BACKGROUND
This is Number 4 in my Project Monopoly Series. Each post will follow the same format.
| Number 0 – Introduction | Number 2 – Whitechapel Road |
| Number 1 – Old Kent Road | Number 3 – King’s Cross Station |
MONOPOLY BOARD PROPERTY NUMBER 3: THE ANGEL ISLINGTON
(Details of books and maps at the end of the post)
The Angel Islington, unlike the other properties, is not named after a street.
Why Victor Watson [managing director of board game maker Waddingtons] incongruously named one place on the Monopoly board after a tavern and not a street is a little unclear. The Waddington company history recounts that he had tea there with his secretary Marjory Phillips at the end of a taxi ride around London and they chose it rather than looking further. From ‘No Free Parking’.
A section from my map showing King’s Cross Station in the centre, with Euston Road and Pentonville Road running west to east in a straight line past the front of the station. As you head east towards the end of Pentonville Road you reach Angel tube station. All three properties are coloured blue on the Monopoly board, starting with The Angel Islington, followed non-logically by Euston Road then Pentonville Road.
Concentrating my walk on a small section around Angel tube station and north along Islington High Street/ Upper Street
HOW TO GET HERE
For transport options, Citymapper is invaluable as a tool to get from A to B. I took the Northern Line to Angel tube station.
From Upper Street there are buses that go along Pentonville Road and then on to Euston Road. I will write about this in a future post for anyone who wishes to cover the three light blue Monopoly properties on the same day.
ASPECTS OF MY VISIT
The last time I visited this area was at the end of May 2025, to buy some new dining room chairs from ARIA. We started the day with coffee and a matcha latte at Katsute 100. After ordering the chairs we walked around, had some unmemorable noodles for lunch (so sad!) and visited Borough Kitchen. I thought the area was worth another visit, but here we are a year later and if not for this Monopoly project, I would not have ventured to Angel again. Not for lack of enthusiasm but for lack of time, and also there is so much else to see in the rest of London.
May 2025
Katsute 100
Food shops along Camden Passage
Shopfront in Islington Square
Upper Street
July 2026
The Angel itself was transformed from a sedate Regency tavern to a Victorian public house with ‘glittering plate glass’ and billiard rooms and then to an Edwardian hotel with biscuit- coloured terracotta facing, a green marble staircase and a lavishly baroque brown dome. In 1921, it evolved again from a hotel to a Lyons Café, though within the same Edwardian building. If Marjory Phillips did take tea in the Angel, before persuading Victor Watson of its merits as a stop on the Monopoly board, it was in the Lyons incarnation that she took her refreshments. From ‘No Free Parking’.
The site of the Lyons Café, 1 Islington High Street, was until recently a bank. It is now a German bakery, Zeit für Brot (meaning Time for Bread), and so fitting for refreshment stop. Better still, on the opposite side is a beautiful space within an office block that houses Frequency Coffee.
For other recommended coffee shops, European Coffee Trip is a useful.
Zeit für Brot in the Angel Building
Frequency Coffee Angel Square: a beautiful space with open lift access to the upper floor area
I did not go looking for any pubs or hotels named Angel, but I did look out for the Angel Wings stainless steel sculpture located at the Angel Central shopping centre
SOMETHING FOR ANOTHER DAY
I am very keen to do Walk No 2 (Clerkenwell and Beyond). This starts at Angel, takes in the area south of it, and ends at Barbican tube station. An Opinionated Guide to London Walks, published by Hoxton Mini Press, ISBN 978-1914314933.
Map and Books:
London city map 1:10,000 by Freytag & Berndt, ISBN 978-3707924268
No Free Parking: The Curious History of London’s Monopoly Streets by Nicholas Boys Smith, published by John Blake Publishing, ISBN 978-1789465389. See chapter 17 (The Angel, Islington ‘The widest-known hostelry in the world’)
Do Not Pass Go: From the Old Kent Road to Mayfair by Tim Moore, published by Vintage, ISBN 978-0099433866. See chapter 13 (The Light Blues)