Brick warehouse blocks over shops on narrow lanes, and the paved green A Fish Called Wanda used for the getaway.
What Clerkenwell looks like
is a paved triangle with no grass on it. The former Middlesex Sessions House stands across the west end and housing, offices and pubs run around the other sides. Four Ionic columns and a pediment stand above its rusticated ground floor, and the old judges' dining room inside is a restaurant and bar now.
The lanes north of it are narrow and wind around the churchyard of St James, falling west toward with the railway in open cutting beside it. St James's Walk and Sekforde Street are three storey terraces in yellow stock brick, with round arched doorways under fanlights and black railings at the pavement.
The warehouse and factory blocks along the main roads run three to five storeys over their shopfronts, in stock brick and red brick with stone and terracotta dressings. The terrace at 5 to 10 has round arched openings on the ground floor with iron balconies over them.
crosses St John's Lane south east of the Green, a stone arch over the roadway with rooms above it. On the Hugh Myddelton School building of 1893 is flats now, and nine thousand square feet of prison vaults under it are hired out for filming.
is up the hill to the north west, a semi-pedestrianised street of stalls and restaurants with tables and awnings out along most of it. The 1887 Italian basilica front of Our Most Holy Redeemer stands halfway down, banded in brick and stone.
Shot in Clerkenwell
Terry Gilliam put the travelling show from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus on Clerkenwell Close opposite the Horseshoe pub, where it leaves with cannons firing. Suffragette used the prison cells under Sans Walk for its force-feeding scenes, and the series Killing Eve put Carolyn and Villanelle over lunch at the Sessions Arts Club on the Green.
A Fish Called Wanda, 1988
Clerkenwell Green
Wanda waits with the getaway car on the Green in a false moustache after the Hatton Garden robbery and Mrs Coady spots her there while walking her dogs. The robbers swap cars on the flight of steps between Roberts Place and Clerkenwell Close, and Ken rides a motorbike under St John's Gate to throw the evidence away.
About a Boy, 2002
Played Will's flat
The entrance to Will's flat was added to the side of 16 to 18 St James's Walk for the film, at the corner of Sekforde Street. He thinks about volunteering at St James on Clerkenwell Close and attends the SPATs meeting at Woodbridge Chapel on Haywards Place.
What Clerkenwell can double for
Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, West Midlands
Small brick workshops sit among larger factories on a network of narrow streets, and the three storey terraces on Caroline Street hold workshop floors behind plain house fronts. St Paul's Square is the only Georgian square left in the city, with the same sash windows and doorcases as the terraces around Sekforde Street. The Big Peg is an eight storey flatted factory of 1971 and stands well above the terraces around it. The wide postwar ring roads at the edges need keeping out of shot. Try searching three storey brick workshops now.
Lace Market in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
Red brick warehouses stand four to seven storeys on densely packed streets, their showrooms at pavement level and their lace finishing floors above under large windows. High Pavement to the south is Georgian, with the old county gaol and law courts on it. Those warehouses run two storeys taller than anything here, so a wide shot up a street gives the height away. One of them is Watson Fothergill's, with Gothic Revival turrets that are Nottingham's own. Try searching red brick lace warehouses now.
Northern Quarter in Manchester, Greater Manchester
Red brick warehouse fronts stand over the back alleys off Tib Street and Thomas Street at about the height and closeness of the blocks on Clerkenwell Road. Georgian houses survive among them on Hilton Street. The main streets there sit on a broad grid rather than winding, so only the back alleys hold the comparison. Street art covers ground floors along Tib Street and would need dressing out. Try searching red brick warehouse alleys now.
