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Featured · Marylebone ·
July
25
2021
The Underground Map is a project which is creating street histories for the areas of London and surrounding counties lying inside the M25.

view of Balcombe Street, Marylebone (2007)

In 1975, there was a siege in Balcombe Street where the Provisional IRA took two hostages and a six day siege with the Metropolitan Police ensued
Credit: Geograph/Oxyman
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 left and then clicking Reset Location.

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

You can also view historical maps of London - click on the "pile of paper" control on the top right of a page's map to change to a particular decade.

Latest on The Underground Map...
Balcombe Street, NW1
Balcombe Street is possibly a corruption of Batcombe, Dorset, in line with other Dorset-related street names in the area. Balcombe Street, Dorset Square and Gloucester Place all date from 1815-1820. Balcombe Street was at first known as Milton Street.

The streets formed part of the Portman Estate. Their layout shows a social hierarchy of square, thoroughfares and side streets mirrored by a hierarchy in the design of houses, from the grand four storey buildings in Dorset Square to the rather less grand terraces and smaller houses in Balcombe Street and Gloucester Place and the significantly smaller scale of the three and two storey ‘third rate’ houses in the side streets and mews.

There are some 180 grade II buildings including the whole of Dorset Square, most of Balcombe Street and Gloucester Place. The predominant materials are brick and stucco.

The London part of the Portman Estate in Marylebone covers 110 acres and covers 68 streets, 650 buildings and four garden squares. In 1948 the Estate, then valued at £10 million, was subject to death duties of Â...

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JULY
11
2021

 

Oslo Court, NW8
Oslo Court was built between 1936 and 1938 by architect Robert Atkinson Oslo Court was built over the final remaining 30 workmen’s cottages in the St John’s Wood area. These were demolished in 1936, after which the gentrification of NW8 was more or less complete (Lisson Grove notwithstanding).

The block consists of seven floors containing 125 flats, 112 of which have a direct view over Regent’s Park.

This work of Robert Atkinson has been described as the style of ’restrained modernism’ by englishbuildings.blogspot.com. Crittall windows are used and there are small sculptural panels, with Nordic themes such as a reindeer and a long boat. Each flat was designed with a living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and a small hall. Each also had a balcony, and a restaurant was provided on the ground floor for the use of tenants. The rents varied from £140 to £250 per annum, according to the outward aspect of the view.

Many blocks in the area had restaurants in days gone by but have, one by one, disappeared. ...
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JULY
10
2021

 

Waldegrave Road, TW11
Waldegrave Road is named after Frances Waldegrave and was the birthplace of Sir Noël Coward Waldegrave Road was named after Frances Waldegrave, the widow of the 7th Earl Waldegrave who lived at Strawberry Hill House, situated on the road in the 19th century.

The road is split into two sections - a Teddington (TW11) part and a Twickenham (TW1) section. The Teddington part of Waldegrave Road is noted for late Victorian semi-detached villas.

This road, connecting Teddington with Strawberry Hill, was at first known as Fry’s Lane. In the early nineteenth century it became Factory Lane after Alexander Barclay built a wax manufacturing factory in 1800. After the death of Frances, Lady Waldegrave, in 1879, the name changed to its modern form.

Following enclosure at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a large pond covered the south west part of the road at the centre of Teddington. In 1863, a new railway track was built through the site of the pond. A road bridge was constructed to reunite the two parts of Teddington that had been ...
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JULY
9
2021

 

Milton Road, E17
Milton Road runs east off of Hoe Street Land societies worked very like building societies. Members paid in a minimum every week until a minimum and became shareholders who could choose a plot of freehold land from the society. The society inturn acquired land from various landowners and divided it into the plots which could be purchased. Land society members were encouraged to buy books such as ’The Builder’s Practical Director’ or ’The Freeholder’s Circular’. These publications offered advice on such subjects as different types of bricks, digging trenches and mixing concrete. By the 1850s, there were sixty active socities in London.

The largest society was the National Freehold Land Society, founded in 1849. The society acquired freehold land and its first local estate was eight acres just off Hoe Street, purchased from Joseph Truman in 1851.

In 1854, the Tower Hamlets Freehold Land Society bought a large estate at Parsonage Hill, off Green Leaf Lane. It defined 425 parcels of lan...
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JULY
8
2021

 

Brook Lane, SE3
Brook Lane follows the line of a long-disappeared section of Kidbrooke Lane Before Brook Lane appeared on the map, Kidbrooke Lane followed its course. This lane, unimaginable now, was known for its pretty hedgerows. It ran all the way from Blackheath through the fields of Kidbrooke to Well Hall. Only the SE9 section remains of Kidbrooke Lane.

The fields to the west of Brook Lane were developed for housing as the First World War ended. The Shooters Hill bypass part of the Rochester Way was built in 1927 over the fields to the east.

Brook Lane received its new name in the late 1920s when Rochester Way cut it off from the rest of Kidbrooke Lane. Partly the new name kept a section of the former name but the Kid Brooke stream also ran just south of what is now Gregory House at the end of Brook Lane.


A view of Upper Kidbrooke Farm in Kidbrooke Lane and St. James’ Church before the farmland was developed for housing very soon after this photograph was taken.



Brook Lane is a surviving fragment of Kidbrooke Lane; the remainder is covered by
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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Comment
old lady   
Added: 19 Jul 2021 11:58 GMT   

mis information
Cheltenham road was originally
Hall road not Hill rd
original street name printed on house still standing

Reply
Comment
Patricia Bridges   
Added: 19 Jul 2021 10:57 GMT   

Lancefield Coachworks
My grandfather Tom Murray worked here

Reply
Lived here
Former Philbeach Gardens Resident   
Added: 14 Jul 2021 00:44 GMT   

Philbeach Gardens Resident (Al Stewart)
Al Stewart, who had huts in the 70s with the sings ’Year of the Cat’ and ’On The Borders’, lived in Philbeach Gdns for a while and referenced Earl’s Court in a couple of his songs.
I lived in Philbeach Gardens from a child until my late teens. For a few years, on one evening in the midst of Summer, you could hear Al Stewart songs ringing out across Philbeach Gardens, particularly from his album ’Time Passages". I don’t think Al was living there at the time but perhaps he came back to see some pals. Or perhaps the broadcasters were just his fans,like me.
Either way, it was a wonderful treat to hear!

Reply
Lived here
David James Bloomfield   
Added: 13 Jul 2021 11:54 GMT   

Hurstway Street, W10
Jimmy Bloomfield who played for Arsenal in the 1950s was brought up on this street. He was a QPR supporter as a child, as many locals would be at the time, as a teen he was rejected by them as being too small. They’d made a mistake

Reply
Comment
Added: 6 Jul 2021 05:38 GMT   

Wren Road in the 1950s and 60s
Living in Grove Lane I knew Wren Road; my grandfather’s bank, Lloyds, was on the corner; the Scout District had their office in the Congregational Church and the entrance to the back of the Police station with the stables and horses was off it. Now very changed - smile.

Reply

fariba   
Added: 28 Jun 2021 00:48 GMT   

Tower Bridge Business Complex, S
need for my coursework

Source: university

Reply
Lived here
Kim Johnson   
Added: 24 Jun 2021 19:17 GMT   

Limehouse Causeway (1908)
My great grandparents were the first to live in 15 Tomlins Terrace, then my grandparents and parents after marriage. I spent the first two years of my life there. My nan and her family lived at number 13 Tomlins Terrace. My maternal grandmother lived in Maroon house, Blount Street with my uncle. Nan, my mum and her brothers were bombed out three times during the war.

Reply
Comment
Peter H Davies   
Added: 17 Jun 2021 09:33 GMT   

Ethelburga Estate
The Ethelburga Estate - named after Ethelburga Road - was an LCC development dating between 1963–65. According to the Wikipedia, it has a "pleasant knitting together of a series of internal squares". I have to add that it’s extremely dull :)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reply

JULY
7
2021

 

Keynsham Gardens, SE9
Keynsham Gardens was built as part of the 1920s Page Estate. During 1919, the Minister of Health, Christopher Addison published his ’1919 Housing and Town Planning Act’. Part of the initiative was due to Lloyd George’s ’homes fit for heroes’ slogan - the Act was part of the post-First World War plans to provide improved housing for working people.

Woolwich Metropolitan Borough identified a site of 344 acres, bisected by the Southern Railway, that same year.

The estate was designed to provide 2700 new homes in the then-fashionable garden city model - a density of only around 12 houses per acre and all designed with both front and back gardens and bathrooms. The estate was ’all-electric’ - not a gas fire or stove in sight - designed for a future of vacuum cleaners and electric irons.

To the east and south, the new area was served by two railway stations and by trams. Four new schools were built to serve the incoming population.

85 acres of the purchase by Woolwich Council ...
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JULY
6
2021

 

Archer Street, W1D
Archer Street was Arch Street in 1675, Orchard Street in 1720 and Archer Street by 1746. In Colonel Panton’s building petition of 1671, Archer Street first appears as a "short street leading from out of Windmill Street over against Windmill Yard towards St. Giles." Before 1836, the street came to an abrupt end at the eastern boundary of Panton’s ground. It was connected to Rupert Street by a narrow passage through a stable yard. But in 1836, the stable buildings had been demolished and Archer Street extended to Rupert Street.

Archer Street was lined for the most part with modest houses. Old photographs showed a pair of small cottages dating from about 1700.

So far, a normal Soho street history.

But in the twentieth century, Archer Street became known as a meeting point for West End musicians. The street became this hub due to its proximity to work places (nearby theatres and clubs) and places to drink and socialise.

The Apollo and The Lyric both had stage doors which opened onto the street. Meanwhile, the M...
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JULY
5
2021

 

Green Dragon Alley, E14
Green Dragon Alley is a long-gone alleyway off Narrow Street. The tiny Green Dragon Alley was described in John Lockie’s 1810 ’Descriptive London Street Directory’ as "the second on the left about nine doors from Mr. Turner’s wharf, leading into Risby’s rope walk".

Mentioned in 1732 but disappearing under an 1869 new dock entrance to Limehouse Basin, the alley was one of the central locations in the drama of the famed Spring-Heeled Jack of the Victoria era.
»read full article


JULY
4
2021

 

Alexandra Road, NW8
Alexandra Road was built after the marriage of the Prince of Wales. The young Princess Alexandra, daughter of King Christian of Denmark, came to England to marry the later Edward VII in 1863. Alexandra Road was built by the Eyre Estate.

A notable resident of Alexandra Road was Lily Langtry (1853–1929), music hall singer and, with little irony at the time, the mistress of the husband (Edward VII) of the woman that the road was named after.

Langtry’s house in Alexandra Road had to be demolished to make way for the 1970s Alexandra Road development and she is remembered in the name of Langtry Walk.

The story of Alexandra Road is a story of ’two halves’. There is a remaining section which has continued in existence since the 1860s.

Prior to the creation of the London Borough of Camden, the Eyre Estate had owned Alexandra Road and were developing plans for rebuilding the street in the early 1960s. The Eyre Estate had to abandon their first plan for a middle-class scheme of a high density mi...
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JULY
3
2021

 

Basing Street, W11
Basing Street was originally Basing Road between 1867 and 1939. Basing Street might have acquired its name from the railway developer landowner James Whitchurch from Southampton, near Basingstoke. Alternatively it could have been named in honour of the 16th century landlord, Sir William Paulet or Pawlet, Lord St John of Basing and Marquis of Winchester, Lord High Treasurer in the reign of Elizabeth I.

The foundation stone for a congregational chapel, was laid by the Nottingham Liberal MP Samuel Morley in July 1865, "at a time when all this part was little more than open fields."

Waxwork models produced on Basing Street for Madame Tussaud’s included the local serial killer John Christie from 10 Rillington Place. In the late 1960s the building had another famous reincarnation as the offices and studios of Island Records. Chris Blackwell’s first memory of the premises is being freaked out when he found himself in a room full of dummies. Led Zeppelin began recording their fourth album, including ’Stairway To Heave...
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JULY
2
2021

 

Hickman’s Folly, SE1
Hickman’s Folly was a very old Bermondsey street which disappeared as the Dickens Estate was built. Hickman’s Folly ran parallel and south of Wolseley Street and said to have been built on the site of a tannery. At one time it ran from Dockhead to George Row where it crossed the open River Neckinger by a bridge over Folly Ditch.

The street was part of Jacob’s Island. This ’island’ was probably created between 1660 and 1680 in the first 20 years of the reign of Charles II, when the tidal ditches surrounding and intersecting the island were dug. The oldest houses of the rookie, and their ’crazy wooden galleries’ dated from this period. Hickman’s Folly can be seen on the 1750s Rocque map marked as ’The Folly’ but most likely dates from before then.

Jacob’s Island became a densely built-up area of factories, tanneries, warehouses and mills. Houses, shops, small workshops and workers’ tenements were built between them. Many houses owed curious features to their position over ditches, which served both as water supply and sewer. The di...
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JULY
1
2021

 

Colindale
Colindale is an area of north London lying to the northwest of Hendon. Formerly in the borough and ancient parish of Hendon, Colindale was essentially the dale between Mill Hill and Burroughs. By the middle of the 20th century, it had come to include that part of the Edgware Road between The Hyde, and Burnt Oak.

The area is named after a 16th century family of the same name. Until the 20th century Collindale, was without any buildings save for a large house called Collindale Lodge, Collindale Farm, and a few cottages. (A spelling with two L’s has been used, as on this printed in 1873.) All of these properties were on Collindeep Lane, which had in the medieval period been an alternative route out of London (via Hampstead, Golders Green, and Hendon) to the Edgware Road. By the end of the 16th century it was not often used as a main road, and by the middle part of the 19th century was called Ancient Street.

By the end of the 19th century cheap land prices made Colindale attractive to developers. Colindale Hospital was starte...
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