Arsenal played at Highbury for ninety-three years, and when the club moved to the Emirates in 2006, the old stadium was turned into flats, with the pitch kept as a garden and the listed East Stand facade still facing Avenell Road. Highbury itself is a settled, family neighbourhood of Victorian terraces, with Highbury Fields, the largest open space in Islington, at its heart. Minibus hire Highbury customers book is mostly school trips and sport, family events and celebrations, gigs at Union Chapel and runs to the airports.
Highbury sits in the middle of Islington, between Canonbury, Holloway, Finsbury Park and Stoke Newington, with Highbury Corner at its southern tip. From our base in SE1, it's about thirty minutes outside the rush hour, up through the City and Islington.
Minibus hire Highbury for school trips
Highbury has several primary schools and secondary schools, among them Highbury Grove and Highbury Fields School, and they book us for museum visits, theatre trips, swimming, sports fixtures and residential trips. The South Kensington museums are about forty minutes away outside the rush hour, the British Museum about twenty and the Science Museum about forty.
For a school booking, send us the pupil and staff numbers, the destination and the times, and we'll confirm the details in writing. On the day, the driver arrives at the school gate at the time you set. Several Islington schools have school streets that close to traffic at the start and end of the day, so we'll check the times with the school.
For sports fixtures, Islington schools often play at pitches in Finsbury Park, at Market Road or further out in Hertfordshire, and the minibus takes the team and the kit there and back.
Highbury Fields and family events
Highbury Fields has tennis courts, a playground, an outdoor gym, Highbury Pool and wide lawns where families gather on summer weekends. Birthday parties, family picnics and school sports days take place here, and the surrounding streets fill up on sunny days.
Families book us for big birthdays, christenings, weddings and anniversaries, with guests collected from homes across Highbury, Canonbury and Holloway and taken to a restaurant, a hall or a venue elsewhere in London. Christ Church, beside the Fields, hosts weddings and christenings. Minibus hire Highbury families book for a summer party on the Fields usually means a drop at the corner by the pool and a pickup at the same point.
Union Chapel and evenings out
Union Chapel, at Highbury Corner, is a working Victorian church that also hosts some of London's most atmospheric gigs, with the stage set under the pulpit. Groups come for concerts, comedy and the Christmas shows, and the chapel's Margins project supports people facing homelessness.
Highbury Park and Blackstock Road have restaurants and pubs, and Upper Street, a few minutes south, has dozens more. For a night out, the driver collects from homes or a meeting point and plans the drop-offs at the end of the evening.
The old stadium and Arsenal match days
Highbury Square, the flats on the old stadium site, is a short walk from the Emirates, and on Arsenal match days the match-day road closure zone covers much of Highbury, including Avenell Road, Gillespie Road and the streets around Highbury Hill. Roads close for several hours around kick-off.
If you live in Highbury and have a booking on a match day that has nothing to do with football, tell us the date. We'll agree a pickup point outside the closures and allow for the slower traffic. For supporters, our Holloway page covers match-day drops and pickups.
Airport runs from Highbury
Stansted is about forty-five minutes to an hour from Highbury outside the rush hour, via the A10 or the A12 and the M11. Luton is about forty-five minutes to an hour, Heathrow about an hour and Gatwick an hour and a quarter or more. London City is about twenty-five to thirty minutes.
Families flying out with young children, grandparents and a lot of luggage book us for a pickup from the door. If family are flying in, share the flight number and we'll have the driver there when they land.
Highbury Corner and the traffic filters
Highbury Corner was once a huge roundabout and has been rebuilt with two-way roads and a new public space by the station. It's still busy, with buses, cycle lanes and the junction of the Holloway Road, St Paul's Road and Upper Street. Many residential streets in Highbury now have traffic filters and low traffic neighbourhood restrictions, which means a minibus may need to take a longer route to reach your door, and some streets can only be entered from one end.
Give us the address when you book, and we'll check the route and agree the best place to stop.
For minibus hire in Highbury, call 020 7183 0567.