| Our main route takes us north up Compton Road, | | | | by the Metropolitan Board of Works. |
| with pompous stuccoes mid-19C houses, leading | | | | They perhaps felt guilty having located the |
| up to St Pauls Road, where you turn right, cross | | | | boroughs only proper park, Finsbury, about four |
| and then turn left into Highbury Grove. | | | | miles from the area it was meant to serve. At |
| Highbury is an entity distinct from both Canonbury | | | | any rate Highbury Fields, with its first century |
| and Islington and developed separately from the | | | | terraces all around, is lovely. Joseph Chamberlain |
| later 18C. As a development it was never so | | | | lived at Highbury Place on the left. |
| co-ordinated or complete but some individual | | | | Cut across the grass diagonally to reach Fieldway |
| terraces are as beautiful as any in Islington. | | | | Crescent, down which you proceed to reach |
| Ascend Highbury Grove. A big 1960s school is on | | | | Holloway Road. The incredibly grand public library |
| your right and Italianate villas on the left. Many | | | | with statues of Edmund Spenser and Francis |
| more such villas can be seen in a detour down | | | | Bacon is on the left. |
| Highbury New Park, to the right, a complete | | | | Cross over to admire its Edwardian splendor and |
| development of the 1850s. As you walk up | | | | then keep going through the churchyard of St |
| Highbury Grove, Highbury Fields comes into view | | | | Mary Magdalene by William Wickings (1812-14), a |
| on your left. | | | | large stock-brick church built to meet the needs |
| Another look to our right, round Aberdeen Park, | | | | of the burgeoning community. You soon reach |
| gives a text-book lesson on housing with | | | | Liverpool Road which you cross going down |
| examples from all periods from Italianate Victorian | | | | Crossley Street. To the right in Sheringham Road |
| to what have become known as Bypass | | | | is Freightliners, a city farm |
| Variegated homes of the 1930s. In the middle of | | | | A giant Board School towers above Lough Road, |
| it all is the church of St Saviour, once a large | | | | where you turn left then right and walk down to |
| polychrome brick Gothic Revival building by William | | | | the end of Bride Street. The high wall opposite is |
| White. | | | | reminiscent of a prison, not surprisingly, because |
| Walk back round to Highbury Grove and turn right | | | | this is Pentonville, built by Thorns Febb, the first |
| to the top of the hill, then cross over to | | | | appointed surveyor of prisons. |
| Christchurch by Thomas Allom (1847-48), creator | | | | It has a formal entrance, less forbidding than |
| of Ladbroke Grove, spreading around the corner. | | | | those of many later prisons, in Caledonian Road |
| Outside is an 1897 clock tower and a pleasant | | | | but yon do best to turn left here down Roman |
| street, Highbury Hill stretching west. But we turn | | | | Way, going over the railway bridge and back |
| south down Church Path, through a delightful | | | | from Holloway into Islington: this part is the |
| avenue of trees, to Highbury Fields, an ancient | | | | community called Islington. |
| open space saved from developers in the 1880s | | | | |