- The Angel, Islington is a district of Central London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. “No satisfactory etymology of the word "Islington" has yet been given. By some writers the name is supposed to have been derived from the Saxon word isen (iron), from certain springs, impregnated with iron, supposed to have their rise in the neighbourhood. Others trace it to the Saxon word eisel (a hostage), without ever condescending to explain what hostages had to do with Islington. The more favoured supposition is that the village was originally called "Ishel," an old British word signifying "lower," and "dun," or "don," the usual term for a town or fortress. It might have been so called, Mr. Lewis thinks, to contrast it with Tolentone, a village built on the elevated ground adjoining the woods of Highbury. The germ of the Islington of the Britons, it is generally allowed, must have been along the east side of the Lower Street.” (Old and New London) It was first mentioned in the 1100s.
In the time of Richard III through Elizabeth I, the fields of Islington were used for archery practice and tournaments. It was a place of conflicts, protests, assassination attempts and plague and many Kings and Queens visited there: History of Islington Through 1878
- The Angel was originally an inn near a toll gate on the Great North Road. 1638 “That corner stone of Islington, the "Angel," has been now an established inn for considerably more than 200 years. In old days, it was a great haltingplace for travellers in the first night out of London. "The ancient house," says Lewis, "which was pulled down in 1819 to make way for the present one, presented the usual features of a large old country inn, having a long front with an overhanging tiled roof, and two rows of windows, twelve in each row, independently of those on the basement storey. The principal entrance was beneath a projection, which extended along a portion of the front, and had a wooden gallery at the top. The inn-yard, approached by a gateway in the centre, was nearly a quadrangle, having double galleries, supported by plain columns and carved pilasters, with caryatides and other figures."” (Old and New London)
- It is also the station for Chapel Market, a London street market.
- Angel station has the third-longest escalators in Western Europe.
- From London Under: “The neighborhood of Islington, of which Clerkenwell is a part, was the site for many such wells. Hence the verse of a confirmed invalid who had tried the waters at various spas:
‘But in vain till to Islington’s waters I came
To try if my cure would add to their fame.’”