Islington in Colour: The first of several posts of colour pictures I made in January 1993 in the London Borough of Islington, mostly in Islington itself. All these pictures are in my Flickr album 1993 London Colour and clicking on any image will take you to a larger version there.
I think the first walk on which I took these pictures began at Kings Cross and I walked into Pentonville. I will post them in the order I made them, but I can’t remember the exact location of some of these. Please comment if you recognise where they were.
Magnus Irvin, born in 1955, is a prolific public artist and his work includes many murals, but this one is not included in the murals page on his web site. He designed and painted this one in 1982. Perhaps it refers to Joseph Grimaldi who basically invented the clown as we know it and is buried in the area.
This striking post-war brutalist estate was designed Howell, Killick, Partridge & Amis for the Greater London Council and built in 1964-7. As well as photographing it in black and white I made this colour image.
A sign reflected in the window points to Chapel Market and this HIGH CLASS GENTS TOILET SALOON was at No. 114. Few streets in the area have numbers this high.
This closed shop up for sale was definitely at No.5, but again I cannot remember which road it was on or find any information on Demos Modes Ltd.
A dramatic figure in a window display, I think selling crash helmets for motorcyclists. Wearing them had become compulsory in the UK twenty years earlier in 1973.
A mural which leaves you in no doubt about what the business it is advertising offers, but I suspect most of its clients had rather less sporty models.
I think this and the picture below are from the same school playground.
A mural of rural scenes in a school playground, perhaps reflecting the rural past of the area. There were once watermills on the River Fleet which ran in places along the borough’s western boundary, and certainly farms with sheep and geese, but I think all will have disappeared by the age of the tractor cutting corn.
More colour from Islington to come.
Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos
All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.