Finsbury

Finsbury is a district of North-Central London, forming the southeastern part of the London Borough of Islington. It borders the City of London.

The Manor of Finsbury is first recorded as Vinisbir (1231) and means "manor of a man called Finn". Finsbury lay just outside Cripplegate (and on its later construction, Moorgate) in London Wall. At that time, much of the manor was part of the "great fen which washed against the northern wall of the City".

Finsbury gave its name to two larger administrative areas: the Finsbury Division of the Ossulstone Hundred of Middlesex, from the 17th century until 1900, and from 1900 to 1965 the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. The Metropolitan Borough included Finsbury (also known as St Luke's) and Clerkenwell.

The area should not be confused with Finsbury Park, a public space roughly 3 miles (5 km) to the north, which gives its name to its surrounding mainly residential area.

The area lies immediately north of the City of London, and approximates to the part of the London Borough of Islington east of Goswell Road and south of City Road. It also includes a small area north of City Road, focused on the City Road Basin.

The parts of the City of London's Coleman Street Ward that lie outside the line of the former City walls (now mostly covered by Finsbury Circus) were historically part of the Manor of Finsbury and still sometimes described as part of the area.

Finsbury Town Hall and the Finsbury Estate lie further west, in Clerkenwell and are named after the former borough of Finsbury which included both Finsbury and Clerkenwell.

The Soke of Cripplegate was a landholding outside Cripplegate and Aldersgate. Bordered (in part at least) by the Walbrook to the east, it covered the areas subsequently known as Aldersgate Without and the parish of St Giles-without-Cripplegate (which included Cripplegate Without, the part of Coleman Street Ward north of the wall and the Manor of Finsbury).