Islington Museum

Islington Museum sits in the basement of Finsbury Library, a short walk from Upper Street. It opened in 2008 with a £1 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, replacing an earlier museum once housed in Islington Town Hall. The space belongs to Islington Council and focuses on the borough’s past rather than grand national stories. A single gallery unfolds across nine themes, each exploring a different slice of local life. Visitors step past displays on childhood, food and drink, fashion, leisure, healthcare and wartime. Among the exhibits are a bust of Vladimir Lenin, who lived and worked nearby in Clerkenwell, and book covers once defaced by the writers Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell. The museum’s collections bring ordinary and extraordinary moments to light. A section on radicals highlights figures who shaped Islington’s identity across the centuries. Another area traces how people cooked, ate and entertained themselves in earlier decades. Wartime displays recall the borough’s experience during the Second World War, while healthcare exhibits show how local services evolved. Fashion cabinets reveal changing styles from the 18th century to the present. Food and drink cases feature menus, packaging and recipes that tell the story of the area’s culinary life. Regular temporary exhibitions draw on the museum’s own holdings and visiting collections. Talks, guided walks and children’s activities take place throughout the year. An education room welcomes school parties and community groups for workshops and discussions. The displays change often, so repeat visits can uncover new stories. Clerkenwell’s radical past and the literary mischief of Orton and Halliwell sit just metres from one another. A quiet corner of Finsbury Library thus becomes a doorway into Islington’s layered history.