid a slick urban decor.
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Smithfield Market
Hours
Weekdays 3am-10am
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Smiths of Smithfield
67-77 Charterhouse St.
Hours
Monday-Saturday 7am-Midnight
Sunday 11am-11pm
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St. John's
26 St. John St.
Lunch hours
Monday-Friday noon-3pm
Sunday 1-3:30pm
Dinner hours
Monday-Saturday 6-11pm
Closed Sunday evening

This medieval square once housed a plague pit, the largest mass grave in London during the 1348 outbreak of the Black Death as the plague was known.

The name comes from La Grande Chartreuse, whose monastic order founded the monastery here. It is now a quiet oasis amid the busy streets of the area and its buildings are used for a mix of business and residential purposes.

Florin Court, an Art Deco building on the east of the square, was used as the location for the home of author Agatha Christie's fictional hero Hercule Poirot in a popular 1980s television series.

The 1960s Brutalist concrete complex of housing and cultural centers that makes up the Barbican was part of the Modernist architects of the post-World War II period's Utopian dream for London. It was envisaged as a genuinely residential neighborhood composed of housing, schools, shops and open spaces all hewn around an impressive cultural complex. The ambitious complex, which boasted the tallest residential towers of its time, was built on an extensive site of bomb-damaged streets. A medieval church, St. Giles Cripplegate, sits within the site as the lone piece of historical architecture to have escaped the ravages of the Blitz (relentless period of bombing by Germany during WWII).

The Barbican gallery, theater and cinemas all have cutting-edge arts programs. Nearby, the Museum of London has brilliant exhibitions on the history of the city and its people.
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The Barbican
Silk Street
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The Museum of London
150 London Wall
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Hours
Monday to Sunday 10am-6pm
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Admission Free

Whitecross Street has hosted market stalls since the 17th century and it's still going strong today, kept alive by a wide array of archetypal market characters. There is a small general market that takes place each weekday. Come at lunchtime on Thursdays and Fridays to enjoy a plethora of delicious street food choices. These include a Caribbean-style jerk chicken with rice and peas, sassily presented falafel, spit-roasted meats and zingy Mexican tacos.
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Hours
Weekdays 10am-5pm

Famed 18th century church architect Nicholas Hawksmoor designed St. Luke's Church with John James; it was constructed between 1727-33. It is typical of his grand scale and it features an interesting obelisk spire. Hawksmoor, passsionate about religious architecture, was famously a freemason and had a fondness for pagan symbols.

The church, which fell into disrepair in the last century, has been recently restored to become the home of the London Symphony Orchestra's music community and education program, acting as its rehearsal space.
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161 Old St.
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Hours
Monday-Saturday 9am-6pm