The Underground Map is a project which is creating street histories for the areas of London and surrounding counties lying inside the M25.
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...
The Elms - also known as Elm Lodge - stood at the junction of Kilburn High Road and Willesden Lane. From around the 1750, The Elms was under the ownership of a number of people. Mr and Mrs Pickersgill were in occupation between 1829 and 1832. The husband, Henry William Pickersgill, was an eminent portrait painter. Mrs Pickersgill ran a school for ‘female education’.
From 1832 John Ebers, a widowed theatre manager with two daughters moved into The Elms. He moved into the world of publishing.
Next, the writer William Harrison Ainsworth lived in the house (his wife was Fanny Ebers, daughter of John). Here he began writing his novel ’Rookwood’, about the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin. John Ebers published the book. Although the inn where Dick Turpin met his accomplices is based on The Cock in Kilburn, the story is fictitious and there’s no historical evidence to link Turpin to Kilburn.
The Elms stood on the site of the later Gaumont State Cinema.
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Oakington Manor Farm derived its name from a corruption of the name ’Tokyngton’ Oakington (Manor) Farm was an old Wembley manor and farm, first mentioned in 1171.
Gordon S Maxwell’s The Fringe of London (published 1925) talks of the small Middlesex hamlet of Monks Park, alongside the river Brent to the south of Oakington Farm.
In 1845, Richard Welford, a cowkeeper from Holloway, took over Warwick Farm, Paddington and founded what was to become J Welford & Sons Ltd. His dairy business became the largest retail milk business in the capital. The farm’s cowsheds were situated between the Harrow Road and what is now Warwick Crescent. The fields of Warwick Farm were built over and became Warwick Avenue, Warwick Place and Warwick Crescent.
In the mid 1850s, the Warwick Farm cowsheds were moved to Oakington Manor Farm in Wembley.
The farm was situated almost next to Watkin’s Folly in Wembley Park. What was later South Way was the farm’s access track but in 1906, the Great Central Railway bu...
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British Museum station
British Museum was a station on the Central line, located in Holborn and taking its name from the nearby British Museum in Great Russell Street British Museum station was opened by the Central London Railway on 30 July 1900 with an entrance at 133 High Holborn.
There had been ideas for an underground passageway between British Museum and Holborn (100 metres away and open in 1906) but tunnelling would have been complex. A proposal to enlarge the tunnels under High Holborn to create new platforms at Holborn station for the Central and to abandon the British Museum station was originally included in a private bill submitted to parliament as early as November 1913. The First World War prevented any work taking place. The works were eventually carried out as part of the modernisation of Holborn station at the beginning of the 1930s when escalators were installed. British Museum station was closed on 24 September 1933, with the new platforms at Holborn opening the following day.
British Museum station was subsequently used up to the 1960s as a military administrative office and emergency command post, ...
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Nether Street, N3
Nether Street was recognised by the mid-14th century as an old street, sometimes called ’Lower Street’ Nether Street was a link road from the main roads to Finchley properties such as Moss Hall and Brent Lodge. It was already called Nether Street by 1365 and ’le lower street’ in 1622. It was linked at both ends to Ballards Lane. Coles Lane, first mentioned in 1393 may have been the southern link. About 1867 the northern section was named Mosshall Lane.
By the time of the 1851 census, Nether Street had 17 houses, including Elm Place, Sellars Hall, Brent Lodge, Long Lodge, and Courthouse Farm, and housed two fund-holders, two members of the stock exchange and two solicitors.
West of Nether street is Dollis Brook, a tributary of the Brent. The viaduct carrying trains between Mill Hill East and Finchley Central was designed by Sir John Fowler and is the highest point above sea level on the London Underground.
The large house which is now Finchley Golf Club (here since 1929) was originally called Nether Court. This is one of the larg...
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Debden House
The Grade II listed Debden House was built in the early 19th century and was probably a former coach house Debden Green House, as it was then, was once part of the Debden Hall estate. In 1777, Alexander Hamilton is shown to be the owner of Debden Hall and Debden House in Debden Green. He owned Debden Green House from at least 1748. It seems that he used Debden Hall and House as his country estate.
Hamilton died at Lincoln’s Inn in 1781 at the age of 88. When he died his eldest son William Hamilton inherited his property. William was also a lawyer who lived at Lincoln’s Inn.
William died in 1811 and as he had no sons his property was left to his nephew William Richard Hamilton. It seems that sometime after this both Debden House and the Hall were sold to Nicholas Pearse who was the husband of Sarah Hamilton, William’s daughter.
Nicholas Pearse was the son of a wealthy landowner and clothier and he had inherited property when his father died in 1793. Nicholas Pearse and Sarah Hamilton had no children and when Nicholas died in 1825 he lef...
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