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...
Zulu Mews lies within the curve of a Battersea railway. At time of writing it was the last street alphabetically in London. It arrived as the latest street in Battersea in 2010.
It had been an access road to the back gardens of Rowena Crescent but, London housing pressure being what it is, became filled with ten modern dwellings in a gated development.
The curious name comes about because Rowena Crescent was originally called Zulu Crescent when laid out in 1880. The nearby streets had all been named after 1870s British military victories. Rowena Cresent residents of the 1880s did not take to the name for the road.
When the 2010 developet was built, and needed a name, the original Zulu monicker was given to the new street.
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Keeley Street has a dual history Little Wild^ Street came into existence around 1690 - there is a deed dated 1 September 1690 which refers to a "toft, peece or parcell of ground, being parcell of the garden late belonging to Weld House in or near Weld Streete … abutting towards the south to a new streete or passage of thirty foote in breadth there made or intended to be made, to lead out of Weld Streete towards Duke Streete and the arch in Great Lincolne’s Inn Fields." (N.b. Duke Street later became Sardinia Street).
There was a matching Great Wild^ Street which it lay off of. Towards the end of its history, the Little Wild Street Baptist Church and a school were notable buildings.
As part of the Aldwych scheme, Keeley Street was built over the top of Little Wild^ Street with its eastern end adjusted to reach Kingsway. All the existing buildings in the original street were demolished, leaving only its route.
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Saunders Ness Road, E14
Saunders Ness Road was a new name for the eastern section of Wharf Road Saunders Ness Road was a logical renaming (in 1937) being the area of the Isle of Dogs which ended in Saunders Ness. The road had existed in its Wharf Road incarnation since the 1850s.
This section of the road, stretching east from Island Gardens, served many wharves along its length.
The road was indeed mostly industry with fewer houses. On the first day of the Blitz - 7 September 1940 - a high explosive bomb fell at the south end of Saunders Ness Road with many houses destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Further bombing on the night of 18 September affected the road with 26 killed at Cubitt Town School. Indeed most buildings in the street suffered at least minor damage in the Blitz.
Much later, after the war during the 1970s, many of the industrial buildings and wharves were demolished with the land used by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for the construction of public housing.
Construction of the Docklands Light Railway...
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Barkingside
Barkingside is a district in northern Ilford Barkingside is mainly known for the children’s charity Barnardo’s - founded there in 1866. One of the oldest buildings in Barkingside is the Barnardo’s chapel.
The Holy Trinity Church dates from 1840.
Barkingside station originally opened in 1903 as part of a Great Eastern Railway branch line - the ’Fairlop Loop’ - from Woodford to Ilford via Hainault. The railway service was partially designed to stimulate suburban growth. The Great Eastern Railway became in 1923 part of the London & North Eastern Railway.
As part of the 1935–1940 ’New Works Programme’, the majority of the loop was to be transferred to form part of the Central line. Electrified Central line passenger services finally started in 1948.
Barkingside is ethnically diverse district but particularly notable for a high concentration of London’s Jewish population.
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Lisson Grove, NW1
The southern end of Lisson Grove was the location of a hamlet and open space, both called Lisson Green Lisson Green is described as a hamlet in the Domesday book.
Originally Lisson Grove was part of the medieval manor of Lilestone which stretched north to Hampstead. Lisson Green broke away as a new manor in 1236 and had its own manor house.
’Lissing Green’ becames a recreation area for Londoners. By the 1790s, the Green was a large open space stretching down to Chapel Street and the Old Marylebone Road. Beside it on Lisson Grove, the Lissing Green/Lissom Grove village was part of a network of country lanes, on the east side of Edgware Road. At the southern end of the Green was the Yorkshire Stingo inn from whence stagecoaches set off for all parts.
Earlier, in 1771, Lisson Green was bought by James Stephens and Daniel Bullock, manufacturers of white lead. They set up the White Lead Manufactory next to the Nursery Garden, with unrecorded consequences to health. But until the late 18th century the district remained essentially rural.
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