From Slum to Slaughterhouse is a historical walking trail along St John Street, EC1 (link to map).
On this page you can read descriptions and listen to audio about each point on the route. You can also download a full podcast narrated by Dr David Green and a pdf of the map. Take these with you as a guide when you visit St John Street for yourself.
St John Street snakes northwards from Smithfield Meat Market to the Angel. Along its route a fascinating story of change unfolds that spans more than a thousand years of London’s history.
The walk includes the remains of a medieval priory, a vanished 18th century magistrate’s court and reminders of the once-thriving meat trade. It winds past early 19th century workers’ housing as well some of the earliest council flats. London’s industrial history is also featured as the walk passes former factories once operated by major international companies and buildings that belonged to one of the largest breweries in the country, now home to architects and designers who are helping to regenerate the local economy.
St John Street is named after the medieval priory of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. The street linked the City of London to the south with the once separate hamlet of Islington, lying in countryside to the north. Until 1855 it was the main route for driving cattle to slaughter at Smithfield Market. During the later 19th and early 20th centuries, huge distilleries, breweries, factories and warehouses lined both sides of the street making it one of the most important industrial routeways in the capital.
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The world-famous Ingersoll Watch Company had its London factory here and the name is still visible on the top storey of the building. The many large clocks that decorate buildings on and around St John Street are reminders of this once important local industry.
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The Finsbury Bank for Savings was built in 1840 for use by local tradesmen and workers. Its white stucco façade is decorated at both ends with fashionable Egyptian lotus leaf motifs – a reminder that archaeologists had just started to discover the remains of the great Egyptian civilizations along the Nile.
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The houses in Hayward’s Place and the surrounding streets are remnants of early 19th century housing typical of the area before it was redeveloped in the 20th century. Better quality, three storey housing was occupied by skilled workers and clerks, whilst poorer two storey buildings housed labourer’s families. Several of the houses in Hayward’s Place were occupied by workers at the neighbouring Nicholson’s gin distillery that fronted onto St John Street.
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The sign for Cannon’s Brewery can still be seen on the large red brick building fronting the east side of St John Street. In the 19th century this was one of the largest breweries in the country. Grooves made by the drays that carried the beer barrels can still be seen in the granite paving at the entrance whilst hops and barley decorations adorn the door to the former brewery offices. As well as new apartments, the site is now home to architects’ and designers’ offices – the current industries of the area.
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On the west side of St John Street is Mallory Buildings, a five storey tenement block that was one of the earliest council housing to be built by the London County Council in 1906. It replaced a notorious and overcrowded slum – one of several in the area. The remains of the churchyard belonging to St John’s priory stand alongside.
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This gate house, reconstructed in the 19th century, marked the entrance to the Priory of St John, one of several monastic properties that ringed the City of London in the medieval period. When the monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII in the 16th century their land was sold off and the buildings changed to other uses. Clerkenwell Road now cuts through what was previously the former priory.
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Just south of St John’s Gate is a narrow alley marked on early maps by the name Pissing Alley. Note the metal markers half way along that mark the boundary between two ancient parishes. Such markers were important since each parish was responsible for a variety of services, including the cleansing of streets and support for the poor.
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On the east side of St John Street lies a small courtyard called Smokehouse Yard. The buildings here date from the 1870s and were used for curing meat from nearby Smithfield market. The blackened chimneys are still visible as are the ventilation holes and metal covers that allowed the smoke to escape.
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A few steps southwards towards Smithfield there is the impressive frontage of George Farmiloes’ Lead and Glass warehouse. The construction was designed to be especially strong to withstand the immense weight of the goods that were made and stored there. Opposite, where St John Street widens, used to be Hick’s Hall, a former magistrate’s court built in the 17th century but demolished when the nearby Clerkenwell Sessions house was built in the late 18th century.
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For nearly a thousand years, horses and livestock destined for the City of London were sold at Smithfield Meat Market. Cattle were driven here for slaughter, making the area both dangerous for pedestrians and very unsavoury. When the slaughter of live cattle was banned from here in 1855, the market focused on the sale of meat. New glass and iron buildings were erected that copied designs from the Great Exhibition of 1851. There are lotus leaf motifs on the cast iron girders that support the glass roof. The market still operates for wholesale trade during the night.
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