HOLLOWAY, a district in the parish of ISLINGTON,
Finsbury division of the hundred of OSSULSTONE,
county of MIDDLESEX, 3 miles (N.) from London. The
population is returned with the parish. The village is
divided into two parts, Upper and Lower Holloway,
consisting principally of detached houses, many of
which are handsome buildings, extending along the
great north road from London to Liverpool. The place
appears to have derived its name from being situated in
the hollow way, or vale, between Islington and Highgate.
The village is lighted with gas, and supplied with water
by the New River Company: it is within the jurisdiction
of the court of requests held in Kingsgate-street,
Holborn, for the recovery of debts under 40s.; and also
under the superintendence of the New Police. A new
church, dedicated to St. John, and situated at Upper
Holloway, was completed in 1828, at an expense of
£11,890. 7. 8., defrayed partly by a grant from the parliamentary
commissioners, and partly by a rate on the
inhabitants; it is in the decorated English style, with a
square tower at the west end: the interior is handsomely
fitted up, and lighted with gas; and it contains one
thousand seven hundred and eighty-two sittings, of
which seven hundred and fifty-three are free. The living
is a district incumbency, in the jurisdiction of the Commissary
of London, concurrently with the Bishop, and
in the patronage of the Vicar of Islington. At Lower
Holloway is a chapel of ease to the vicarage of St. Mary's,
Islington, which was consecrated in August, 1814, having
been erected at an expense (including the site, and a cemetery
of five or six acres) of about £32,000, under the
authority of an act of parliament passed in 1811, authorising
the trustees to raise by annuities £30,000; it is
a large edifice, with a square tower at the west end; the
interior is neatly ornamented, and over the altar is a
modern painting of the appearance of Christ to Mary
Magdalene. Here is a place of worship for Independents,
to which is attached a Sunday school. At Upper
Holloway is a National school for boys; there is another
for girls belonging to Highgate and Holloway, and
also an infant school. Near Highgate archway, but
within the limits of Upper Holloway, is situated Sir
Richard Whittington's college, or almshouse, originally
founded in the parish of St. Michael, Paternoster,
London, pursuant to a bequest by Sir Richard Whittington,
Knt., alderman and thrice lord mayor of London,
who, in 1421, left the residue of his estate, after
the payment of debts and legacies, to executors, for
the purpose of erecting and endowing almshouses for
thirteen poor people, under the conservancy of the
Mercers Company: the funds having received very
considerable additions from various benefactors, the
conservators, in 1824, erected the present college at
Holloway, at an expense of nearly £20,000; it is a
handsome edifice in the later English style, consisting
of a front and wings, with a chapel in the centre;
and the grounds before it are tastefully laid out, and
planted with flowering shrubs and evergreens: there
are tenements for twenty-nine alms-women, who, at the
time of admission, must be widows, or spinsters, not
less than fifty-five years of age, and not possessing property
to the amount of £30 per annum., which sum
each of them receives as a pension from the charity.
At Upper Holloway was born, in 1649, Sir Thomas Pope
Blount, Bart., author of " Censura Authorum Celebriorum,"
and other learned works; also, in 1654, his brother,
Charles Blount, who became noted as a deistical
writer, and who, in August 1693, shot himself in a fit
of phrenzy, occasioned by a disappointed attachment to
the sister of his deceased wife.