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.

Looking down Oxhey Lane, Carpenders Park towards Carpenders Park Farm before bungalows were built here.
Credit: Neil Hamilton

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...

Oxhey Lane, WD19

Oxhey Lane is the oldest road in Carpenders Park. The road connected Oxhey and Hatch End. Midway along, Carpenders Park Farm was formerly the location of Braziers Dairy. Oxhey Lane was a narrow winding lane until widened in 1937.

Little Carpenders, along the lane, dates from around the 1860s and may have been the Estate Agent’s house for the ’Carpenders Estate’.

Before the South Oxhey (Carpenders Park) estate was built, the Oxhey Hall Estate was built in the 1930s in the lands to the west of Oxhey Lane as an example of "Metroland" architecture.

In the mid 1930s, Carpenders Park station was simply a halt for golfers using Oxhey Hall Golf Course. Bungalows and a few houses were built around it and Carpenders Avenue came into being; other roads spread out from it.

After the Second World War, South Oxhey Estate was built by London County Council between the railway line and Oxhey Woods. The land had formerly been part of the extensive Blackwells’ estate (of Crosse and Bl...

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JUNE

2021

Oliphant Street, W10
Oliphant Street was the final alphabetical street on the original Queen’s Park Estate naming scheme The Manor and Parish of Chelsea owned an enclave - covering Kensal Town and Queen’s Park - until 1901 when it was divided between Kensington and Paddington. Kensal Town went to the former and the other side of the Harrow Road to the latter.

The north section was developed in 1875 by the Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company, who were the landlords until 1964. The north-south streets of their grid were numbered 1-6 and euphemistically entitled ’avenues’ : First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The remaining streets were simply labelled A Street through to O Street.

Eight years later it was decided that even artisans and labourers deserved a little better. A became Alperton, after the Company’s brickyard in Middlesex, and was followed by Barfett, Caird, Droop (after H R. Droop, Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company Director 1877-1883), Enbrook, Farrant (Sir Richard Farrant, Director 1877-1906), Galton (probably i...
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JUNE

2021

Turk’s Head
The Turk’s Head was one of two Wapping pubs of the same name It was situated beside Union Stairs and had the grim task assigned to it of briefly hosting prisoners on their journey to Execution Dock. They would be allowed one quart of ale before departure.

Its address was 30 Wapping High Street (at number 326 on the same street before Victorian renumbering).

Its rather un-PC name derives from many such names coined during the Crusades. Any pub called ‘The Turk’s Head’ or ‘The Saracen’s Head’ is a reference to that period.

It had a dining room by 1940 but the pub was destroyed in the Blitz.
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JUNE

2021

Abbotsbury Road, W14
Abbotsbury Road runs between Melbury Road and the road known as Holland Park Abbotsbury Road takes its name from one of the Dorset estates of the Earl of Ilchester. It is exclusively residential.

It is a wide tree-lined street and most houses have off street parking – some with their own garages. The road has humps in it to slow down the traffic. Traffic can go both ways. The south end is very close to the shops in Kensington High Street, and the north end to the shops in Holland Park Avenue. Holland Park itself is next to the road.

Work began in the early years of the 20th century, but only Nos. 3-9 odd, and 8-10 and 24-28 (even) were built before the Second World War.

During the 1960s houses and blocks were built on the west side of Abbotsbury Road. These include Abbotsbury House, a 10-storey block of flats, and Abbotsbury Close, a series of small crescents with houses and landscaped gardens, designed by Stone Toms and Partners and built by Wates Builders.

The brick houses are fairly uniform in...
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JUNE

2021

Victoria Embankment, EC4Y
Victoria Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment scheme of 19th-century civil engineering that reclaimed land next to the River Thames The Victoria Embankment was primarily designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette with architectural work on the embankment wall and river stairs by Charles Henry Driver. Started in 1862, it incorporates the main low level interceptor sewer and the underground District Line over which a wide road and riverside walkway were built. In total, Bazalgette’s scheme reclaimed 22 acres of land from the river. It prevented flooding, such as around what had been the remnants of Thorney Island (Westminster).

Much of the granite used in the projects was brought from Lamorna Cove in Cornwall.

The named named Victoria Embankment runs from the Houses of Parliament to Blackfriars Bridge. It incorporates gardens and open space collectively known as the Embankment Gardens.

Some parts of the Embankment were rebuilt in the 20th century due to wartime bomb damage or natural disasters such as the 1928 Thames flood.
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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Peter H Davies Ethelburga Street, SW11 Added: 17 Jun 2021 09:33 GMT	Ethelburga Estate The Ethelburga Estate - named after Ethelburga Road - was an LCC development dating between 1963–65. According to the Wikipedia, it has a "pleasant knitting together of a series of internal squares". I have to add that it’s extremely dull :) Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Reply
Norman Norrington Blechynden Street, W10 Added: 8 Jun 2021 08:08 GMT	Blechynden Street, W10 Lived here #40 1942-1967 Reply
Brenda Newton Hewer Street, W10 Added: 5 Jun 2021 07:17 GMT	Hewer Street W10 John Nodes Undertakers Hewer Street W10 Reply
All bar one Added: 3 Jun 2021 15:50 GMT	All Bar One The capitalisation is wrong Reply
Morley Road, IG11 Added: 2 Jun 2021 16:58 GMT	Parachute bomb 1941 Charles Thomas Bailey of 82 Morley Road was killed by the parachute bomb March 1941 Reply
Abbeville Road, SW4 Added: 1 Jun 2021 12:41 GMT	Abbeville Road (1940 street directory) North west side 1A Clarke A S Ltd, motor engineers 15 Plumbers, Glaziers & Domestic Engineers Union 25 Dixey Edward, florist 27 Vicary Miss Doris J, newsagent 29 Stenning John Andrew, dining rooms 31 Clarke & Williams, builders 33 Hill Mrs Theodora, confectioner 35 Golding W & sons, corn dealers ... here is Shandon road ... 37 Pennington Mrs Eliz Harvie, wine & spirit merchant 39 Westminster Catering Co Ltd, ham, beef & tongue dealers 41 Masters A (Clapham) Ltd, butchers 43 Thomas Euan Ltd, grocers 45 Garrett C T & Co Ltd, undertakers 47 Mayle T & Sons, fishmongers 49 Mayles Ltd, fruiterers 51 & 73 Hardy Arthur Sydney, draper 53 United Dairies (London) Ltd ... here is Narbonne avenue ... 55 Norris William Lennox, baker 57 Silver Star Laundry Ltd 59 Thorp John, oilman 61 Bidgood Leonard George, boot makers 63 Wilkie Rt Miln, chemist 65 Gander George Albert Isaac, hairdresser 67 Harris Alfred William, greengrocer 69 & 71 Lambert Ernest & Son Ltd, grocers ... here is Hambolt road ... 73 & 51 Hardy Arthur Sydney, draper 75 Cambourn Frederick, butcher 77 Siggers Clement, chemist 77 Post, Money Order, Telephone Call & Telegraph Office & Savings Bank 79 Hemmings William, baker ... here is Elms road ... 85 Cornish Joseph 91 Bedding Mrs 151 Johnson Mrs H K 157 Robinson Albert Ernest, grainer 173 Yardleys London & Provincial Stores Ltd, wine & spirit merchants 175 Clark Alfred, butcher 175A Morley Douglas Frederick, confectioner ... here is Crescent lane ... ... her is St Alphonsus road ... South east side ... here is Trouville road ... 4 Bossy Miss, private school ... here are Bonneville gardens ... 24 Osborn Charles Edward, ladies hairdresser 24 Hall H Ltd, builders 24A Walton Lodge Laundry Ltd ... here are Shandon road & Abbeville mansions ... 28 Copley Fred Smith, chemist 30 Finch H G Ltd, laundry 32 Carter William Alfred, furniture dealer 34 Spriggs Charles & Co, wireless supplies dealer 36 Miles Frederick William, confectioner 38 Pitman Frederick, hairdresser 40 Rowe Frederick F, valeting service 42 Modridge Edward J, oilman ... here is Narbonne avenue ... 44 Southorn Albert, butcher 46 Brown Ernest, fruiterer 48 Stanley Mrs A A, confectioner 50 Fryatt Owen, delixatessen store 52 Benbrooks, domestic stores 54 Davis William Clifford, boot repairer 56 Blogg Alfred, newsagent 58 Rowlands Thomas & Sons, dairy ... here are Hambalt, Elms, Franconia, Caldervale & Leppoc roads ... 124 Clarke Frederick, decorator ... here are Crescent lane, Briarwood road & Park hill ... Reply
Boo Horton Stepney Green, E1 Added: 31 May 2021 13:39 GMT	Angel & Trumpet, Stepney Green The Angel & Trumpet Public House in Stepney Green was run by my ancestors in the 1930’s. Unfortunately, it was a victim on WWII and was badly damaged and subsequently demolished. I have one photograph that I believe to bethe pub, but it doesn’t show much more that my Great Aunt cleaning the steps. Reply
MCNALLY Blackfriars Added: 17 May 2021 09:42 GMT	Blackfriars (1959 - 1965) I lived in Upper Ground from 1959 to 1964 I was 6 years old my parents Vince and Kitty run the Pub The Angel on the corner of Upper Ground and Bodies Bridge. I remember the ceiling of the cellar was very low and almost stretched the length of Bodies Bridge. The underground trains run directly underneath the pub. If you were down in the cellar when a train was coming it was quite frightening Reply

FEBRUARY

2017

The Holly Bush
The Holly Bush was an Elstree pub. The site of The Holly Bush has been occupied since at least medieval times, with the present building dating from around 1450.

The first reference to it as an inn was in 1786, when it was also owned by Thomas Clutterbuck, and managed by a John Green.

It closed in the 2010s.
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FEBRUARY

2017

The Green Dragon
The Green Dragon was situated at 12-15 High Street, Elstree. At Nos. 12-15 The High Street stood a long, timber-framed building dating from c1500 and there was an inn there as early as 1656.

No 12 was separated from the others, faced in brick and called The Green Dragon during the 18th century.

By 1939 it had reverted to retail but survived the demolition of Nos. 13 – 15 in the late 1960s.
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FEBRUARY

2017

Red Lion Hotel
The Red Lion Hotel stood on the east side of the High Street on the corner of Barnet Lane. The Red Lion Hotel, a timber framed building, in Elstree High Street, was first mentioned in 1656. In 1833 it was run by John Billings (born 1809) who was described in 1839 as a ‘coachman running the posting house’.

By 1845 he was known as a ‘coach proprietor’ his license allowing him to carry four inside and five on top. The route was London –Edgware – Shenley Hill, a distance of 17 miles.

It departed from Blue Posts Holborn at 4 pm, Shenley at 8 am, the journey time being 3 hours!

John retired to be a farmer at aged 71, the 1881 census shows him and his wife Sarah at ‘Smug Oak Farm’ Frogmore, Herts, employing four men to manage 168 acres.

He died in 1885, and the Red Lion was demolished in 1934 to make way for improvements to the dangerous corner at the junction of the High Street and Barnet Lane.
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FEBRUARY

2017

The Plough
The Plough was a pub next to Elstree crossroads. Elstree Village once boasted around seven pubs in the main street.

The Plough was called The Swan in the mid 17th Century and acquired by Thomas Clutterbuck, a brewer of Stanmore, just before 1816.

The present building dates from 1830/40 and in the 1930s, when under contract at the film studios, Alfred Hitchcock was a regular patron.

Elstree was a popular stop over along Watling Street on journeys to and from London. A victualler’s billing of 1756 stated that the White Horse had two beds and five horses, the Plough one bed and one horse and the Green Dragon one bed and no horses. By 1833 four major stage coaches called at Elstree daily.

In the early twenty first century, the Plough became a restaurant rather than a pub.
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FEBRUARY

2017

Abbey Place, WC1H
Abbey Place was in the centre of Bloomsbury, off what was originally the west side of Little Coram Street and directly behind the Russell Institution on Great Coram Street. Abbey Place was also known as Tavistock Mews, the adjacent street to which it actually led.

It was built in 1801 on a green field site. Rather intriguingly, Horwood’s map of 1799, which has some of the proposed streets and squares laid out, shows a circle at this point, and a street leading from here all the way to the burial grounds on the line of what became Henrietta Street.

It appears separately as Abbey Place, rather than as Tavistock Mews, on the first Ordnance Survey map of 1867–1870. The origin of its rather grandiose name is unknown; the site was not near any abbey

The name was current by 1829, when a young man advertised himself as porter or driver from “7 Abbey-place, Little Coram-street, Tavistock Square” (The Times, 19 February 1829)

It rapidly became one of the very few slum areas on the Bedford ducal estate. In 1862, a 19-year-old labourer named Edward Donnelly lived at no. 6; he was charged with taking...
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FEBRUARY

2017

Shepherd’s Bush Market
Shepherd’s Bush Market is a street market located on the east side of the railway viaduct for the Hammersmith and City Tube line. The market dates back to the early part of the twentieth century, when the present layout of the Hammersmith and City tube line was fixed. The market opened for business in around 1914, with shops lining the railway viaduct. Individual market vendors sell a wide variety of goods, including fresh produce, cooked food, music CDs, household goods and clothing. Individual vendors rent their stalls from Transport For London, who own the land on which the market sits.

With a wide variety of fresh produce, fabrics, household goods and furnishings the market has long stood as a one stop shop for the local community, gaining a reputation as one of the most diverse locations this side of London. Many traders in the market have passed their sites down for generations.
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FEBRUARY

2017

Baker Street
Baker Street tube station is a station on the London Underground at the junction of Baker Street and the Marylebone Road. The station lies in Travelcard Zone 1 and is served by five different lines. It is one of the original stations of the Metropolitan Railway (MR), the world’s first underground railway, opened in 1863. Baker Street station was opened by the MR on 10 January 1863 (these platforms are now served by the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines). On 13 April 1868, the MR opened the first section of Metropolitan and St John’s Wood Railway as a branch from its existing route. This line, serving the open-air platforms, was steadily extended to Willesden Green and northwards, finally reaching Aylesbury Town and Verney Junction (some 50 miles/80 km from Baker Street) in 1892.

Over the next few decades this section of the station was extensively rebuilt to provide four platforms. The current Metropolitan line layout largely dates from 1925, and the bulk of the surface buildings, designed by architect Charles Clark, also date from this period.

The Baker Street & Waterloo Railway (BS&WR, now the Bakerloo line) opened on 10 March 1906; Baker Street was the temporary northern terminus of the line until it was extended to Marylebone station on 27 March 1907.
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FEBRUARY

2017

Horse Hospital
Built as stabling for cabby’s sick horses, The Horse Hospital is now a unique Grade II listed arts venue in Bloomsbury WC1 The Horse Hospital is the only existing unspoilt example of a two-floor, purpose-built stable remaining for public access in London.

It is situated at the corner of Herbrand Street and Colonnade – a working mews immediately behind the Hotel Russell, midway between London’s West End and Spitalfields arts district. Built originally in 1797 by James Burton, the building may have been redeveloped sometime after 1860.

The shell is constructed with London Stocks and red brick detail, whilst the interior features a mock cobbled herringbone pattern re-enforced concrete floor. Access to the both floors is by concrete moulded ramps. The upper floor ramp retains hardwood slats preventing the horses from slipping. Each floor has five cast iron pillars and several original iron tethering rings.
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FEBRUARY

2017

Tee Shaped Wood
Tee Shaped Wood was a woodland in the fields of Boreham Wood. Originally a footpath from Boundary Oak in Theobald Street to Green Street passed through this point. The wood was quite dense in places and stretched all the way down to the modern Gateshead Road.

Near to Crown Road, the greenery still has a few large oak trees from the wood.

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FEBRUARY

2017

Furzehill Road, WD6
Furzehill Road runs from Shenley Road to Barnet Lane. Several roads in Boreham Wood including Barnet Lane, Furzehill Road, Shenley Road, Allum Lane and Theobald Street, were created as a result of the Enclosure Act of 1776, whereby the 684 acres of Borehamwood Common were divided up amongst various landowners, including the Church, and in return new roads were laid out which were to be sixty feet wide including verges.

Old photos from the nineteenth century show this verge intact and it can still be seen to the south of the junction with Brownlow Road.

In 1910 the Council handed over four acres of allotment land for the building of Furzehill School, and the plot-holders were awarded £1 each in compensation. The Council then purchased another four acres for £300.00 for allotment land, and a further 7 acres in 1924, just off Furzehill Road, for the sum of £157.1s.4d.

At the southern end of Furzehill Road was the Home of Rest For Horses until the 1970s.

Apart from the Barnet Lan...
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FEBRUARY

2017

Maxilla Gardens, W10
Maxilla Gardens was a former street in London W10. It was demolished to make way for the Westway.
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FEBRUARY

2017

Ebury Farm
Ebury Farm was a simple marshy farm whose lands later became the richest real estate in London. Ebury Farm covered 430 acres in total with its farmhouse laying just to the south of where Victoria coach station now stands.

Earlier, there was a manor called Eia in the Domesday survey but later known as Eye, from which Eybury or Ebury derives. The manor probably occupied the territory between the Roman road along the present course of Bayswater Road and Oxford Street on the north, the Thames on the south, the Westbourne river on the west, and the Tyburn on the east.

After the Norman Conquest Geoffrey de Mandeville obtained possession of the manor, one of many which he took in reward for his services in the Conqueror’s cause. Before the end of William’s reign de Mandeville had given the manor to the Abbey of Westminster and it remained in the Abbey’s ownership until 1536 when it was acquired by Henry VIII. During this long period two areas came to be distinguished from the main manor. The areas were Hyde in the north-west corner, now incorporated ...
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FEBRUARY

2017

Willesden Green Farm
Willesden Green Farm, owned by All Souls College, Oxford, was south of the High Road, opposite Willesden Farm. By 1738 farmhouses and cottages were clustered all round Willesden Green.

The soil of Willesden Green was a strong, wet clay - naturally suited to grass, and a cart could fetch a load of dung from the metropolis twice a day. By 1833 the Willesden Green Farm, had been much improved by manuring.

Londoners were often directly involved in farming and All Souls Willesden Green Farm was leased to a St Marylebone jobmaster between 1828-45.

Building began in 1895 on land belonging to All Souls and on the college’s land south of High Road in 1899 - Willesden Green farmhouse had gone by 1904. In that year 125 houses were being built on the college estate at Willesden Green in addition to 55 already built.
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FEBRUARY

2017

Westminster Under School
Westminster Under School is an independent school and preparatory school for boys aged 7 to 13 and is attached to Westminster School. The school was founded in 1943 in the precincts of Westminster School in Little Dean’s Yard, just behind Westminster Abbey. In 1951 the Under School relocated to its own premises in Vincent Square. Due to rising numbers of pupils in the 1960s and 1970s, the school moved again in 1981 to its present site (which was a former hospital) overlooking the Westminster School playing fields in Vincent Square. The school has a strong musical tradition and provides choristers for St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey. It also excels in sport, drama, chess and Latin. Most boys attending the school move on to Westminster School after the completion of either Common Entrance or Scholarship examinations.
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FEBRUARY

2017

North Greenwich Pier
North Greenwich Pier is a pier on the River Thames. North Greenwich Pier was originally built in the 1880s as a coaling jetty for the former Greenwich gasworks before this closed in the late 1980s. Most of the original jetty was demolished in 1997 to make way for the new passenger pier; however eight of the original cast iron caisson columns were retained to secure the new floating pier. Antony Gormley’s ’Quantum Cloud’ statue stands on the downstream group of four caissons.

The new pier was designed by architect Richard Rogers Partnership with Beckett Rankine as the engineer and Costain as main contractor. The most striking feature of the pier is its 87 metre long, 160 tonne, bowstring canting brow which, unusually, is supported on three bearings.

The pier is served by river boat services.

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FEBRUARY

2017

White City bus station
White City bus station serves the Westfield London shopping centre. It was opened on 29 November 2008 to serve the Westfield London and the White City area. The station was built around the Grade II listed Dimco Buildings, originally the power station for the Central London Railway which date from 1898.
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FEBRUARY

2017

Honourable Artillery Company Museum
The Honourable Artillery Company Museum opened in 1987. Its collection includes uniforms, armour, medals and weapons. The archives date from 1537 and are of particular interest for 17th and 18th century militia and items about the City of London history.

It is associated with the Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest regiment in the British Army. Entrance is free, although it is only open to the public by appointment.
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