Fortune Playhouse

Whitecross Street is a short street in Islington, in Inner London. It features an eponymous street market and a large housing estate. Since 2010, there has been an annual Whitecross Street Party one weekend in the summer, together with an exhibition of street art.

Whitecross Street Prison was a debtors' prison in London, England. It was built between 1813–15 to ease overcrowding at Newgate Prison and closed in 1870, when all of the prisoners were transferred to the newly built Holloway Prison.Situated on Whitecross Street in Islington the prison was capable of holding up to 500 prisoners, although in normal circumstances less than half that number would be held there. The prisoners were held in six separate 'wards,' and included a 'Female ward.' Known both as 'Burdon's Hotel' (after one of Governors) and the 'Cripplegate Coffeehouse,' the prison seems to have had a worse reputation than the other London Debtors' prison of the time due to the fact that it had common wards rather than individual rooms: "[the] prison inspectors thought that 'the crying evil of Whitecross-Street Prison is that the well-disposed debtor when so inclined, had no means of protecting himself from association with the depraved.'" This was one of the prisons visited by Lydia Irving as part of Elizabeth Fry's British Ladies Society for promoting the reformation of female prisoners in the 1820s.A £20 payment known as 'Nell Gwynne's bounty' was given to inmates of Whitecross Street Prison each Christmas, a payment that could apparently be traced back to the long time mistress of King Charles II.

Finsbury is a district of Central London, forming the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Islington. It borders the City of London. The Manor of Finsbury is first recorded as Vinisbir (1231) and means "manor of a man called Finn". Finsbury lay just outside Cripplegate (and on its later construction, Moorgate) in London Wall. At that time, much of the manor was part of the "great fen which washed against the northern wall of the City".Finsbury gave its name to two larger administrative areas: the Finsbury Division of the Ossulstone Hundred of Middlesex, from the 17th century until 1900, and from 1900 to 1965 the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. The Metropolitan Borough included Finsbury (also known as St Luke's) and Clerkenwell. The area should not be confused with Finsbury Park, a public space roughly 3 miles (5 km) to the north, which gives its name to its surrounding mainly residential area.

The Jewin Welsh Presbyterian Chapel (Welsh: Eglwys Gymraeg Jewin) is a Presbyterian Church of Wales church in Clerkenwell, London, England. The current building was opened in 1960 on a site adjoining the Golden Lane Estate. It replaced a chapel built in 1878–1879 on the same site, destroyed in World War II air raids in September 1940. The congregation had moved there in 1879 from nearby Jewin Crescent, a site now incorporated into the Barbican. The Jewin Crescent chapel had opened in 1822, following a move from Wilderness Row, Clerkenwell. The first services had taken place in c. 1774 in Cock Lane, Smithfield. The current building was designed by Caroe and Partners in a Swedish-inspired form of modern architecture sometimes called the New Humanism. After a dramatic fall in the congregation, in 2013 London-based BBC News presenter Huw Edwards agreed to lead a campaign to save the building and the chapel, to keep the traditions of the London Welsh community alive. Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones chose the campaign as his input to BBC Wales Today for Children in Need 2013.

The Golden Lane Estate is a 1950s council housing complex in the City of London. It was built on the northern edge of the City, on a site devastated by bombing during the Second World War. Since 1997, the estate has been protected as a group of listed buildings of special architectural interest.

Golden Lane, originally known as Goldeslane or Goldyng Lane, then Golding Lane, is a street in the City of London that runs north–south, between Old Street in the north, and Beech Street in the south. It dates back to at least 1274 and was the site of Edward Alleyn's Fortune Theatre that was built in 1600. The street was almost completely destroyed by bombing during the Second World War before being rebuilt in the post-war era.

Beech Street is a street in the City of London. It was formerly known as Beech Lane and was named after Nicholas de la Beche, a lieutenant of the Tower of London in the reign of Edward III in the 14th century. It runs west-east, from its junction with Aldersgate Street and Long Lane in the west, to the junction with Whitecross Street, Silk Street and Chiswell Street in the east. The eastern junction marks the boundary of the City with Islington: Whitecross and Chiswell (north and east) are in Islington, while Beech and Silk (west and south) are in the City. The majority of the street is in a pseudo-tunnel under the Barbican estate. On 18 March 2020 the street became the UK's first "zero emission street", only allowing access to pedestrians, cyclists, and zero emission vehicles. This remained in effect until September 2021, and in December that year members of the City of London corporation voted for a public consultation into making the scheme permanent.Access to several of the Barbican car parks is from Beech Street.

The Central Bar jazz club was a venue in Clerkenwell, London, England. It was founded by booker and promoter Flavia Brilli in 1999.The club was located at 58 Old Street in Clerkenwell. It was situated on the first floor of the Central Bar which was used for various music nights and events until the promoter Flavia Brilli established the venue as a jazz club showcasing top British jazz musicians, visiting international players and young upcoming musicians. Musicians who played at the club included Scottish jazz guitarist Jim Mullen (voted world's 5th best guitarist in 1982), Saxophonist Gilad Atzmon (who has recorded and performed with The Blockheads, Paul McCartney and Sinead O'Connor), English jazz trumpeter and composer Guy Barker (appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to jazz), acclaimed English alto saxophonist and clarinetist Peter King (who appeared on the soundtrack of the 1969 film The Italian Job and the film The Talented Mr. Ripley), American drummer Gene Calderazzo, English jazz drummer Martin Drew (who worked with Canadian virtuoso Oscar Peterson from 1974- 2007), British drummer and composer Seb Rochford (Mercury Prize Nominee), British saxophonist and composer Pete Wareham (Young Jazz Musician of the Year 1997), multi-award winning jazz saxophonist Alan Barnes, British saxophonist Martin Speake and award-winning English jazz composer and pianist Zoe Rahman. The club regularly appeared in listings and reviews in Time Out magazine, The Guardian newspaper, and the supplement of the London Evening Standard newspaper, Hot Tickets. London Evening Standard critic Jack Massarik was a regular visitor and reviewer of the venue and later wrote a letter praising Flavia Brilli's proficiency and programme choices.

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) is an English chamber orchestra, based in London. John Churchill, then Master of Music at the London church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Neville Marriner founded the orchestra as "The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields," a small, conductorless string group. The ASMF gave its first concert on 13 November 1959, in the church after which it was named. In 1988, the orchestra dropped the hyphens from its full name.

St Luke's is a district in central London in the Borough of Islington. It lies just north of the border with the City of London near the Barbican Estate, and the Clerkenwell and Shoreditch areas. The area takes its name from the now redundant parish church of St Luke's, on Old Street west of Old Street station. Following the closure of the church, the parish was reabsorbed into that of St Giles-without-Cripplegate, from which it had separated in 1733.

St Luke's is a historic Anglican church building in central London, and in the London Borough of Islington. It served as a parish church from 1733 to 1959. It was designed by John James and Nicholas Hawksmoor, and is a Grade I listed building. Following closure in 1959, the church stood derelict and roofless for some 40 years, but since 2003 has been a music centre operated by the London Symphony Orchestra and known as LSO St Luke's. It is the home of the LSO's community and music education programme, LSO Discovery. The main body of the building seats up to 372 and is used by the LSO for rehearsals, and by a wide variety of musicians for performances and recording. Additional rooms in the crypt provide practice facilities for professional musicians, students and community groups.

The Jugged Hare is a public house and restaurant at 49 Chiswell Street, between Barbican and Moorgate underground stations in the City of London. The pub was opened on the site of an old Grade II listed brewery in 2012 by brothers Ed and Tom Martin, who also run The Gun in the Docklands and The Prince Arthur in London Fields, among other establishments. The decor includes oak flooring, red leather seating and a collection of stuffed and mounted animals.Upon opening, it was reviewed favourably by restaurant critic Giles Coren of The Times, who called it "a very good addition to a good chain of pubs".