Highbury

Mornings start on Highbury Fields, where joggers, dog walkers and buggies share the paths beneath the plane trees, and the tennis courts fill up early. The terraces facing the Fields are some of the most beautiful Georgian houses in London, and they look especially good in the early light.

Up at Highbury Barn, the parade of independent shops opens for the day. Humdingers has turned an old fishmonger’s into a bakery and café, keeping the original features and filling the counter with sourdough, croissants and cinnamon swirls. It’s also a social enterprise that offers free hot meals to anyone in the community who needs one, which tells you a lot about the place. A few doors along, there’s often a queue at Godfreys, the local butcher, as regulars pick up something special for lunch or dinner before the best cuts run out.

Afternoons in Highbury are made for wandering. Along Highbury Park, Louis Farouk is the kind of shop you can lose an hour in, a treasure trove of hand-embroidered textiles, jewellery, lanterns, ceramics and little felt animals, gathered from makers around the world and arranged with real care. It’s run by someone who knows the story behind almost every piece.

Then head for Blackstock Road, which Time Out named the coolest street in London in 2025. Highbury’s end of the street is a brilliant mix of the old and the new. BookBar is a bookshop with a wine and coffee bar inside, where the booksellers will recommend your next read over a glass of something, and sometimes the basement turns into a speakeasy. A few doors along, N5 Cook and Garden is the place for everything from kitchen kit to seeds and tools for the garden. While Nourished Communities, an ethical food store and one of Time Out’s favourite spots, is the place to stock up on fresh, responsibly sourced groceries.

The houses are a big part of Highbury’s appeal. Around Highbury Fields are elegant Georgian terraces, some of the finest in London. Further north, around Highbury New Park, are grand Victorian villas and semi-detached houses with big gardens, many now beautifully converted into spacious flats. And at Highbury Square, the former Arsenal stadium offers apartments with a view of a garden where the pitch once was.

For dinner, Farang is the local restaurant with a national reputation. Chef Sebby Holmes started out selling Thai street food from the back of his car, took over his stepfather’s old Italian restaurant and turned it into one of London’s best Thai restaurants. It’s held a Michelin Bib Gourmand every year since 2019 and Giles Coren called it “the perfect restaurant”.

Afterwards, The Woodbine on Blackstock Road is a proper, cosy Irish pub and a favourite of Time Out’s editors. On match days, the whole neighbourhood is red and white, and the pubs are packed with Gooners from well before kick-off. Arsenal may have moved down the road to the Emirates, but Highbury will always be its spiritual home.

If wine is more your thing, Top Cuvée on Blackstock Road is a relaxed, friendly natural wine bar, the kind of place where one glass turns into a bottle and a plate of something delicious. Or head to the Bank of Friendship, an indie pub decked out in Arsenal memorabilia, with Deya beers on tap, pizza from Yard Sale and a cosy beer garden that fills up on warm evenings. And in summer, nothing beats a picnic on Highbury Fields as the sun goes down behind the terraces.

Highbury offers the best of Islington, with more breathing space. Its Georgian and Victorian houses are among the finest in North London, Highbury Fields gives it a park right at its heart, and Highbury & Islington station puts the whole of London within easy reach. For families moving up from a flat in Islington or Stoke Newington, it’s often the place where they finally settle.

That makes Highbury’s buyers well informed and often willing to wait for the right home. They know the difference between a Georgian terrace and a Victorian villa, and they’ll compare your home against everything else on the market in N5. The homes that stand out are the ones whose character comes through in every photograph: the original cornicing, the light in the front room, the view across the Fields.

Davies & Davies has been selling and letting homes across this part of North London for almost a century. Our in-house marketing team builds every campaign around what makes your home special. For owners who prefer discretion, we also handle off-market sales, introducing your home quietly to buyers we know are looking in Highbury.