St Luke's
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
St Luke's is an area in the London Borough of Islington in Greater London, close to the borders with the London Borough of Hackney and the City of London, near the Barbican and Shoreditch. The closest tube station is Barbican. The area includes City Road, Finsbury Square, Whitecross Street and part of Old Street. The name is not often used in modern times.
It is named after the church of St Luke Old Street. St Luke's was created in 1733 (with the construction of the church) as both a civil and ecclesiastical parish, from the part of the existing parish of St Giles Cripplegate outside the City of London.
The parish had a large non-conformist population. John Wesley's house and Wesleyan Chapel are in City Road, as is Bunhill Fields burial ground.
In 1751 St Lukes Hospital, an early lunatic asylum, was founded. Rebuilt in 1782 – 1784 by George Dance the Younger, it later became the Bank of England's St Luke's Printing Works producing banknotes and which was relocated in 1958 to Debden in Essex. It was damaged by the Blitz of 1940.
The civil parish became officially known as "St Luke's Middlesex". The parish was historically in the county of Middlesex, and was included in the area of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855. From 1889 it was part of the County of London. The vestry administered local government in the area until the civil parish became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury in 1899.
[edit] References
- Old Street St Luke EP Middlesex through time from A vision of Britain through time
- Invasion of the bodysnatchers from The Guardian
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