Whitecross Street: from Priss and a prison to street food and street art
- London On The Ground
- Oct 5
- 7 min read
The Islington street with one foot in the City of London has many fascinating guises.
Whenever I find myself on Whitecross Street (which is often), I enjoy walking its length and discovering something new about it. This remarkable and fascinating corner of London, between the City and Islington, is impossible to characterise.
Its history includes medieval religious orders, a Shakespearean theatre, a 19th century prison and market, modernist architecture and London's "second best whore". Yards from London's financial district and its biggest arts centre, it is best known today for its street art and street food.
Walks available for booking
For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks and tours, please click here.
Whitecross Street is very old. It first appeared in the historical record in the 13th century, when a white cross stood towards its southern end. Outside London’s walls, it led out into the fields north of the City.
Today Whitecross Street runs from the Barbican Estate at its southern end, at the junction with Silk Street/Beech Street/Chiswell Street, to Old Street at its northern end, opposite St Luke’s church.
Most of Whitecross Street is in the London Borough of Islington. However, a tiny stretch of the southern end, on the west side, is in the City of London. This is where the Barbican Estate, owned by the City, brushes against Whitecross Street.
Until World War II, Whitecross Street was longer than it is today. Its southern end continued to St Giles Cripplegate church along a stretch now occupied by Silk Street and Gilbert Bridge.
Gilbert Bridge, one of the Barbican Estate’s highwalks, passes over where the white cross once stood. The cross may have been a wayside marker, or have been associated with the Abbot of Ramsey, who had an inn nearby.
Close to the white cross, an arch was built over a stream that flowed east into the River Walbrook. This stream has long since disappeared, but the large lake in the centre of Barbican Estate follows a similar line.
In the 13th century a French religious order was established by Edward I at the southern end of Whitecross Street near the church. This was suppressed in the 15th century by Henry V (he was at war with France, after all), who founded the brotherhood of St Giles there for the relief of the poor.
If you stroll along Whitecross Street today, look carefully and you will find a number of plaques and other clues to its history since the early 17th century.
Walk north from Beech Street/Chiswell Street and go past Waitrose (built to satisfy demand from the Barbican Estate’s well-to-do residents). The first turning on the left is Fortune Street, named for the Fortune Theatre, as signalled by a blue plaque only a few paces off Whitecross Street.
The Fortune Theatre was founded in 1600 by actor, theatre manager and impresario Edward Alleyne. His only rival as the greatest actor of his generation was Richard Burbage, the leading light of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later the King's Men), the company for whom William Shakespeare wrote and acted.
Alleyne’s company, the Admiral’s Men, had previously based themselves at the Rose Theatre in Southwark, but moved north of the Thames after the Chamberlain’s Men built the Globe Theatre almost next door in 1599.
Back on Whitecross Street, opposite Fortune Street at the corner with Dufferin Street, there is a small blue plaque recalling the Whitecross Street Prison.
Built in 1813-15, the debtors prison was actually at the southern end of the street, close to St Giles’ Church on the site of the former brotherhood of St Giles, so not where the plaque is today.
This is one of four plaques erected on Whitecross Street by a group calling itself ‘English Hedonists’ (and not by English Heritage as it might appear on first glance). According to the excellent London Remembers website, these plaques were made for the Whitecross Street Party in 2010 by a group led by artist Carrie Reichardt. Her trademark, “Mad in England”, is displayed on the bottom of the plaques.
The Whitecross Prison plaque includes the detail: “Warm-hearted Nell Gwynn, in her will, desired her natural son, the Duke of St Albans, to lay out £20 a year to release poor debtors out of prison, and this sum was distributed every Christmas Day to the inmates of Whitecross Street Prison.”
Nell Gwynn was a celebrated 17th century actress and a long time mistress of Charles II.
A short distance further north, just past Chequer Street, on the right is a second English Hedonists blue plaque, commemorating Whitecross Street Market.
Today the market mainly sells street food, with tastes and flavours from all over the world, but also has stalls offering clothes, jewellery and other items. According to Islington Council’s website, it is open weekdays 11am-2pm (9am-6pm on Fridays).
Whitecross Street Market has a long history. There may have been a market here in the 17th century; there almost certainly was one by the 1830s. At that time it sold a wide range of household goods and fresh produce, brought by donkeys, from heavy wooden-framed stalls. The market traders were known as costermongers, which originally applied to street sellers of fruit and veg, but later meant hawkers in general.
The area was characterised by slum dwellings until the 1880s when the Peabody Estate, one of London’s earliest social housing organisations, was built on Whitecross Street and neighbouring streets. The Peabody housing is still there (the first two English Hedonists plaques are on its walls).
A block was also built on Dufferin Street specifically to house the costermongers. The Watch Committee of the St Luke’s Costermongers ensured that their accommodation, Dufferin Court (also still standing), included storage space around its courtyard for their carts and donkeys.
Returning to Whitecross Street, just after Roscoe Street, outside a Chinese restaurant called New East House and below a large and colourful work of street art, is the third English Hedonists plaque. It says “Samuel Baylis lived on Whitecross Street and was a founder of the Radical Club July 1833”.
The Radical Club was formed by breakaway members of the National Political Union, itself formed in 1831 to push for expanding the parliamentary franchise and other reforms. The Radical Club played a part in the movement that led to the creation of the Liberal Party.
The fourth English Hedonists plaque is at the northern end of Whitecross Street, on the left as you face Old Street. It remembers Priss Fotheringham.
Priss was certainly not prissy. The plaque declares that she was ranked the "second best whore in the city" by The Wand’ring Whore, a 1660 pamphlet that chronicled the prostitution business.
This begs a number of questions, including who was ranked at number one (the ‘Great Bawd’ Damarose Page, apparently) and what were the criteria used for judging?
The Wand’ring Whore was not the only publication that praised Priss’s prowess. Her party piece seems to have been her ‘chucking’ trick, which involved catching coins that customers chucked towards a certain part of her anatomy while she was standing on her head.
For the full story of Priss Fotheringham, read this post by fellow Islington Guide Lesley Thompson on the Islington Guided Walks blog.
In addition to the history plaques and the street food market, Whitecross Street is also known for its street art.
The annual Whitecross Street Party commissions artists to create works that are installed on buildings here for the next 12 months. The event, which is funded by Islington Council, also includes family activities, street food, an arts and crafts market, music, dance and spoken word.
There is also street art on Whitecross Street that's not part of the annual event...
...and street art painted onto the side of a building on the corner with Garrett Street.
Architecturally, Whitecross Street is diverse. It still has a lot of 19th (and possibly 18th) century buildings, including the Peabody housing, pubs, restaurants and several houses with shop fronts.
The art deco-like styling of the building that is now home to betting shop William Hill - which includes an almost hidden clock tower - looks to be from the late 1920s.
There is also significant post-World War II architecture, as the area suffered much bomb damage. This includes Coltash Court, a block of flats built by Islington Council in 1966, towards the northern end of the street, and, of course, the Brutalist Barbican Estate at the southern end.
Above the Priss Fotheringham plaque at the northern end of Whitecross Street is a piece of street art (at the time of writing in October 2025) that is very visible from Old Street.
Also visible from Old Street, above this artwork, is another reminder of this area’s past and the poverty that was prevalent in this area. Painted onto the brickwork of a 19th century former hostel are the following words:
“The Salvation Army. Hostel for working men. Cheap beds and food.”
Whitecross Street is a place of duality. It has always been a border zone. Once it sat between London and the countryside. Today its social housing sits between the financial district and Islington's fashionable Angel area, both of which boast some very expensive homes.
Whitecross Street has a long history, but also oozes modernity. It combines a very English heritage with a culturally and ethnically diverse present.
Walks available for booking
For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks and tours, please click here.
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