Exploring EC1 prototypes how maps, apps and stories can help residents, businesses and visitors explore and engage with the past, present and future of Farringdon and Clerkenwell. These pages and map examples are a first demonstration of what might be possible.
The longer-term aim is to develop, with collaborators, open source community information systems for wider use. There are three main routes here for exploring EC1 - as well as visiting locations on our map:
800 years of history are revealed through major heritage sites including The Charterhouse; London’s oldest church St Bartholomew the Great; the Museum of the Order of St John - and 101 moderately interesting facts about Clerkenwell. More here about +EC1 heritage
The area faces major change, with the opening of the Elizabeth line in 2022, Culture Mile activities and plans, and longer-term development of Smithfield Market buildings. More about +EC1 futures and +Culture Mile plans
How the system works
The EC1 exploration began through development of maps in Clerkenwell and elsewhere, starting in 2018. Currently the main map system used is Maphub, together with a storymap under development using Humap.
More about mapping at +EC1 maps - past work on mapping, and current developments using different mapping platforms.
Places, themes and stories
There’s only so much information you can put into a marker on a map - and many organisations and activities are not specific to a location. I’ve experimented with different ways to add more.
Each map marker has basic information, links to a website(where available), an information sheet link, and geographic location using What3Words. The place-related information sheets contain further links, and where available an extract from Chris Walker’s 101 moderately interesting facts about Clerkenwell(thanks Chris).
I’ve organised stories from the EC1 Echo into themes - e.g. arts, community, eating and drinking - and also including content from elsewhere.
So far I’ve used the free Dropbox Paper system for the sheets, because it is easy to embed images, videos and links(but not maps unfortunately). Apologies for the lack of an overall navigation system. I’m exploring alternatives for the longer term.
All information for the maps and sheets is stored in an Airtable spreadsheet/database. That means map data can be updated in Airtable, exported and uploaded to Maphub, rather than changed record-by-record on the map. More on +EC1 Airtable
Information in Airtable can also be shown as a gallery - scroll down to see places also listed in +EC1 places index. Some images roll-over for past and present views.
Overall this is an exploration on two fronts: firstly the past, present and future of EC1, and secondly how to develop this sort of system, or community platform, so that can be used more widely. If you are interested on either front, please do get in touch David Wilcox david@socialreporter.com
The past
The present
The future
How the system works
Main links