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Old Street Roundabout

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Streets in the London Borough of HackneyStreets in the London Borough of IslingtonUse British English from June 2015
Old Street Roundabout from above in 2012
Old Street Roundabout from above in 2012

Old Street Roundabout is a road junction in Central London, England. Historically a square roundabout, it is now a three-way junction. It is among access points of the Inner Ring Road for the adjoining St Luke's south part of Islington and the City of London beyond, west and south, respectively. It is roughly on the western limit of Shoreditch in the London Borough of Hackney which straddles both sides of the Ring Road, a road which after taking up a little of the eastern part of Old Street then veers south-east, taking Great Eastern Street, at Apex Junction. It is sometimes known as St. Agnes Well after the shopping centre beneath it, while the moniker of Silicon Roundabout owes to the local prominence of technology companies. Since October 2020 the layout has been a simple junction, not gyratory.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Old Street Roundabout (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Old Street Roundabout
St. Agnes Well, London Finsbury (London Borough of Islington)

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Wikipedia: Old Street RoundaboutContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.5257 ° E -0.0875 °
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St. Agnes Well
EC1Y 1BE London, Finsbury (London Borough of Islington)
England, United Kingdom
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Old Street Roundabout from above in 2012
Old Street Roundabout from above in 2012
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Perilous Pond
Perilous Pond

The Perilous Pond, sometimes spelt Perelous, was an ancient pond fed by a spring in London located near the junction of modern-day Old Street and City Road. It gained its name from many tragic drownings there of people using it as a swimming hole. It was also used by fishermen and wildfowlers . In 1743 the pond was purchased by William Kemp, a jeweller, who developed it by enclosing it in stone edging and adding marble steps and a gravel bottom. He built a separate pond for fishing and renamed the site the more enticing Peerless Pool. The grounds were screened by trees and the pool was used as an ice rink in winter. Kemp imposed an annual admission charge of £1 10s. (or 1s. for day visitors). The pool was 170 ft long x 108 ft wide and from 3–5 feet deep. It was London's first outdoor public swimming pool. From 1790 there was also a small library and a bowling green attached. Around 1805, the lease was acquired by Joseph Watts, who drained the fish pond and constructed Baldwin Street on that part of the site. The business provided the family with a comfortable living. Richard Garnett mentions that his colleague Thomas Watts (1811-1869), "keeper of printed books at the British Museum" (i.e. what would now be a senior position at the British Library), had his education paid for by the profits from the family business. William Hone, the satirist, visited the pool in 1826 and described it thus:- “Trees enough remain to shade the visitor from the heat of the sun on the brink. On a summer evening it is amusing to survey the conduct of the bathers; some boldly dive, others timorous stand and then descend step by step, unwilling and slow; choice swimmers attract attention by divings and somersaults, and the whole sheet of water sometimes rings with merriment. Every fine Thursday and Saturday afternoon in the summer columns of Bluecoat boys, more than a score in each, headed by their respective beadles, arrive and some half strip themselves ‘ere they reach their destination. The rapid plunges they make into the Pool and their hilarity in the bath testify their enjoyment of the tepid fluid.” The pool was closed in 1850 and built over. Its gives its name to the nearby Peerless Street and Bath Street and obliquely to the Old Fountain public house.

Bunhill Fields
Bunhill Fields

Bunhill Fields is a former burial ground in central London, in the London Borough of Islington, just north of the City of London. What remains is about 1.6 hectares (4.0 acres) in extent and the bulk of the site is a public garden maintained by the City of London Corporation. It was first in devoted use as a burial ground from 1665 until 1854, in which period approximately 123,000 interments were estimated to have taken place. Over 2,000 monuments remain, for the most part in concentrated blocks. It was a prototype of land-use protected, nondenominational grounds, and was particularly favoured by nonconformists who passed their final years in the region. It contains the graves of many notable people, including John Bunyan (died 1688), author of The Pilgrim's Progress; Daniel Defoe (died 1731), author of Robinson Crusoe; William Blake (died 1827), artist, poet, and mystic; Susanna Wesley (died 1742), known as the "Mother of Methodism" through her education of sons John and Charles; Thomas Bayes (died 1761), statistician and philosopher; and Isaac Watts (died 1748), the "Father of English Hymnody". Bunhill Fields Burial Ground is listed Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. It is now maintained by the Friends of the City Gardens. Nearby, on the west side of Bunhill Row and behind the residential tower Braithwaite House, is a former Quaker burial ground, in use from 1661 to 1855, at times also known as Bunhill Fields. George Fox (died 1691), one of the founders of the movement, is among those buried there. Its remains are also a public garden, Quaker Gardens, managed by the London Borough of Islington.