Finsbury Estate

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Finsbury estate
Michael Cliffe House, Finsbury Estate - geograph.org.uk - 3924125.jpg
Finsbury Estate
General information
LocationSt John's Street & Skinner Street
London, UK
Coordinates 51°31′34″N0°06′21″W / 51.526°N 0.1058°W / 51.526; -0.1058
Opened1967
Governing body Islington London Borough Council
Other information
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Northern line roundel (no text).svg Angel

Finsbury Estate is a large-scale housing estate in the Clerkenwell area of London, England (in the former Borough of Finsbury), comprising four purpose-built blocks of flats located on a level site, providing 451 residences. Patrick Coman House and Michael Cliffe House are high-rise blocks of 9 and 25 storeys respectively, while Joseph Trotter House and Charles Townsend House are of four storeys.

Contents

Amenities include a community centre, below-ground car parking, a ball-games area and a playground area. The estate has two cultural centers on the property: the Finsbury library (including the Local History Centre), and the Islington Museum.

Architecture

Finsbury Estate is a 'mixed development' of the High Modern period, and served as a redevelopment of the Skinners' Company Estate. [1] It was designed by Emberton, Franck & Tardrew in 1965 for Finsbury Borough Council, though completed after Finsbury had been absorbed into the new Metropolitan Borough of Islington.

Franck had worked for Tecton, and there are similarities with the architecture of Tecton estates such as Spa Green Estate, as pointed out by the Survey of London. Through the configuration of the four blocks, two large open spaces have been created, characterized by two predominant inward-looking convex spaces defined by the surrounding blocks of flats. Main entrances to the estate are on St John Street, where the Finsbury Library is located, and on Skinner Street to the south-west.

Cultural Amenities

Front of the Finsbury Library Islington Museum and Finsbury Library - geograph.org.uk - 1311637.jpg
Front of the Finsbury Library

Library

Finsbury Library was designed by Ludwig Franck, and replaced the historic Clerkenwell Free Library. It was opened by then Minister of Power, Richard Marsh, on 11 March 1967, at an estimated cost of £225,000. [2] Its design is consistent with the modernist design of the estate, but with additional spots of color, such as marine-blue mosaic tiles that cover supporting columns for the upper flour. Alistair Black names Finsbury Library as an example of "libraries of light" -- it is both "light of weight" externally, and "open, bright and luminous" internally, with new lighting technologies, glass, and less ornate furniture and fittings. [3] [4]

The library is the second-most visited branch in the Islington Libraries service. [5] It also includes the Islington Computer Skills Centre and the Local History Centre.

Islington Museum

Islington Council received lottery-money funding to develop a new Islington Museum which opened beneath the library on the estate in 2008. [6] A former museum at the Islington Town Hall closed on 15 December 2006. [7] The museum houses a gallery covering nine themes on local and social history: childhood, food and drink, fashion, leisure, healthcare, radicals, caring, home and wartime. [8]

Accommodation

Cultural associations

Controversies

Michael Cliffe House was a venue for suicide by jumping [9] until access to high open balconies was restricted. [10]

EC1/Easy Cash is a gang based on the Bourne, Margery Street, Kings Square and Finsbury estates.

In 2014, the police smashed their way into three flats in Patrick Coman House, on the Finsbury Estate, off St John’s Way. In one, where two women and a newborn baby were sleeping, officers found a shotgun, a large hunting knife, a flick knife and a rucksack with more than 100 wraps and a “massive lump” of crack cocaine with an estimated street value of up to £100,000.

References

  1. Temple, Philip, ed. (2008). "Spa Green to Skinner Street". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2025.
  2. Willats, Eric (April 2021). Streets with a Story: The Book of Islington. Islington Heritage Service.
  3. Black, Alistair (20 September 2016). Libraries of Light: British Public Library Design in the Long 1960s. Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN   9781472472946.
  4. Harwood, Elaine (July 2016). The English Public Library 1945-85. Historic England.
  5. "Response to Freedom of Information Request 6574453". Islington Council. Information Governance Team. 7 August 2025.
  6. About Islington Museum Archived 2011-09-16 at the Wayback Machine at Islington Council official website
  7. Islington Museum at Creative Space Agency.[Accessed 9 January 2001]
  8. Anon (8 May 2008). "New museum dedicated to Islington past and present". Islington Gazette. p. 16. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
  9. Picture of Michael Cliffe House at Flickr.com
  10. Sharron Kelly (residents' representative) Tower block leaps at Islington Tribune, Letters to the Editor, 11 July 2008

51°31′35″N0°06′19″W / 51.52646°N 0.1053°W / 51.52646; -0.1053