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.

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Curtain Road was the first location of a place called a ’theatre’ - in the sense of a location where acting is performed. Curtain Road began in the shadow of Holywell Priory. The Walbrook River flowed as a small ditch on its western edge.

Holywell Priory had been an important religious location in Shoreditch. Established in the 12th century, the Priory fell victim to the dissolution of the monasteries during 1539.

The priory’s land remained an area of importance in Shoreditch for the following decades. A builder and part-time actor James Burbage lived in a house that connected to the priory’s former brewhouse near to a walled garden called ’The Curtain’. That name derived from the curtain wall of the adjacent priory.

Dramatists and performers were prohibited from performing within the City of London walls - this is why Southwark, south of the Thames boomed. It boomed in the ’unsavoury arts’ banned in the City, due to this edict.

Meanwhile here north of the City, in 1576, Burbage began construction on a building he called The Theat...

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