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...
Barn Elms Farm sported majestic elm trees - hence the name. Barn Elms was recorded in 1540 and was formerly the manor house of Barnes. The land and manor belonged to St.Paul’s Cathedral and in 15th century was the home of Sir John Saye, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The manor house was later the home of Elizabethan spymaster Sir Frances Walsingham. The house was rebuilt by Thomas Cartwright in 1694.
Barn Elms Farm was variously the residence of William Cobbett (a political writer), Abraham Cowley (a poet) and of Heidegger (Master of the Revels to George II). Jacob Tonson lived in the old house called "Queen Elizabeth’s Dairy". He placed here a gallery for the Kit-Cat Club.
William Cobbett was an innovator of cultivation - experimenting with the growing of maize and the practice of self-supporting husbandry.
He saw himself as a champion of traditional rural society against the transformation due to the Industrial Revolution.
The Lobjoit family, Huguenot refugees, ha...
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Parkway is one of Camden Town’s older roads - originally called ’The Crooked Lane’ Parkway, a tree-lined street, was developed from Crooked Lane in the 1820s and 1830s with three-storey houses on both sides. Until 1938, Parkway was known as Park Street.
Just after the Second World War, a Camden Town local reminisced:
“Park Street, which we now call Parkway, was full of shops instead of architects’ offices and estate agents as it is now. By eight in the morning the shop boy was busy cleaning the windows and polishing the outside brasses, sweeping and burnishing inside ready to open at nine and close twelve hours later for seven shillings and sixpence a week. Shops were graded. Fenn’s, the grocers at the corner of Delancey Street and Park Street, was a cut above the others, wrapping all purchases in brown paper, while most used newspaper.”
The street now has a mix of retail and restaurant uses with some small businesses.
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Addiscombe Road, CR0
Addiscombe Road first appeared on a map dated 1594 Addiscombe Road connecting Croydon with the hamlet of Addiscombe (roughly on the site of today’s Sandilands tram stop) to its east.
It was known as Upper Addiscombe Road in the 19th century to contrast with Lower Addiscombe Road - water from a spring ran down the hill.
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Mortlake
Mortlake lies on the south bank of the River Thames between Kew and Barnes Historically it was part of Surrey and until 1965 was in the Municipal Borough of Barnes. The Stuart and Georgian history was economically one of malting, brewing, farming, watermen and a great tapestry works.
The Waterloo to Reading railway line runs through Mortlake - the station opened on 27 July 1846.
The University Boat Race finishes at Mortlake every March/April.
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Gloucester Road, SW7
Gloucester Road is a main street in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Gloucester Road runs north-south between Kensington Gardens (at which point it is known as Palace Gate) and the Old Brompton Road at the south end. At its intersection with Cromwell Road is Gloucester Road underground station, close to which there are several pubs, restaurants, many hotels and St Stephen’s Church (built in 1867 and, notably, the church warden of which was the poet T. S. Eliot).
In 1612 or earlier it was called Hogs Moor or Hogmire Lane. It was a ’lane through marshy ground where hogs are kept’, a name that was still used until about 1850. and it was the site of an ultimately unsuccessful pleasure garden (and for a while a pick-your-own fruit and flower farm) in the late 18th century. At that time most of the vicinity was filled with nurseries and market gardens.
The road is now named after Maria, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh who built a house there - Villa Maria (later Orford Lodge) - in 1805, on part of the pleasure garden...
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