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The
Angel Cafe Restaurant‚
Islington
The
Angel Hotel, situated at the junction of
Pentonville Road, City Road, Upper Street
(High Street, Islington) and St John
Street, was purchased by Lyons in 1921 and
opened as the Angel Cafe Restaurant on 21
February 1922. Some contemporary records
wrongly attribute it as having opened in
1899 as a Corner House. It did not open at
this time nor was it a Corner House.
Nevertheless it was a fairly grand
restaurant on two floors with a rather
conspicuous external dome which became a
local landmark. The earliest reference to
this property's acquisition by Lyons is
dated 21 May 1921 when the firm registered
a Mortgage to the value of £24,000
for what was described as:
a)
A piece of land situate at the corner of
High Street, Islington, and Pentonville
Road with the Inn and premises thereon
known as 'The Angel' and;
b)
The fixtures and fittings therein and the
goodwill of the business of a licensed
victualler therein and the benefit of the
Magistrates and Excise Licenses for
carrying on the said business.
The
property appears to have been bought from:
Truman, Hanbury, Buxton & Co Ltd, a
company incorporated under the Companies
Acts 1862 to 1886.
The
Angel had, from Jacobean times (1603),
been a coaching inn and went though a
number of rebuilds before Lyons acquired
the property in 1921. The area in which it
was situated used to be called Merry
Islington because from time immemorial it
had been a great entertainment centre of
London. The Collins Music Hall, the Grand
Theatre and the Philharmonic Hall were all
situated here. Being outside London,
Islington also became a refuge after the
plagues and the Great Fire of London. It
was also a refuge for those travellers
entering London from the north. Here they
would rest overnight as the open land
between Islington and the City itself was
dangerous to cross lest highwaymen
vagrants, rouges or sham soldiers would
relieve them of the valuables and possibly
their lives. There were large fields for
the farming community to rest their
animals before the onward journey to
Smithfield meat market. Charles Dickens
also used the location for the meeting of
the Artful Dodger and Oliver Twist in his
famous novel of that name. In chapter VIII
The Artful Dodger (John Dawkins) it reads:
"John Dawkins objected to their entering
London before nightfall, it was nearly
eleven o'clock when they reached the
turnpike at Islington. They crossed from
the Angel into St John's Road. ..."
Although
the Angel Cafe was one of the larger
restaurants, ranked between a teashop and
a Corner House, it has received little
publicity within the J. Lyons house
journals. In fact only two or three
references are made to The Angel Cafe and
these only to the memorial wreaths which
were laid by the staff at the annual
memorial services at Greenford. A brief
reference appears in the Board Minutes of
1945 when a liquor licence was applied
for. This paucity of information makes it
difficult to document details about the
restaurant. It is known to have been a
popular meeting place for residents of
Islington as its dome made it conspicuous.
Furthermore, it was directly opposite the
Angel underground station and adjacent to
bus and tram routes which served many
areas of London. Some people held their
wedding breakfasts there in the upstairs
restaurant which could be hired for such
functions after the Second World
War.
The
Angel Restaurant, like the teashops,
suffered from neglect during the war and
went into decline thereafter. By 1959 it
needed a considerable sum spent on it but
the County of London Development Plan
provided for the compulsory acquisition of
the premises in a few year's time. This
ruled out the heavy expenditure necessary
to bring it up to acceptable standards.
Lyons therefore approached the London
County Council in 1959/60 and reached an
agreement with them for its earlier
acquisition. The precise date of transfer
of ownership is not known but it is
thought to have been in early 1960 as it
was mentioned in Isidore M. Gluckstein's
Statement to Shareholders dated 10 June
1960. In the event the plans which the
London County Council had drawn up for the
modernisation of the Angel did not affect
this site and the building, with its dome,
is still intact. Memorial wreaths
continued to be laid by the staff, at the
Lyons war memorials in Greenford, until
its closure.
©
Peter Bird 2004
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