Caledonian Road, N1

Caledonian Road was constructed in pursuance of an act of Parliament, obtained by the Battle Bridge and Holloway Road Company. The company then built the Caledonian Road in 1826 as a toll road to link the New Road at King’s Cross with the Holloway Road (part of the Great North Road), providing a new link to the West End from the north.

The first residential buildings on the road were Thornhill Terrace built in 1832 – other terraces were built in the 1840s.

Originally known as Chalk Road, its name was changed after the Royal Caledonian Asylum (for the children of poverty-stricken exiled Scots) was built here in 1828. Pentonville Prison was built in 1842 immediately to the south of the asylum.

The asylum building was demolished and its site is now occupied by local authority housing – the Caledonian Estate built 1900–7.

Between 1837 to 1849, cottages in gardens were built between Brewery Road and the site of the railway which were part of the failed Experimental Gardens (or French Colony founded by a philanthropist, Peter Baume. The cottages declined into slums.

Cattle drovers passed along the road on their way to Smithfield until 1852 when the City of London Corporation transferred the Metropolitan Cattle Market to the Caledonian Market.





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