The Underground Map

The Underground Map is a project which is creating street histories for the areas of London and surrounding counties lying inside the M25.

Baker Street

In a series of maps from the 1750s until the 1950s, you can see how London grew from a city which only reached as far as Park Lane into the post war megapolis we know today. There are now over 85 000 articles on all variety of locations including roads, houses, schools, pubs and palaces.

You can begin exploring by choosing a place from the dropdown list at the top.

As maps are displayed, click on the markers to view location articles.

Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence

Click here to explore another London street
We now have 666 completed street histories and 46834 partial histories
Find streets or residential blocks within the M25 by clicking STREETS

MARCH

2018

Lisle’s Tennis Court
Lisle’s Tennis Court was a building off Portugal Street in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London. Originally built as a real tennis court, it was used as a playhouse during two periods, 1661–1674 and 1695–1705. During the early period, the theatre was called Lincoln’s Inn Fields Playhouse, also known as The Duke’s Playhouse, The New Theatre or The Opera. The building was demolished and replaced by a purpose-built theatre for a third period, 1714–1728.

The tennis court theatre was the first public playhouse in London to feature the moveable scenery that would become a standard feature of Restoration theatres.
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MARCH

2018

Regent’s Park
Regent’s Park - not the park itself but the tube station. Regent’s Park tube station is a London Underground station near to Regent’s Park, located on Marylebone Road between the two arms of Park Crescent.

The station was opened on 10 March 1906 by the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway (BS&WR); In the original parliamentary authority for the construction of the BS&WR no station was allowed at Regent’s Park. Permission was granted to add it to the already partially constructed line in 1904.

Because of this same rule and unlike most of the BS&WR’s other stations, Regent’s Park has no surface buildings and is accessed from a subway.

The station is served by lifts - there is also a staircase which can be used and which has 96 steps.

Great Portland Street station is within easy walking distance for interchanges to the Circle and Metropolitan lines.
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MARCH

2018

Hillside Avenue, WD6
Hillside Avenue was a pre-war road laid out from 1937 onwards. Hillside Avenue follows the contours of high ground running parallel to Shenley Road/Elstree Way.

It was the site of one of the major Boreham Wood schools, Hillside School, which first opened in 1939.
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MARCH

2018

Hillside School
Hillside School existed between 1939 and 2000. Hillside School was officially opened for just one day in October 1939, due to the outbreak of World War 2. The intake of pupils was postponed until November of that year.

It was the first secondary school to open in Boreham Wood and during the Second World War was the only school in the village. The school continued education throughout the war, pupils having regular air raid drill.

Dennis Gernat was headmaster until the late 1950s and then Mr O’Keefe until the school was sold (to become Yavneh College, opened in 2006).

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MARCH

2018

Foster House
Foster House and Brent Lodge were two 18th-century brick houses at the corner of Butcher's Lane and Brent Street. Butcher's Lane later became Queen’s Road Foster House became a Christian Science reading room in 1930. Brent Lodge, enlarged in the early 19th century and renamed St. Peter’s Ouvroir, was demolished in 1957.
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MARCH

2018

Beaumont Arms
The former Beaumont Arms at 170 Uxbridge Road has been known by later names such as "Edwards" and "The Defectors Weld". The present building dates from 1884/5 but there has been a public house on this site from at least 1826.

The former name probably relates to John Thomas Barber Beaumont, a builder, or his family who owned land in the area from 1811.
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MARCH

2018

Neagle Close, WD6
Neagle Close is named after Dame Anna Neagle (1904–1986), born Florence Marjorie Robertson, a popular English stage and film actress. Neagle was a successful box-office draw in the British cinema for 20 years and was voted the most popular star in Britain in 1949. She was known for providing glamour and sophistication to war-torn London audiences with her lightweight musicals, comedies and historical dramas. Almost all of her films were produced and directed by Herbert Wilcox, whom she married in 1943.

In the 1930s and 1940s Deacons Hill was a wealthy area of Elstree and many people associated with the film industry lived there. The most famous of these was the prolific film producer Herbert Wilcox and the actress Anna Neagle. They formed a personal and professional relationship in the early 30’s and helped to make Borehamwood the British Hollywood.

They lived in a house at the top of Deacons Hill Road called Hilltop, and from there in 1936 they watched as The British & Dominions Imperial Studios that Wilcox had built in 1929, went up in flames - it was never rebuilt. Anna was marrie...
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MARCH

2018

Hampstead
Hampstead though now considered an integral part of London, has retained much of its village charm. Hampstead is on a steep hill and the tube station platforms are the deepest on the London Underground network, at 58.5 metres below ground level. It has the deepest lift shaft on the Underground.

Although early records of Hampstead itself can be found in a grant by King Ethelred the Unready to the monastery of St. Peter's at Westminster (AD 986) and it is referred to in the Domesday Book (1086), the history of Hampstead is generally traced back to the 17th century.

Trustees of the Well started advertising the medicinal qualities of the chalybeate waters (water impregnated with iron) in 1700. Although Hampstead Wells was initially successful, its popularity declined in the 1800s due to competition with other London spas. The spa was demolished in 1882, although a water fountain was left behind.

Hampstead started to expand following the opening of the North London Railway in the 1860s (now on the London Overground), and expanded further after the tube station opened in 1907.
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MARCH

2018

St Mark Street, E1
St Mark Street was built on the old Goodman’s Fields. A House of Minoresses (from where the street name Minories derives) was established in Aldgate in 1293, by Edward I’s brother Edmund, Duke of Lancaster and his French wife Blanche of Navarre. The King granted them freedom from taxation and tithes. After Edmund died in 1296, many significant medieval figures, particularly women, were buried within the convent walls, including in 1360 Elizabeth de Burgh, Countess of Clare and founder of Clare College Cambridge in 1360, and Anne Mowbray, Duchess of York and wife of the younger prince murdered in the Tower in 1481. The House continued to attract the widows and daughters of the wealthy, and gradually increased its holdings of land, rents and tenements.

After the Dissolution, the nunnery was surrendered to Henry VIII by the last abbess, Dame Elizabeth Salvage, in 1539, who was subsequently granted a pension of £40, and the nunnery became the residence of John Clark, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Henry VIII’s ambassador to th...
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MARCH

2018

Goodman’s Fields Theatre
Two 18th century theatres bearing the name Goodman’s Fields Theatre were located on Alie Street, Whitechapel. The first opened on 31 October 1727 in a small shop by Thomas Odell, ’Deputy Licenser of Plays’. The first play performed was George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer. Henry Fielding’s second play The Temple Beau premièred here 26 January 1730. Upon retirement, Odell passed the management on to Henry Giffard, after a sermon was preached against the theatre at St Botolph’s, Aldgate. Giffard operated the theatre until 1732. After he left, the theatre was used for a variety of acrobatic performances.

Giffard constructed a new theatre down the street designed by Edward Shepherd who also designed the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The theatre opened with Henry IV, Part I, 2 October 1732 that included actors Thomas Walker, Richard Yates and Harry Woodward. A dispute at the Drury Lane Theatre bought the actress Sarah Thurmond and her husband to the theatre. With the passing of the Licensing Act of 1737, the theatre was forced to close. Giffard rented Linc...
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MARCH

2018

Dowgate Hill, EC4R
Dowgate Hill is a continuation of Walbrook along the west side of Cannon Street Station, leading to Dowgate Dock. In records from 1150 and 1312 the name appears as Douegate. Also named Downgate by Stow “from its steep descent to the River.”

The supposed antiquity of Dowgate as the Dwr-gate or water gate to Watling Street of the Britons (Welsh Dwr = water gate) is somewhat doubtful as there is no evidence that this place existed previous to the Roman occupation.

In Wren’s Parentalia it is stated that the Romans had a gate in the wall next the Thames and this gate was called Dew-gate or anciently Dour-gate which signified the water gate into the City. The Walbrook joined the Thames at this Dock. Here was the water gate where the ferry from Surrey landed the travellers for the City.

Dowgate was the old port of the Normans and was utilized by the citizens of Rouen. Earlier anchorage for ships belonging to the merchants of the Hansa Steel Yard. In Dowgate Hill are three City Company’s Halls.
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MARCH

2018

Amersham Workhouse
The Amersham Workhouse was situated on the site of Amersham Hospital. The Union Workhouse was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott who also designed the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park and St Pancras Station in London. It was built in 1838 and served a number of local parishes and provided basic care of the elderly and those unable to work.

It was built following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 which obliged parishes to form a "union" to build a workhouse. The Amersham Union included the parishes of Chesham, Beaconsfield, the Chalfonts and Penn. Typically, a Union Workhouse was built in the largest town of the Union. In Amersham’s case this should have been Chesham, but Amersham was chosen.

The Union Workhouse replaced the many work houses around the parishes, with the "inmates" being moved from their local towns, sometimes leaving them for the first time in their lives. Owing to the location of the "union" Workhouse, Whielden Street was for a time known as Union Street. The name reverted to Whielden Street (named a...
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MARCH

2018

Park Grove, DA7
Park Grove is part of the Martens Grove Estate, build in the 1930s. The Martens Grove Estate was built by Aylings, but many other builders firms were active nearby, including Ellingham, H. Owen and New Ideal Homesteads.

The Estate was built on what had been ancient woodlands, part of the grounds of Martens Grove, a very large house of the 1850s.
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MARCH

2018

South Kenton
South Kenton is an area of the London Borough of Harrow which is served by South Kenton station. South Kenton is situated on the southern fringe of Northwick Park in an area which was previously open farmland with virtually no settlement.

Its station opened on 3 July 1933 with access from both sides of the railway via a footbridge to the single island platform serving. The further growth of South Kenton was stimulated by the arrival of the railway.

South Kenton’s station footbridge was later replaced by a pedestrian tunnel, cutting out a long climb for passengers entering the station. The station was designed by the architect William Henry Hamlyn and built in concrete and glass.
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MARCH

2018

Moor Park
Moor Park takes its name from a country house which was originally built in 1678–9 for James, Duke of Monmouth, and was reconstructed in the Palladian style circa 1720 by Giacomo Leoni. The house was built on what used to be an area of Ruislip Moor, which is where the name Moor Park originates. The house and grounds are now occupied by Moor Park Golf Club.

The Moor Park Estate was built after Moor Park and Sandy Lodge station was opened on 9 May 1910 after, in September 1887, the Metropolitan Railway’s extension opened from the previous terminus at Pinner, en route to Rickmansworth.
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MARCH

2018

Figges Marsh
Figges Marsh is a park in Mitcham. Figges Marsh is just over 10 hectares in size and its open space has an outdoor gym and outdoor table tennis.

It was named after William Figge who occupied the land from 1357. Present-day Carlingford Gardens and Manship Road mark the boundary between Figge’s property and that of the medieval Biggin Farm estate.

As part of Mitcham Common, Figges Marsh was used for grazing until 1923 when the urban district council assumed control. Most of the land was left as meadow until mechanical mowing became possible in the 1940s. Around this time, the surrounding area began to be built up with housing, much of which was erected by the council.
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MARCH

2018

George Court, WC2N
George Court is named after George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. Villers acquired York House which formerly stood on this site; his son sold the area to developers on condition that his father and titles were commemorated on the new streets.

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MARCH

2018

Devonshire Hill Lane, N17
Devonshire Hill Lane was laid out along the line of a former farm track. Much of the modern road pattern of Tottenham had been established by 1619. High Road ran northward in the east and Green Lanes, dividing at the later junction of Wood Green High Road and Bounds Green Road, in the west; between them routes corresponding to the later White Hart and Lordship lanes and West Green and St. Ann’s roads crossed the middle of the parish.

The western part of White Hart Lane was then called Apeland Street as far as the parsonage house, whence a lane later marked by the modern Devonshire Hill Lane led to the Edmonton border at Clay Hill.

Up to the 1920s, the area north of White Hart Lane from the site of Rectory Farm was a landscape of fields with few houses. Devonshire Hill Lane wound its narrow, tree-lined way northwards for half a mile from White Hart Lane, terminating at Devonshire Hill Farm.

After WW1, Local Authorities, under Government direction and subsidy, embarked on a programme of Public Housing developme...
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MARCH

2018

Brownlow Road, WD6
Brownlow Road was built together with Drayton Road. Drayton Road was laid out to run parallel to Furzehill Road from a junction with Shenley Road. To enable traffic to traverse Drayton Road, a second street - Brownlow Road was built to connect the southern end with Furzehill Road.

In 1896, Charles Braithwaite who owned the Boreham Wood Engine Works and Loco Packing Company in Drayton Road, built houses for employees in Furzehill Road and Brownlow Road.
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