Clerkenwell

Middlesex, in this period, was the county that surrounded the old walled city of London.

It included Westminster, Holborn, St Giles, Clerkenwell, Shoreditch, Spitalfields, Whitechapel, and all the crowded new suburbs that had spread out from the city over the previous century, it was where most Londoners actually lived, and it was governed, in day-to-day matters, by its justices of the peace, who met regularly in quarter sessions to deal with crime, poverty, roads, bridges, licensing, and a thousand other matters of local government.

These justices were not distant aristocrats.

They were, for the most part, local gentlemen, lawyers and men of business who lived in or near the parishes they governed, They saw what was happening in the streets with their own eyes.

They called it Parliament Brandy.

You can imagine the scene.

A Chandler's shop in Clerkenwell, a few months after the act came into force.

A customer comes in and asks for a dram of Geneva.

Hello, Keith here from the Art of Longevity, back after a bit of a break.

Now this is a special episode of the Art of Longevity with the band Flight, recorded live at the splendid Bourne and Hollingsworth buildings in London's Clerkenwell.

And this was as the band began work on their fifth album and prepared for a set of live dates in New Zealand and Australia before they come back for a short UK tour in December.

Nick and Will discuss all the usual longevity themes, including the five routes to longevity as explored in Riding the Rollercoaster, hit songs, classic albums, labels, cult status and building a brand.

Benches, pulpits, confessionals, breviaries were heaped up and set on fire.

A great mountain of books and furniture blazed on the site of the convent at Clerkenwell.

Another pile was kindled before the ruins of the Franciscan house in Lincoln's Inn Field.

The chapel in Lyme Street, the chapel in Buttlesbury, were pulled down.

But also, you know, if you think of that era, maybe in Soho in New York rather than Soho in London, you know, with the conceptual artists emerging in their big loft spaces, you know, re-inhabiting the centre of the city because it had been abandoned by industry.

You know, and later Zaha becomes part of the equivalent of that in London by, you know, re-inhabiting Clerkenwell and the loft space that she lived in and so on.

So I think it's that, that moment's very important to understanding her work as well.

The, what would you call it? Collision of, of, of lands, land art, uh, Gordon Matter Clark drilling, you know, making holes in buildings.

And this is the Postal Museum and Mail Rail.

Okay, so that is in Phoenix Space in Clerkenwell on two sites either side of the road.

Yes.

Opposite each other.

Let's get stoned.

This is just one of the names that Amentaha gives his introductory lecture to the material with which he's become increasingly associated since the completion of Clerkenwell Close.

Six-storey building whose exposed limestone columns and beams support the structure.

Stone retained the rough surfaces, drill marks and fossils revealed during quarrying, giving its Slightly irregular framed appearance of something both newly assembled but also excavated.

There's more space for tables and chairs, and you're then aligning with the entrance to the overground station.

So effectively three separate buildings? Three separate buildings.

You've been to Clerkenwell Close, so you recognise it's a load-bearing exoskeleton, but this time in basalt instead of limestone.

And why basalt? Because we're twice the height of Clerkenwell here, which means different fire criteria.

They were fed by rumours of dark plots and planned outrages.

News spread of strange and unusual instruments of cruelty being planned in the New Benedictine Priory in Clerkenwell.

Possibly some kind of podcast, who knows? So, a bunch of youths attacked it, the militia were called out, shots were fired and four of said youths were killed.

Martyrs to the cause.

William came home, heard about it, and decided he didn't want to stay in a house where his pregnant partner was frightened at night.

The Kents moved out and settled in Clerkenwell.

Not long after, Fanny caught smallpox, and she died.

And that, as far as anyone could tell, was the end of it.

He wasn't a man who rolled his eyes at the supernatural.

He took the question seriously, but he also wanted evidence.

So the committee took young Elizabeth Parsons out of her father's house and brought her to Reverend Aldrick's home in Clerkenwell, where she could be watched.

They asked for the ghost to knock.