CHAPTER I. 
The origin of the existing appellation of the Parish
which we have undertaken to perambulate, is lost in 
the distance of that remote period, when some British
settlers — 'twere hard to say whether of the Celtic or
the Belgic stock — ^having reared a few huts for their
abode, and surrounded them with the palisade and
ditch constituting the fortification of the times, their
dwelling-place acquired the name of Iseldone. 
Dun, or Dan, it is, indeed, known, was the common
term for a town and a fortress ; and, at the rude era 
we are contemplating, a due regard to safety rendered
it essential that the one should ever be the other. 
The meaning of the concluding particle of this name
iS| therefore, sufficiently apparent ; but we can only
guess at that of Isel^ or Isen^ which seems to have
been indifferently prefixed to it. It might be the
appellation borne by the enterprising Celt, or Belgic
Briton, firom whose example, or under whose tute-
lage, the collection of circular log edifices, each roofed
to a point with reeds, originated : or it might be pe-
culiarly expressive to the foimders of some local
feature, the traces of which have been long oblite-
rated. The late historian of the parish, Mr. Nelson, 
&voured the idea that *' Isen" refers to certain springs
of water, impregnated with irony supposed to rise in
the vicinity ; and instanced, in support of it, that, in 
digging a well in the Back Road, '* masses of sul-
phuret of iron were found imbedded in a hard stratum
of potters* clay/' and that ''ferruginous substances 
have also been found on digging in various other
parts of the parish.** But, with deference to Mr. N.'s
authority, the present author rather subscribes to the
opinion, that hhel being an old British word, signify-
ing fofrer, IsELDONB most probably expressed the
Lower Town or Fort* A reason for preferring this
reading, too, will shortly appear, when we consider the
site most likely to have been that of the original
village. Under the head of etymology we only further
remark, that the name most conunonly occurs as
IsELDON, in records since the Conquest, until near the
end of the sixteenth centuiy ; though, with the licen-
tious orthography of the olden time, it was occasion-
ally written IseUon, Eyseldon, Isendon, Isendune, &c.
Islington, the modem appellative, seems to have
gradaally obtained from about the year 1650 to 1600;
and by the year 1650^ the place was seldom^ if ever,
called by any other name*
In William the Conqueror's &med Survey, styled
Domesday-Book, " the most valuable piece of anti-
quity," says Hume, ** possessed by any nation," we
find mention once and again of Isbndone, and yet a
third time of the same spot, spelt Iseldone* But it
must not be thence supposed, that a district corres-
ponding in extent with the present parish of Islingrton
is therein depicted or alluded to. Did the contrary
not appear from the small quantity of land described,
(jn all, but five hides, or less than six hundred acres,)
it would be evident from the distinct mention of
ToLSNTONE, where other two hides fonned about a
fifth part of the present manor of Highbury, itself but
one of the six manors into which modem Islington is
£nded. But four of the five hides said to be " in
Isendone** or " Iseldone," are noted as ** demesne of
the church of St Paul;" and the situation of the
Prebend manor, still attached to that church, seems
to show that the ** Lower Town" stood on, or con-
tiguous to, that part of the parish; though the curtail-
ment of the manor to one-fourth of the ecclesiastical
possessions in the record, adds to the difficulty of con-
jecturing the exact spot. At all events, the occupation
of some part of this manor, or its immediate vicinity,
bj the antique ^* Lower Town," would give meaning
to that appellation as contrasted with ** Tolentone,"
whose site, there is reason to believe, was the
elevated ground adjoining the woods of Highbury.
And, perhaps, we should not greatly err, did we place
** old IsELDONE," in part upon a slip of land, forming
a portion of the diminished church seigniory, which
lies along the east side of the track known, time out
of mind, by the name of the Lower Street, and partly
along a similar sUp lying westward of the same track.
Our, British town, and the habitations which, till the
Coi\aest, succeeded the primeval dwellings on its
site, would then extend over a sunny slope, stretching
towards the south and east; a species of locality
known to have been coveted by our primogenitors for
their settlements. There are existing portions of the
Prebend manor, particularly the narrow and mazy
ways comprehended by Elder Walk and its neigh-
bourhood, which, as they retain the irregular features
of the oldest thorough&res in all ancient towns, may
mark the tracks between even the earliest buildings
that were there erected. The most ancient parts of
the City of London itself, contiguous to the Thames,
once wore much such a labyrinthian and little digni-
fied appearance, as Elder Walk, and its vicinity, does
at present.
The householders in Iseldone at the time of the
Conqueror's survey, were, it seems, twenty-seven in
number ; of whom, nine are described as " villanes,*'
five were " bordars," and thirteen " cottagers." The
aggregate value of the land is given at ninety-two
shillings. The greater part was under the plough :
but we are told that there was " pasture for the cattle
of the village.** The two half-hides not belonging to
the canons of St. PauFs, were, the one, ** land of
Geofiry de Mandeville,"
and held of him by " Gil-
bert;'* the other, "land of Derman Limdonensis,"
who held immediately of the King. Tolentone was
also held of the King^ by '^ Ranulf, brother of Ilger ;"
andy like Iseldonej comprehended both arable and
pasture land, valued together at forty shillings.
There, too, was "pannage" (forest provender) "for
axty hogs ;*' a &ct from which it appears that tolen-
tone was then bordered by woods, while the cu'^try
about Iseldone, though uncultivated, was, no doubt,
open. We do not hesitate to suppose, that the latter
was of the description termed " forest*' at that period;
meaning, not covered with trees, but in a wild state,
— ^more or less wooded, — unparcelled to individuals,
and, consequently, the undenied property of the crown,
according to the feudal notions of the times. Such,
as observed in the author's " History and Descrip-
tion of Clerkenwell," was then the state of that parish
also, though improved into " very pleasant" meadows
as it approached the metropolis, in order to furnish
common land for the cattle of the citizens. As regards
<Aw parish, at the era of the Survey, there can be scarce
a question that, Iseldone and Tolentone excepted, it
formed part of the great forest of Middlesex ; and,
waste or furze-grown where not relieved by small
clumps of trees or natural pastures, spread into almost
unmixed woodland as it stretched northwards, and
united with the wide mass of foliage that covered by
far the larger portion of the county.
Somewhat more than a century elapsed from the
compilation of Domesday-Book to the commencement
of the reign of Richard I., when the monk, Fitz-
Stephen, wrote his highly interesting description of
the London of that date, and introduced a few parti-
6 GENERAL HISTORICAL VIEW.
culars, whichi we cannot doubt, bore reference to our
parish. He speaks mainly, we must suppose, of what
is now called Clerkenwell, when he describes the
northern environs of the city as comprising " fields for
pasture, and open meadows, very pleasant, among
which the river waters do flow, and the wheels of the
miUs are turned about with a delightful noise K'' But
when he treats of the *^ arable lands," which, he ob-
serves, " are no hungry pieces of gravel ground, but
like the rich fields of Asia, which bring plentiful com,
and fill the bams of the owners with a dainty crop of
the fruits of Ceres," there is equal reason to believe
that he is alluding to the ancient plough-lands of
Islington. The cultivation of our tract had been
greatly extended, of course, by the time of Fitz-
Stephen ; and when the revolution of another himdred
years had brought England to the middle of the reign
of her first Edward, the greater part of this parish, it
is probable, was under tillage. At least such appears
to have been the case with the then manor of Berners*
buiy ; an inquisition of which, taken about the year
1295, returned nearly the whole as com-land, with a
very small proportion of meadow. Of the ancient
empire of the forest, there were, perhaps, by that time,
remains only in the more northern districts. But
before the Elizabethan era, the reputation of Islington
for the varied produce of the dairy, rather than ^* the
firuits of Ceres," had become decided: and at the
present period, as for many years past, so much does
the value of meadow-land excel with us, that we are
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