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.

Middlesex Street (Petticoat Lane) on the site of Sandy’s Row (1912)
Credit: CA Mathew/Bishopsgate Institute

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 1912 streets of Spitalfields

The fascinating story of one man’s random walk in 1912 On Saturday 20 April 1912, a man by the name of C.A. Mathew - a resident of Brightlingsea, Essex - came out of Liverpool Street Station carrying his camera. There’s no telling why he decided to walk the streets of Spitalfields and take photographs on that day - it may well have been a commission but, over a hundred years later, nobody really knows.

NOTE: Many writers about C.A. Mathew’s tour of Spitalfields, including the gentle author, have assumed Liverpool Street station’s involvement in the story. This is a safe assumption - the London terminus of the route from Brightlingsea but is not a definite! But we’ll run with it too...

Matthew only took up photography in 1911, the previous year. Eleven years later, he died. He produced no other known work and little else is known about him.

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NOVEMBER

2021

Trident Studios
Trident Studios was located at 17 St Anne’s Court between 1968 and 1981 Trident Studios had been constructed in 1967 by Norman and Barry Sheffield. The Sheffield brothers had a relaxed working attitude, but also emphasised high standards of audio engineering

"My Name is Jack" by Manfred Mann was recorded at Trident in March 1968 and helped launch the studio’s reputation - its state-of-the-art recording equipment helped attract many major artists to record there.

Later that year, the Beatles recorded their single "Hey Jude" there and part of their "White Album" sessions. Other well-known albums and songs recorded at Trident include Elton John’s "Your Song", David Bowie’s Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust, Lou Reed’s Transformer, Carly Simon’s No Secrets, and three early Queen albums.

As part of the studio set up, Norman Sheffield leased a C. Bechstein grand piano from a company called Jake Samuel Pianos". The piano and hand made and already over 100 years old in 1968.

Com...
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NOVEMBER

2021

St Anne’s Court, W1D
St Anne’s Court is an alleyway that connects Dean Street and Wardour Street Parts of St Anne’s Court can be dated back to the late seventeenth century. The eastern part was originally built in c. 1690 and the western end was built on the Pulteney estate. A plan of the south side is included in the Portland estate plan, made around 1792.

The buildings fronting the narrow western end have been rebuilt at various times, but several original houses survive in the eastern end.

Sites in St Anne’s Court included the model lodgings designed by William Burges between 1864 and 1866 for the banker and philanthropist Lackland Mackintosh Rate. This resulted in a series of thirty lodging rooms ’to be let to artisans’. The building was subsequently demolished.

Sites also include Trident Studios at number 17 and the 1970s science fiction bookshop Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed. In the 1980s, a basement in St Anne’s Court was home to Shades Records, a store specialising in Death Metal and Thras...
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NOVEMBER

2021

Suffield Road, SE17
Suffield Road was laid out after the demise of the Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens The Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens grew out of a menagerie started by Edward Cross in 1831 - he had previously exhibited at Exeter Change in the Strand.

The gardens were designed by Henry Phillips and highly praised - they were compared favourably with the Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens. The land of the zoo had previously been the 19-acre Lorrimore Common.

Cages for lions, tigers and other animals were enclosed within a glasshouse, 300 feet in circumference.

The gardens covered roughly the area between Suffield Road on the north, Lorrimore Road to the south, Penrose Street and Borrett Road on the east, and Chapter Road/Delverton Road to the west.

Edward Cross retired in 1844 and, under the new management of William Tyler, fell under hard times. He sold the animals in 1855 in order to keep the enterprise afloat but in 1856 seven people were killed in a stampede during a sermon by a local Baptist minister. The resulti...
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NOVEMBER

2021

Bow Locks
Bow Locks is a set of bi-directional locks in Bromley-by-Bow Bow Locks link the tidal Bow Creek to the River Lee Navigation.

The first recorded mention of water control at the site was during the reign of Edward I. Henry de Bedyk of Halliwell Priory and owner of the nearby tide mills erected a structure some time before 1307. A description of its operation in 1416 indicates that it consisted of a dam with a navigable 18 feet wide channel through it. The owners of the mills rebuilt the structure - now referred to as a lock - in 1573.

With the river was important for trade, an engineer called John Smeaton was asked to recommend improvements in 1765. He suggested a cut from Bow Locks to Limehouse. The Limehouse Cut was opened in 1777, but the lock was not altered.

A pound lock was constructed between 1851 and 1852, to accommodate barges up to 108 by 20 feet. The trustees imposed a toll for using the lock but this was unpopular with the bargees. A compromise was reached, where use of the lock required t...
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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Golborne Gardens, W10 Added: 14 Jan 2022 03:06 GMT	Goldbourne Gardens W 10 I lived in Goldbourne Gardens in the 50,s very happy big bomb site Reply
Chris Nash Shortlands Close, DA17 Added: 10 Jan 2022 22:54 GMT	Shortlands Close, DA17 Shortlands Close and the flats along it were constructed in the mid-1990s. Prior to this, the area was occupied by semi-detached houses with large gardens, which dated from the post-war period and were built on the site of Railway Farm. The farm and its buildings spanned the length of Abbey Road, on the south side of the North Kent Line railway tracks. Reply
Roy Batham Covent Garden Added: 7 Jan 2022 07:17 GMT	Smithy in Longacre John Burris 1802-1848 Listed 1841 census as Burroughs was a blacksmith, address just given as Longacre. Source: Batham/Wiseman - Family Tree Reply
Roy Batham Notting Dale Added: 7 Jan 2022 05:50 GMT	Batham Family (1851 - 1921) I start with William Batham 1786-1852 born in St.Martins Middlesex. From various sources I have found snippets of information concerning his early life. A soldier in 1814 he married Mary Champelovier of Huguenot descent By 1819 they were in Kensington where they raised 10 children. Apart from soldier his other occupations include whitesmith, bell hanger and pig breeder. I find my first record in the 1851 English sensus. No street address is given, just ’The Potteries’. He died 1853. Only one child at home then George Batham 1839-1923, my great grandfather. By 1861 he is living in Thomas St. Kensington with his mother. A bricklayer by trade 1871, married and still in Thomas St. 1881 finds him in 5,Martin St. Kensington. 1891 10,Manchester St. 1911, 44 Hunt St Hammersmith. Lastly 1921 Census 7, Mersey St. which has since been demolished. Source: Batham/Wiseman - Family Tree Reply
sam Burdett Street, SE1 Added: 31 Dec 2021 00:54 GMT	Burdett Street, SE1 I was on 2nd July 1952, in Burdett chambers (which is also known as Burdett buildings)on Burdett street Reply
John Neill Sandringham Road, E10 Added: 25 Nov 2021 11:30 GMT	Sandringham Road, E10 (1937 - 1966) I lived at No. 61 with my parents during these years. I went to Canterbury Road school (now Barclay Primary) and sang as a boy soprano (treble) in the church choir at St Andrew’s church, on the corner of Forest Glade. Opposite us lived the Burgess family. Their son Russell also sang in my choir as a tenor. He later became a well-known musician and the choirmaster at Wandsworth Boys’ School. Just at the end of WW2 a German rocket (V2) landed in the grounds of Whipps Cross Hospital, damaging many of the houses in Sandringham Road, including ours. Reply
Tim Stevenson The Bohemia Added: 16 Nov 2021 18:03 GMT	Pub still open The Bohemia survived the 2020/21 lockdowns and is still a thriving local social resource. Reply
STEPHEN JACKSON Fellows Court, E2 Added: 14 Nov 2021 17:25 GMT	Fellows Court, E2 my family moved into the tower block 13th floor (maisonette), in 1967 after our street Lenthall rd e8 was demolished, we were one of the first families in the new block. A number of families from our street were rehoused in this and the adjoining flats. Inside toilet and central heating, all very modern at the time, plus eventually a tarmac football pitch in the grounds,(the cage), with a goal painted by the kids on the brick wall of the railway. Reply

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