Modern, busy roads the ancient significance of which has almost been lost. Two of the boundary roads, King's Cross Road [known as Baggnige Wells Road until the development of King's Cross Station] and St. John's Street, were main routes for travellers into the City from the north. They were also used by drovers taking sheep and cattle to Smithfield Market. This accounts for the fact that they twist and turn and follow the topography of the area. Running along the northern boundary is the relatively straight New Road [1756], now called Pentonville Road. Henry Penton was a landowner who developed grand houses along the elegant new highway in 1773. The southern boundary is Rosebery Avenue which was built by cutting through slum dwellings in 1890. The greater part of the Amwell area was developed by two landowners - The New River Company and the Lloyd-Baker family. Most houses date from the Georgian period and were built between 1820 and 1830. Others are early Victorian with a few houses dating from the late Victorian period through to the radical, elegant and highly regarded architecture of Lubetkin who designed the large block of flats known as Bevin Court in the 1950s.
Amwell Street, on old maps, appears as a track running across open fields from Clerkenwell in the south to Islington in the north. Amwell Street is named after the Hertfordshire village where the New River had its source. Built as a street when the houses were erected, shops were included to create a 'village'. Many shop-fronts are original or are sensitive to the locality. While the fortunes of Amwell Street businesses have been variable with the creation of supermarkets and the demise of small traders, Amwell Street still has an excellent delicatessen, chemists, post office, dry cleaners, florist, off-licence, bookshop, vet, hairdresser, clock repairer, lighting supplies, newsagent and sweetshop, launderette, ladies shoe shop and recently a rug shop.
