| Holborn | |
|---|---|
 | |
  Holborn Location withinGreater London | |
| Population | 13,023 (2011 Census. Holborn and Covent Garden Ward)[1] |
| OS grid reference | TQ310818 |
| London borough | |
| Ceremonial county | Greater London |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LONDON |
| Postcode district | WC1, WC2 |
| Postcode district | EC1 |
| Dialling code | 020 |
| Police | Metropolitan |
| Fire | London |
| Ambulance | London |
| UK Parliament | |
| London Assembly | |
| 51°31′13″N0°06′49″W / 51.5204°N 0.1136°W /51.5204; -0.1136 | |
Holborn (/ˈhoʊbərn/ ⓘHOH-bərn or/ˈhoʊlbərn/HOHL-bərn),[a] anarea incentral London, covers the south-eastern part of theLondon Borough of Camden and a part (St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of theWard ofFarringdon Without in theCity of London.
The area has its roots in theancient parish of Holborn, which lay on the west bank of the now buriedRiver Fleet;[2] the district takes its name from an alternative name for the river: the Holbourne (or Oldbourne). The area is sometimes described as part of theWest End of London[3][4] or of the widerWest London area.
The River Fleet also gave its name to the streetsHolborn andHigh Holborn which extend west from the site of the formerNewgate in theLondon Wall, over the Fleet, through Holborn and towardsWestminster.
The district benefits from a central location which helps provide a strong mixed economy. The area is particularly noted for its links to the legal profession, for the diamond centre atHatton Garden and forGreat Ormond Street Hospital.
Holborn emerged from theancient parish of St Andrew Holborn and its later sub-divisions. Theparish church is first mentioned, and described asold, in a charter of 959, but this is before the parish or the landholdings on which it was based took on anything like their settled form.[5]
The earliest surviving written record of the area occurs in a charter of 959, in whichKing Edgar the Peaceful grantedWestminster Abbey an area of land (much larger than the later parish of Holborn) stretching from the Abbey, onThorney Island, to theRiver Fleet. The charter mentions "the old wooden church of St Andrew" (St Andrew, Holborn).[6][7] The name Holborn is used in the charter, but it refers to the River Fleet rather than the district.
The name "Holborn" may derive from theMiddle Englishhol for "hollow", andbourne, a "brook", referring to theRiver Fleet as it ran through a steep valley (hollow) in places.[6][8]
However, the 16th-century historianJohn Stow attributes the name to a different watercourse: theOld Bourne ("old brook"), a small stream which he believed ran into the Fleet at Holborn Bridge. This structure was lost when the river wasculverted in 1732. The exact course of the stream is uncertain, but according to Stow it started in one of the many small springs near Holborn Bar, the oldCity toll gate on the summit of Holborn Hill.[8][9] Other historians, however, find the theory implausible, in view of the slope of the land.[10]
TheParish of St Andrew, Holborn, was divided by a civil boundary, with part within the Farringdon Without ward of the City of London (later known asSt Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) – which includes the parish church and the part within theOssulstone Hundred of Middlesex (later known asSt Andrew Above the Bars).It is not known when the parish of Holborn took on its settled form, but it is likely to have been by the time of the introduction of Canon Law around 1180,[11] with records from the time thehospital of St Giles was established in 1120 indicating that the parish extended further west at that time, presumably to encompass what would become the combined parish ofSt Giles andBloomsbury.
A charter of around 1000 shows the boundaries of the city being pushed west to their settled historic extent in around 1000, though this extramural area would have been very sparsely settled. The city's wards take shape in the 11th century, before the Norman Conquest.[12] The civil division of the parish is very ancient and predates the establishment of the parish in its settled form. In 1394 theWard of Farringdon was subdivided intoFarringdon Within andFarringdon Without, with south-east Holborn part of the latter.
TheCity Bars mark the boundary of the City of London within Holborn. In 1994 the City boundary shifted slightly to the junction of Chancery Lane and the Bars were moved accordingly.
It has been described how the two parts of the parish came under separate civil governance (though without any civil governance at parish level) according to whether the part was in the city or outside. From the Tudor period onwards new local government were introduced in England, and parish areas were obliged to take on civil as well as ecclesiastical responsibilities for the first time, this started withrelief of the poor.
The two parts became, for civil but not ecclesiastical purposes, two separate parishes known asSt Andrew Holborn Below the Bars andSt Andrew Holborn Above the Bars, theBars being the City boundary markers. The area "above Bars" (outside the city's jurisdiction) was organised by thevestry board of the parish ofSt Andrew.[13]
As well as Holborn's two main civil parishes, there were a number of extra-parochial areas, parts of the ecclesiastical parish of Holborn but formed their own (usually tiny) civil parish areas:
The St George the Martyr Queen Square area became a separate parish, for both civil and ecclesiastical matters, in 1723; but for civil matters was reunited with the part of St Andrew outside the city (Above the Bars) of London in 1767, to formSt Andrew Holborn Above the Bars with St George the Martyr.
TheHolborn District was created in 1855, consisting of the civil parishes and extra-parochial places of Holborn outside the city; St Andrew Holborn Above the Bars with St George the Martyr,Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Ely Rents and Ely Place, as well as two tiny units that were added from theFinsbury Division:Glasshouse Yard andSt Sepulchre, Middlesex.
TheMetropolitan Borough of Holborn was created in 1900, consisting of the former area of the Holborn District and theSt Giles District, but the small units previously part of theFinsbury Division were instead included in theMetropolitan Borough of Finsbury. The Metropolitan Borough of Holborn was abolished in 1965 and its area now forms part of theLondon Borough of Camden.
The westward growth of London beyond theCity Wall, and towards the seat of government inWestminster, took place along the banks of theRiver Thames and along the roads leading fromLudgate (Fleet Street andThe Strand) andNewgate (Holborn andHigh Holborn). This growth, initially limited toFarringdon Without (which includes a part of Holborn) was well underway in the 12th century, leading to the Ward being retrospectively described as the capital's originalWest End.[12]
In the 12th century St Andrew's was noted in local title deeds as lying on "Holburnestrate"—Holborn Street,[14] but as the street leads from RomanNewgate, and the church was sited on it by the 10th century, it is probably considerably older. In 1394 the population had grown so large that the Ward of Farringdon had grown too large for effective governance and was formally divided into the separate Wards, (rather than separate named areas within the same Ward) in 1394.
The westward growth towards Westminster accelerated in the Tudor period. The westerly ribbon development through the parish was complete before theGreat Fire of 1666, with the displacement of people accelerating the development of the rest of the area. The northern fringe the last area to be developed, with this process finalised in the 18th century.[15][16]
St Etheldreda's Church, in gatedEly Place, was originally the chapel of theBishop of Ely's London palace. This ecclesiastical connection allowed the street to remain part of the county ofCambridgeshire until the mid-1930s. This meant thatYe Olde Mitre, a pub located in a court hidden behind the buildings of the Place and the Garden, was licensed by the Cambridgeshire Magistrates.[17][18]
St Etheldreda's is the oldest Roman Catholic church in Britain, and one of two extant buildings in London dating back to the era ofEdward I.[19][20][21]
Henry VII paid for the road to be paved in 1494 because the thoroughfare "was so deep and miry that many perils and hazards were thereby occasioned, as well to the king's carriages passing that way, as to those of his subjects". Criminals from theTower andNewgate passed up Holborn on their way to be hanged atTyburn orSt Giles.[22]
Hatton Garden, the centre of the diamond trade, was leased to a favourite of QueenElizabeth I, Sir Christopher Hatton, at the insistence of the Queen to provide him with an income.
The area was not damaged by theGreat Fire of London in 1666, though the area of destruction reached its south-eastern boundary.
Charles Dickens took up residence inFurnival's Inn (later the site of "Holborn Bars", the formerPrudential building designed byAlfred Waterhouse). Dickens put his character "Pip", inGreat Expectations, in residence atBarnard's Inn opposite, now occupied byGresham College.[23]Staple Inn, notable as the promotional image forOld Holborn tobacco,[24] is nearby. The three of these wereInns of Chancery. The most northerly of theInns of Court,Gray's Inn, is off Holborn, as isLincoln's Inn: the area has been associated with the legal professions since mediaeval times, and the name of the local militia (nowTerritorial Army unit, theInns of Court & City Yeomanry) still reflects that. The unit is nicknamed theDevil's Own, a name given byGeorge III, not due to ferocity in battle, but rather to his dislike of lawyers.[25]
In the 18th century, Holborn was the location of the infamousMother Clap'smolly house (meeting place for homosexual men). There were 22 inns or taverns recorded in the 1860s. TheHolborn Empire, originallyWeston's Music Hall, stood between 1857 and 1960, when it was pulled down after structural damage sustained inthe Blitz. The theatre premièred one of the first full-length feature films in 1914,The World, the Flesh and the Devil, a 50-minutemelodrama filmed inKinemacolor.[26][27]
Subsequently, the area diversified and become recognisable as the modern street. A plaque stands at number 120 commemoratingThomas Earnshaw's invention of theMarine chronometer, which facilitated long-distance travel. At the corner of Hatton Garden was the old family department store ofGamages. Until 1992, the London Weather Centre was located in the street. The Prudential insurance company relocated in 2002. TheDaily Mirror offices used to be directly opposite it, but the site is now occupied bySainsbury's head office.
Behind the Prudential Building lies the Anglo-Catholic church of St Alban the Martyr.[28] Originally built in 1863 by architectWilliam Butterfield, it was gutted during the Blitz but later reconstructed, retaining Butterfield's west front.
OnHolborn Circus lies the Church ofSt Andrew, an ancientGuild Church that survived theGreat Fire of London. However, the parochial authority decided to commissionSir Christopher Wren to rebuild it. Although the nave was destroyed in the Blitz, the reconstruction was faithful to Wren's original. Just to the west of the circus, but originally sited in the middle, is a large equestrian statue ofPrince Albert by Charles Bacon, erected in 1874 as the city's official monument to him. It was presented by Charles Oppenheim, of the diamond trading companyDe Beers, whose headquarters is in nearby Charterhouse Street.
The district can best be described in reference to the ancient parish and the sub-divisions that succeeded it, however the area is not an administrative unit so contemporary perceptions of its extent can be vague and highly variable. In particular there are overlapping perceptions of the extent of the districts of Holborn,Bloomsbury andSt Giles. One of the many factors in this, is a tendency to conflate theHolborn andHigh Holborn roads with the district.
The now buriedRiver Fleet formed the historic eastern boundary of the ancient parish of Holborn, a course now marked byFarringdon Street,Farringdon Road and other streets.[2] The northern boundary withSt Pancras was formed by a tributary of the Fleet later known asLamb's Conduit. The curving alignment of Roger Street follows part of the course of that lost brook, and marked the northern boundary of the parish and later borough.[29]
The area extends west from Farringdon Street, for three-quarters of a mile, roughly as far as Southampton Row andHolborn tube station. The station was originally namedHolborn (Kingsway)[30] as it was on the junction of those two roads. Most of the area lies north of the eponymous road, rather than to the south.
The nearestLondon Underground stations areChancery Lane andHolborn. The closest mainline railway station isCity Thameslink.
Holborn is served by bus routes 1, 8, 19, 25, 38, 55, 59, 68, 76, 91, 98, 133, 168, 171, 188, 243, 341, X68 and night routes N1, N8, N19, N38, N41, N55, N68 and N171.
In the early 21st century, Holborn has become the site of new offices and hotels. For example, the old neoclassical Pearl Assurance building near the junction withKingsway was converted into a hotel in 1999.
There has been attempts by some commercial organisations to rebrand the southern parts of theLondon Borough of Camden (Holborn,Bloomsbury andSt Giles; the formerMetropolitan Borough of Holborn) as "Midtown".[31] This area, is notionally in the very middle of London, being situated between theWestminster andthe City,[32] but this Americanisation has been widely criticised[by whom?] and not accepted or used by Londoners.[citation needed]
The MPs for the area are:
The three wardcouncillors forHolborn and Covent Garden, representing theLondon Borough of Camden part of the district are:
Holborn is represented in theLondon Assembly as part ofBarnet and Camden by:
The following is a list of notable people who were born in or are significantly connected with Holborn.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)It is the oldest Catholic church in England and one of only two remaining buildings in London from the reign of Edward I.
This is Britain's oldest Roman Catholic church, dating from the 13th century.
In 1874 when the church was bought back by the Roman Catholics it was found to be full of 'inconceivable filth, living and dead'. St Etheldreda's is the oldest Catholic church building in Britain.
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