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.

Houghton Street (1906)

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.

As maps are displayed, click on the markers to view location articles.

Latest on The Underground Map...

Houghton Street (1906)

A greengrocer’s on the corner of Houghton Street and Clare Market (behind The Strand) in 1906 just before demolition. The thoroughfare known as Clare Market, leading eastwards into Lincoln’s Inn Fields, was so called in honour of the Earl of Clare, who lived "in a princely mansion" adjacent. His name is inscribed as a parishioner of St. Clement Danes in the ratebooks of 1617. In Howell’s "Londinopolis" of 1657 we read: "Then is there, towards Drury Lane, a new market, called Clare Market; then is there a street and palace of the same name, built by the Earl of Clare, who lived there in a princely mansion, having a house, a street, and a market both for flesh and fish, all bearing his name." It is also mentioned by Strype:- "Clare Market, very considerable and well served with provisions, both flesh and fish; for, besides the butchers in the shambles, it is much resorted unto by the country butchers and higglers. The market-days are Wednesdays and Saturdays."

"This market," says Nightingale, in the tenth volume of the Beauties of England and Wales, "stands on what was...

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JULY

2022

The Hare
The Hare is situated at 505 Cambridge Heath Road The Hare has existed on this site since the 1770s. The current building dates from around 1860.
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JUNE

2022

High Barnet - Totteridge walk
This walk takes in the top of the Northern Line High Barnet is a London Underground station and, in the past, a railway station, located in Chipping Barnet. It is the terminus of the High Barnet branch of the Northern line and is the start of a walk which takes us on to Totteridge and Whetstone station.

High Barnet station was an idea of the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway and was opened on 1 April 1872 by the Great Northern Railway which had taken over by then. It was situated on one of the original sites of the Barnet Fair and was the terminus of the branch line that ran from Finsbury Park via Highgate.

The section north of East Finchley was incorporated into the London Underground network because of the Northern Heights project begun in the late 1930s. High Barnet station was served by Northern line trains from 14 April 1940 onwards.

The station retains much of its original Victorian architectural character, with some platform buildings dating from the pre-London Transport era.»more

APRIL

2022

Market Estate, N7
The Market Estate is situated to the north of Caledonian Park, named after the Metropolitan Cattle Market which operated on the site until the 1960s The Market Estate is a public housing estate consisting of 271 flats and maisonettes.

Three of the six blocks that make up the estate are named after breeds of animal that were traded in the market: Tamworth (pigs), Kerry (cows) and Southdown (sheep). The remaining three blocks are called the Clock tower blocks after the market’s clock tower (which still stands) in Caledonian Park. This clock was used as a prototype for the mechanism of Big Ben.

The estate was built by the Greater London Council who had purchased the site from the Corporation of London. It was completed in 1967 to a design by architects Farber & Bartholomew. The estate became run down, neglected and plagued by anti-social behaviour.

Walkways connecting the blocks were mainly removed in the 1990s when gardens were created for most ground floor flats.

Following the death of a young boy on the estate, Christopher Pullen, residents set up the Market Estate ...
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APRIL

2022

St George’s Hill
St George’s Hill is an upmarket area of Weybridge St George’s Hill is a private gated community having golf and tennis clubs, as well as approximately 420 houses.

The summit is 78 metres above mean sea level. In April 1649, common land on the hill had been occupied by a movement known as The Diggers, who began to farm there. They are often regarded as one of the world’s first small-scale experiments in socialism. The Diggers left the hill following a court case five months later.

With its broad summit, the hill results in views of Surrey varying from one observation point to another. This spurred on the idea for the development with views along the estate roads.

St George’s Hill first served as a home and leisure location to celebrities and successful entrepreneurs after its division into lots in the 1910s and 1920s when Walter George Tarrant built its first homes.

Land ownership is divided between homes with gardens, belonging to house owners and ...
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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Katharina Logan Ely Place, N1 Added: 9 Aug 2022 19:01 GMT	Ely place existed in name in 1857 On 7th July 1857 John James Chase and Mary Ann Weekes were married at St John the Baptist Hoxton, he of full age and she a minor. Both parties list their place of residence as Ely Place, yet according to other information, this street was not named until 1861. He was a bricklayer, she had no occupation listed, but both were literate and able to sign their names on their marriage certificate. Source: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSF7-Q9Y7?cc=3734475 Reply
Reginald John Gregory Colindeep Lane, NW9 Added: 8 Aug 2022 14:07 GMT	Worked in the vicinity of my ancestor’s house, Between the years 1982-1998 (unknown to me at the time) I worked in an office close to the site of my ancestors cottage. I discovered this when researching family history - the cottage was mentioned in the 1871 census for Colindeep Lane/Ancient Street coming up from the Hyde. The family lived in the ares betwen 1805 and 1912. Reply
Barry J. Page Highbury & Islington Added: 27 Jul 2022 19:41 GMT	Highbury Corner V1 Explosion Grandma described the V1 explosion at Highbury Corner on many occasions. She was working in the scullery when the flying bomb landed. The blast shattered all the windows in the block of flats and blew off the bolt on her front door. As she looked out the front room window, people in various states of injury and shock were making their way along Highbury Station Road. One man in particular, who was bleeding profusely from glass shard wounds to his neck, insisted in getting home to see if his family was all right. Others were less fortunate. Len, the local newsagent, comforted a man, who had lost both legs caused by the blast, until the victim succumbed to his injuries. The entire area was ravaged and following are statistics. The flying bomb landed during lunch hour (12:46 p.m.) on June 27th 1944. 26 people lost their lives, 84 were seriously injured and 71 slightly injured. Reply
ANON Lydford Road, W9 Added: 20 Jul 2022 13:36 GMT	The Square & Ashmore park The Square and Ashmore park was the place to be 2000-2005. Those were the greatest times on the estate. everyday people were playing out. the park was full of kids just being kids and having fun, now everyone is grown up and only bump into eachother when heading to the shops or work. I miss the good days( Im 25yrs old as im writing this) Reply
The Underground Map Added: 18 Jul 2022 13:56 GMT	Map of Thornsett Road Esrlsfield Reply
Carolyn Hirst New Road, E1 Added: 16 Jul 2022 15:21 GMT	Henry James Hirst My second great grandfather Henry James Hirst was born at 18 New Road on 11 February 1861. He was the eighth of the eleven children of Rowland and Isabella Hirst. I think that this part of New Road was also known at the time as Gloucester Terrace. Reply
Richard Elgin Crescent, W11 Added: 12 Jul 2022 21:36 GMT	Elgin Crescent, W11 Richard Laitner (1955-1983), a barrister training to be a doctor at UCL, lived here in 1983. He was murdered aged 28 with both his parents after attending his sister’s wedding in Sheffield in 1983. The Richard Laitner Memorial Fund maintains bursaries in his memory at UCL Medical School Source: Ancestry Library Edition Reply
Anthony Mckay Grim%27s Ditch (Harrow) Added: 11 Jul 2022 00:12 GMT	Bankfield Cottages, Ass House Lane, Harrow Weald Bankfield Cottages (now demolished) at the end of Ass House Lane, appear twice in ’The Cheaters’ televison series (made 1960) in the episodes ’The Fine Print’ and ’Tine to Kill’ Source: THE CHEATERS: Episode Index Reply

DECEMBER

2016

St Mary Axe
St Mary Axe was a medieval parish in the City of London whose name survives as that of the street which formerly occupied it. The Church of St Mary Axe was demolished in 1561 and its parish united with that of St Andrew Undershaft, which is situated on the corner of St Mary Axe and Leadenhall Street. The site of the former church is now occupied by Fitzwilliam House, a fact acknowledged by a blue plaque on the building’s faÃ§ade. Nearby parishes include the medieval Great St Helen’s (1210) and St Ethelburga (14th century).

The street name may derive from a combination of the church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and a neighbouring tavern which prominently displayed a sign with an image of an axe, or simply from the church name itself, which may have come from the axes used by the Worshipful Company of Skinners, who were patrons. The sign of an axe is reported to have been present over the east end of the church.

The street St Mary Axe is now most notable for the Baltic Exchange at No. 38, and the "Gherkin" at No. 30, a distinctively shaped skyscraper built on the sit...
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DECEMBER

2016

St John the Evangelist Friday Street
St John the Evangelist Friday Street was a church in Bread Street Ward of the City of London. The church stood on the south side of Bread Street, on the corner with Friday Street.

In the early 18th century, some years after the destruction of the church itself, the parish was described as covering "part of Watling Street", the number of houses being "24 and an half." The patronage of the church belonged to the prior and abbey of Christchurch, Canterbury until the dissolution, and then to the dean and chapter of Canterbury Cathedral.

In the early 1620s a debate was held between George Walker, the church’s puritan rector, and some Roman Catholics. The pastor argued that the Church of England was the "true church" and that the Church of Rome was "the whore of Babylon." The Catholic priests replied that "you Protestants in England, have no Church nor Faith." The debate, which was conducted mainly in a series of syllogisms, was published in a pamphlet.

The building was renovated at the cost of the parishioners in 1626, and in the same ...
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DECEMBER

2016

Little Guildford Street, WC1N
Little Guildford Street was the middle part of what is now Herbrand Street, between Great Coram Street and Bernard Street, on the western edge of the Foundling estate. It appears in rough outline on Horwood’s map of 1799, and fully developed, together with Mews to both sides, on his map of 1807

This area was undeveloped fields until the early eighteenth century

It was presumably named for its location near Guilford Street

No numbers appear on Horwood’s maps

There was a pub, the Red Lion, there in the 1820s (The Times, 3 June 1824); there were also livery stables (The Times, 10 June 1825)

At the end of the century, the pub was still there, but had become the Old Red Lion (The Times, 11 June 1883); there was also now a school, Christ Church School (The Times, 26 November 1888), presumably associated with nearby Christ Church, Woburn Square

By the latter part of the century the street had become a slum; in 1897 the leases fell in and the street was sold, along with Little Coram Street, to the LCC in 1898 (Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London, 2nd edn, 1984)

It was incorporated into the new Herbrand Street development in 1901.
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DECEMBER

2016

Whitfield Street, W1T
Whitfield Street runs from Warren Street in the north to Windmill Street in the south. Whitfield Street was named after George Whitefield who founded the chapel in Tottenham Court Road. It was formerly John Street (from Windmill Street to Howland Street), Upper John Street (between Howland Street and Maple, formerly London, Street) and Hertford Street for the remainder which lay in the Fitzroy estate. The street suffered severely from the air-raids during the war and most of the west side disappeared at that time. At the northern angle where Maple Street (formerly London Street) joins Whitfield Street stood Fitzroy Chapel, later St. Saviour’s Church.

The site between Grafton Way and Warren Street was almost wholly cleared. Fitzroy Market originally stood here, one of the little shopping centres that were frequently planned in connection with new residential schemes.
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DECEMBER

2016

Strawberry Vale, N2
Strawberry Vale is now simply a road - it was once an estate. The old name for the area was Brownswell. A well had been ’late re-edified’ for travellers on the Great North Road in 1593. A cottage stood there by 1623 and the Huntsman, by 1731 called the Green Man, by 1718. In 1754 there were some three buildings at Brownswell.

Meadow land fronting the common was advertised in 1796 as a delightful situation for building. By 1814 a few buildings stood on the west side of the Great North Road, north of the Green Man.

The enclosure of Finchley Common did not lead to a sudden spread of building. Some houses were built at Strawberry Vale east of the road near Brownswell by James Frost, who acquired an estate there in 1816.

In 1854, 87 acres allotted at enclosure to Bibbesworth were sold to the St. Pancras burial board, which sold 30 acres to that of St. Mary, Islington. In 1855 St. Marylebone opened a cemetery on 26 acres of farmland south of East End Road, between the demesne lands of Bibbeswort...
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DECEMBER

2016

Fitzroy Square, W1T
Fitzroy Square is one of the Georgian squares of London. The square, nearby Fitzroy Street, and the Fitzroy Tavern in Charlotte Street have the family name of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, into whose ownership the land passed through his marriage. His descendant Charles FitzRoy, 1st Baron Southampton developed the area during the late 18th and early 19th century.

Fitzroy Square was a speculative development intended to provide London residences for aristocratic families, and was built in four stages. Leases for the eastern and southern sides, designed by Robert Adam, were granted in 1792; building began in 1794 and was completed in 1798 by Adam’s brothers James and William. These buildings are fronted in Portland stone brought by sea from Dorset.

The Napoleonic Wars and a slump in the London property market brought a temporary stop to construction of the square after the south and east sides were completed. According to the records of the Squares Frontagers’ Committee, 1815 residents looked ...
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DECEMBER

2016

Shipley’s Drawing School
101 The Strand was an art school from 1750 until 1806. The drawing school was established by William Shipley and attended by such notable ﬁgures as William Blake, Richard Cosway and Francis Wheatley.
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DECEMBER

2016

Ackermann’s
Rudolph Ackermann (20 April 1764 in Stollberg, Saxony – 30 March 1834 in Finchley) was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman. Ackermann worked as a saddler and coach-builder in different German cities, then moved to Paris, working for famous Paris carriage maker Antoine Carassi before moving to London about 1784.

He continued to make designs for British coach-builders and probably in the process became interested in the making of prints (for the coach designs).

In 1795 he established a print-shop and drawing-school in the Strand. After a year, he took over a drawing school previously established by William Shipley (which lasted until 1806) at 101 Strand. Thus began the Ackermann print business which lasted over two hundred years.

In 1797, Ackermann moved his shop to the premises at 101 Strand, which he named as "The Repository of Arts" the following year. In 1827, Ackermann moved to 96 Strand, In this shop he sold not only prints and illustrated books, but also paper, art supplies (some manufactured by Ackermann himself), old master paintings, miniatures, and man...
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DECEMBER

2016

101 Strand, WC2R
This shop was one of the first in London to have gas lighting fitted. The print seller Rudolph Ackermann lived and worked here at No. 101 The Strand between 1797 and 1827.
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DECEMBER

2016

Northumberland Avenue, SW1A
Northumberland Avenue runs from Trafalgar Square in the west to the Thames Embankment in the east. In 1608–09, Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton built a house on the eastern side of the former Chapel and Hospital of St. Mary Rounceval, at Charing Cross, including gardens running to the River Thames and adjoining Scotland Yard to the west. The estate became the property of Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland when he married Howard’s great-great niece, Lady Elizabeth, in 1642, whereupon it was known as Northumberland House.

In June 1874, the whole of Northumberland House was purchased by the Metropolitan Board of Works and demolished to form Northumberland Avenue, which would accommodate hotels. The road was part built on the parallel Northumberland Street.

Contemporary planning permissions forbade hotels to be taller than the width of the road they were on; consequently Northumberland Avenue was built with a wide carriageway. Part of the parallel Northumberland Street was demolished in order to make way for the avenue’s eastern...
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DECEMBER

2016

Kilburn Wells
Kilburn Wells, a medicinal spring, existed between 1714 and the 1860s. The fashion for taking ‘medicinal waters’ in the 18th century came to Kilburn when a well of water impregnated with iron was discovered near the Bell Inn in 1714. In an attempt to compete with the nearby Hampstead Well, gardens and a ‘great room’ were opened to promote the well, and its waters were promoted in journals of the day as cure for ‘stomach ailments’.

By the 1860s, the Wells had declined completely.
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DECEMBER

2016

Millfield Nursery
An article about "nurserymen" from Jim South written in March 1977. The Nursery industry grew out of the market gardening that supplied London via Covent Garden. The Lea Valley was "natural" for this development. Within easy reach by horse drawn vehicles travelling by night, with "chain" horses stationed at places like Stamford Hill.

The alluvial soil that served market gardens of fruit growers was also level and suited the constructors of early "Vine" type glass houses. Water was available, boring wells was like putting a pin into a plastic pipe and, for example, ballast pits filled up as soon as they were abandoned.

Transport was well served by rail, road and canal. The main road, following roughly the Roman Ermine St. was the only access to London from much of East Anglia. The railways were built during the 19th century and the Lea canal carried coal, coke and timber. When I left Goffs Oak some coke was still carried by barge up the Lea. Until 1940 a great deal of coke came over from Belgium via this route.

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DECEMBER

2016

Eastcastle Street, W1T
The portion of Eastcastle Street to the east of Wells Street originally belonged to the Berners Estate. The Berners Estate section of the street was not developed until the 1760s though it was laid out in the late 1730s. Originally it was Castle Street East.
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