31 July 2011

Genealogists: cool and trendy

"Yeah! Like, it's awesome, smashtacular."

Not the kind of language one expects to hear associated with genealogy.

It's not the language but the area that the author is referring to in a posting on the Society of Genealogists' website When did the Society of Genealogists’ neighbourhood become cool and trendy? 

There's gentrification of the area around Goswell Road and Clerkenwell Road where the Society has its headquarters at Charterhouse Buildings.

Close by, what used to be the last bomb site in London is now an upscale development.

When I visit SOG my meal is usually grabbed from a local sandwich shop and eaten in the refined elegance of the SOG lunchroom (lol).


But according to the article, less than half a kilometre east on Old Street, along Whitecross Street, are some of the best street food and restaurants in London. "Usually the street food vendors serve exotic but incredibly tasty and cheap cuisine to the lunch time office workers and residents from the nearby Peabody Trust Estate (wonderfully interesting flats built in London clay brick) but the restaurants stay open at weekends."

Sounds like it's worth a try. Anyone been there? 





1 comment:

turner said...

That upscale development is the Golden Lane estate, the first re-development after the whole area was devastated in WW2 bombing. It has now been granted protected heritage status. I am aware of this as my great Uncle Harry Gray, about whom I wrote the article in the June issue of Anglo-Celtic Roots, lived there before his death in 1979. One had to already have a close connection with the area to live in that new development, and Uncle Harry had run a pub on Fleet Street for decades. I was in contact with the estate social networking site posting messages asking for anyone who remembered Harry to contact me. The estate is very upscale now, and I am sure that would have astonished Uncle Harry.
Brenda Turner