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.

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...

Yiewsley

Yiewsley is a large suburban village in the London Borough of Hillingdon. Yiewsley’s transition from an agrarian community began when the Grand Junction Canal was opened. Construction started in May 1793 and connected the area to the Thames at Brentford, passing through Yiewsley on its way north following the River Colne. An aqueduct was built at Cowley Lock to cross the Fray’s River. In 1794, the canal opened between the Thames and Uxbridge, and in 1795, the aqueduct over the Fray’s River was likely completed.

The following year, in 1796, Colham Wharf, Yiewsley’s first dock, was established near Colham Bridge. In 1801, the Paddington Arm of the canal opened, connecting the area to national trade routes.

The canal played a vital role in transporting Cowley stock bricks, which were made from the abundant brick-earth in Yiewsley. The bricks were transported mainly along the Grand Junction Canal and the Regent’s Canal to supply the demand for building materials in Victorian London.

By t...

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NOVEMBER

2023

South Harrow
South Harrow originally spread south and west from the hamlet of Roxeth as a result of easier access from Central London by rail In the 1890s, the Metropolitan District Railway, which later became the District Line but was operating as an independent company at the time, recognised the inadequate service to Uxbridge and Harrow. To address this, they proposed the construction of a railway line towards both towns, and this led to the formation of the Ealing & South Harrow Railway. The railway line was intended to extend to South Harrow, which was then a rural area located to the south of Roxeth.

Construction of the railway line was completed by 1899, but the District Line faced financial difficulties that delayed its opening until 1903. Consequently, South Harrow became the terminus of a line extending from Park Royal & Twyford Abbey. The location around Northolt Road subsequently developed into South Harrow’s own commercial and residential hub.

The original station building was approximately 170 metres south of the present-day station. This extension marked a significant miles...
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SEPTEMBER

2023

Great Portland Street
Great Portland Street is a London Underground station near Regent’s Park Great Portland Street station was opened on 10 January 1863 as Portland Road, renamed Great Portland Street and Regents Park in 1923 and changed to its present name on 1 March 1917.

The station’s present structure, constructed in 1930, is situated on a traffic island at the intersection of Marylebone Road, Great Portland Street and Albany Street. This building features a steel-framed design with a cream terracotta exterior. The station’s perimeter also houses shops and, in the past, included a car showroom with office spaces above it. Notably, Great Portland Street was a significant sales location for the motor industry. The station’s architectural design, credited to C.W. Fowler, earned it a Grade II listing in January 1987.

The area around Great Portland Street station offers various points of interest. Regent’s Park and the iconic BT Tower are nearby attractions. Additionally, the station’s proximity to Regen...
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SEPTEMBER

2023

Courtfield Gardens, SW5
Courtfield Gardens is named after the field beneath it, cultivated until the 19th century According to 16th-century records, Courtfield Gardens was built on a vast open meadow known as Great Courtfield. This meadow was surrounded by fertile land and small farms and was part of a large area of land that extended from Cromwell Road to The Old Brompton Road in one direction, and from Gloucester Road to Earl’s Court Road in the other direction. Great Courtfield was included in the Earl’s Court ’manor’.

During the 18th century, Earl’s Court House, a grand manor house, was constructed on the land that is now the western terrace of Barkston Gardens. This building replaced an extensive dwelling that was described in 1705 as having fountains, a marble-tiled dairy, engines for water, and impressive gates at its entrance.

In the 19th century, the area surrounding Courtfield Gardens was developed with rows of terraced houses, as the demand for housing in London grew. Earl’s Court House was demolished in the middle of th...
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JUNE

2023

Alba Place, W11
Alba Place is part of the Colville Conservation Area Originally the stable house accommodation for the main houses on Lancaster Road, the primary purpose of the Mews properties is now residential.

Alba Place is located on the site of an original Mews but has been redeveloped to a degree that it no longer contains any surviving Mews properties. It is a gated cul-de-sac off Portobello Road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, almost opposite Hayden’s Place (another redeveloped Mews). It contains 16 properties used for residential purposes.

Alba Place was Albion Place until 1937, one of the many patriotic names dating from the period immediately following the Crimean War.
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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Eileen Brecknock Road, N7 Added: 10 Nov 2023 09:42 GMT	Brecknock Road Pleating Company My great grandparents ran the Brecknock Road pleating Company around 1910 to 1920 and my Grandmother worked there as a pleater until she was 16. I should like to know more about this. I know they had a beautiful Victorian house in Islington as I have photos of it & of them in their garden. Source: Family history Reply
Squirrel’s Lane, IG9 Added: 6 Nov 2023 16:59 GMT	061123 Why do Thames Water not collect the 15 . Three meter lengths of blue plastic fencing, and old pipes etc. They left here for the last TWO Years, these cause an obstruction,as they halfway lying in the road,as no footpath down this road, and the cars going and exiting the park are getting damaged, also the public are in Grave Danger when trying to avoid your rubbish and the danger of your fences. Source: Squirrels Lane. Buckhurst Hill, Essex. IG9. I want some action ,now, not Excuses.MK. Reply
Christian Cornwall Road, W11 Added: 31 Oct 2023 10:34 GMT	Cornwall Road, W11 Photo shows William Richard Hoare’s chemist shop at 121 Cornwall Road. Reply
Vik Oaks Road, TW6 Added: 30 Oct 2023 18:48 GMT	Old pub sign from the Rising Sun Hi I have no connection to the area except that for the last 30+ years we’ve had an old pub sign hanging on our kitchen wall from the Rising Sun, Stanwell, which I believe was / is on the Oaks Rd. Happy to upload a photo if anyone can tell me how or where to do that! Reply
Phillip Martin Ashburnham Place, SE10 Added: 16 Oct 2023 06:25 GMT	16 Ashburnham Road On 15 October 1874 George Frederick Martin was born in 16 Ashburnham Road Greenwich to George Henry Martin, a painter, and Mary Martin, formerly Southern. Reply
Christine Bithrey Holly Park, N4 Added: 15 Oct 2023 15:20 GMT	The Hollies (1860 - 1900) I lived in Holly Park Estate from 1969 I was 8 years old when we moved in until I left to get married, my mother still lives there now 84. I am wondering if there was ever a cemetery within The Hollies? And if so where? Was it near to the Blythwood Road end or much nearer to the old Methodist Church which is still standing although rather old looking. We spent most of our childhood playing along the old dis-used railway that run directly along Blythwood Road and opposite Holly Park Estate - top end which is where we live/ed. We now walk my mothers dog there twice a day. An elderly gentleman once told me when I was a child that there used to be a cemetery but I am not sure if he was trying to scare us children! I only thought about this recently when walking past the old Methodist Church and seeing the flag stone in the side of the wall with the inscription of when it was built late 1880 If anyone has any answers please email me [email protected] Reply
Chris hutchison Broadhurst Gardens, NW6 Added: 15 Oct 2023 03:04 GMT	35 broadhurst gardens. 35 Broadhurst gardens was owned by famous opera singer Mr Herman “Simmy”Simberg. He had transformed it into a film and recording complex. There was a film and animation studio on the ground floor. The recording facilities were on the next two floors. I arrived in London from Australia in 1966 and worked in the studio as the tea boy and trainee recording engineer from Christmas 1966 for one year. The facility was leased by an American advertising company called Moreno Films. Mr Simbergs company Vox Humana used the studio for their own projects as well. I worked for both of them. I was so lucky. The manager was another wonderful gentleman called Jack Price who went on to create numerous songs for many famous singers of the day and also assisted the careers of Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff. “Simmy” let me live in the bedsit,upper right hand window. Jack was also busy with projects with The Troggs,Bill Wyman,Peter Frampton. We did some great sessions with Manfred Mann and Alan Price. The Cream did some demos but that was before my time. We did lots of voice over work. Warren Mitchell and Ronnie Corbett were favourites. I went back in 1978 and “Simmy “ had removed all of the studio and it was now his home. His lounge room was still our studio in my minds eye!! Reply
Sue L Battersea Added: 13 Oct 2023 17:21 GMT	Duffield Street, Battersea I’ve been looking for ages for a photo of Duffield Street without any luck. My mother and grandfather lived there during the war. It was the first property he was able to buy but sadly after only a few months they were bombed out. My mother told the story that one night they were aware of a train stopping above them in the embankment. It was full of soldiers who threw out cigarettes and sweets at about four in the morning. They were returning from Dunkirk though of course my mother had no idea at the time. I have heard the same story from a different source too. Reply

Click here to explore another London street
We now have 628 completed street histories and 46872 partial histories

NOVEMBER

2019

Yabsley Street, E14
Yabsley Street was a rebuilt Russell Street which had existed before the Blackwall Tunnell was built. The Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890 allowed local authorities in London to build their own housing. It rationalised housing and slum clearance legislation, making it much easier for local authorities to carry out clearance schemes. Under certain circumstances, the councils could also build dwellings with the dual purpose of rehousing and to increase the supply of working-class housing.

Following the Act, the London County Council almost immediately began to build new tenement blocks in Poplar and erected as a result of the construction of the Blackwall Tunnel. The tunnel caused the need for people to be rehoused but also meant the purchase of a considerable area of land for the tunnel, much of which was subsequently available for housing development.

The Council Buildings in Yabsley Street dated from 1893, Toronto Buildings and Montreal Buildings in Cotton Street dated from 1899–1901 and blocks in Prestons Road included Baffin, Hudson, Ontar...
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NOVEMBER

2019

Orme Square, W2
Orme Square is named after Edward Orme, formerly a printseller in Bond Street. Orme purchased a considerable space of ground lying to the west of Craven Hill, upon which the Square is built.

Buildings to the north-east of Orme Square were erected about 1815, called St Petersburg Place, Moscow Road and Coburg Place. The names commemorate the visit of the sovereigns in 1814.

In the centre of St Petersburg Place, Mr Orme erected a private chapel in 1818.
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NOVEMBER

2019

Lordship Lane (1893)
View along a rural Lordship Lane Looking west towards Wood Green. The Moselle river runs under the white bridge
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NOVEMBER

2019

Campden Hill Square, W8
Campden Hill Square is a residential square consisting of large family houses. In the Tudor period there was a farm called Stonehills, 20 acres in area, south of what is now Holland Park Avenue. It came into the possession of the Lloyd Family who sold it in 1823 to a developer, Joshua Flesher Hanson.

Hanson designed a square similar to Regency Square which he had built in Brighton in 1818. The new square provided terraced houses around three sides of a large garden enclosure.

Campden Hill Square was originally called Notting Hill Square but the name was changed to Campden Hill Square in 1893. It slopes steeply down to Holland Park Avenue.
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NOVEMBER

2019

Langdon Park
Langdon Park is a DLR station in Poplar which opened in 2007. Langdon Park was originally proposed to be called Carmen Street, but later took the name of the adjacent park.

Construction took just over a year at a cost of £10.5 million. The Mayor of London presided over its opening ceremony on 10 December 2007.
The station features three art installations by British artist Kate Davis.
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NOVEMBER

2019

Albany, W1B
The Albany is an apartment complex in Piccadilly, established in 1802. The Albany was built in the years after 1771 by Sir William Chambers for the 1st Viscount Melbourne as Melbourne House. In 1791, Prince Frederick, Duke of Albany, took up residence. The Duke had lived there for only ten years when his debts and extravagance caught up with him and forced him to sell. In 1802 the Duke gave up the house and it was converted by Henry Holland into 69 "sets" - bachelor apartments.

The sets are individually owned as flying freeholds. The owners are known as Proprietors. The Albany is governed by a Board of Trustees on behalf of the Proprietors. Prospective tenants are vetted before being allowed to take up residence.

Around half the sets were owned by Peterhouse college, Cambridge. These were acquired by William Stone, a lifelong resident of the Albany, during the Second World War. He bequeathed 37 sets to the college.

From the time of its foundation, the Albany was a prestigious address. Residents have inc...
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NOVEMBER

2019

Enfield Town
Enfield Town is an alternative name for the town centre of Enfield. Enfield was noted as a small agrarian market town in 1303 based around its village green, with further hamlets spread around the royal hunting grounds of Enfield Chase. By 1572 many of the longer roads in the area were in place.

The market was prosperous by the early eighteenth century, but fell into decline soon afterwards. Trading resumed in the 1870s and the market is still in existence, administered by the Old Enfield Charitable Trust.

The New River was built to supply water to London from Hertfordshire and runs immediately behind Enfield Town through the Town Park. The park is the last remaining public open space of Enfield Old Park.

Enfield Town station was opened on 1 March 1849 by the Eastern Counties Railways as simply ’Enfield’. It was renamed Enfield Town in 1886. A
A house which had stood on the site of the later station since the late 17th century is said to have been the birthplace of Isaac D’Israeli...
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NOVEMBER

2019

Savage Gardens, EC3N
Savage Gardens connects Crutched Friars in the north to Trinity Square in the south, crossing Pepys Street. The house of Sir Thomas Savage was located here. Savage Gardens was originally Savage Garden - the garden behind Sir Thomas Savage’s home.

In 1626 he was made ’Commissioner of Ways and Means of Increasing the King’s Revenue’, and succeeded so well in the post, selling off some of the royal estates, that Charles I created him Viscount Savage later the same year.

He died here in 1635, aged about 49, ’of the running gout’.

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NOVEMBER

2019

Heruka Buddhist Centre
Heruka Kadampa Meditation Centre (KMC) is the main New Kadampa Tradition Buddhist Centre for north & central London. It is located in Golders Green, and was founded in 1992 aiming "to provide a venue for Kadampa teachings in the London region". Roughly 20 students live and study at Heruka KMC. In addition the main meditation room, the Centre contains a small library and a shop.
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NOVEMBER

2019

Wapping Wall, E1W
Wapping Wall runs parallel to the northern bank of the Thames with many converted warehouses facing the river. The name of Wapping Wall comes from the defensive wall built to prevent the river from flooding the marshland that once covered most of this area of Wapping. Drainage of the marshland and construction of defensive walls had begun around 1327.

On the south side of the street, next to the river, is The Prospect of Whitby pub.

The Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, built in 1890 but closed in 1977 was located here. It is now run as an arts centre and restaurant.
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NOVEMBER

2019

Execution Dock
Execution Dock, on the shoreline at Wapping, was used to execute pirates, smugglers and mutineers who had been sentenced to death by Admiralty courts. The Admiralty’s legal jurisdiction was for all crimes committed at sea. The dock symbolised the jurisdiction by being located just beyond the low-tide mark in the river.

George Davis and William Watts, convicted for piracy for the Cyprus mutiny, were the final hangings at the dock on 16 December 1830.

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NOVEMBER

2019

Petersham
Petersham is a place in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the east of the bend in the River Thames. Petersham appears in Domesday Book as being held by Chertsey Abbey.

The village was the birthplace in 1682 of Archibald Campbell, later 3rd Duke of Argyll who went on to found the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1727. The explorer George Vancouver retired to Petersham.

In 1847 Queen Victoria granted Pembroke Lodge to John, Earl Russell, 1st Earl Russell. Lord Russell’s grandson, Bertrand Russell, spent some of his childhood there.

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NOVEMBER

2019

West London Line
The West London Line is a short railway in inner West London that links Clapham Junction in the south to Willesden Junction in the north. The Birmingham, Bristol & Thames Junction Railway was authorised in 1836 to run from the London and Birmingham Railway, near Willesden Junction station, across the proposed route of the Great Western to the Kensington Canal Basin. Construction was delayed by engineering and financial problems.

Renamed the West London Railway (WLR) the line opened on 27 May 1844. The low number of passengers became such a regular target of Punch magazine that the line was called Punch’s Railway. After only six months it closed on 30 November 1844.

An Act of 1845 authorised the GWR to take a joint lease of the WLR - the line was used only to carry coal, and a passenger service was not re-introduced.

An Act in 1859 granted rail companies to construct the West London Extension Joint Railway on the filled-in canal south from the Kensington Basin to the bridge under the Kings Road, to bridge the Thames and to connect near Clapham Junction to railways south of ...
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NOVEMBER

2019

Ham
Ham is a suburban district in south-west London which has meadows adjoining the River Thames. Ham lies east of a bend in the river that almost surrounds it on three sides and lies south of Richmond and north of Kingston upon Thames. It is connected to Teddington across the river by a footbridge at Teddington Lock. During the summer months, a pedestrian ferry links Ham to Marble Hill House, Twickenham.

Ham is bounded on the west, along the bank of the Thames, by ancient river meadows called Ham Lands.

Ham is bounded to the east by Richmond Park.
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NOVEMBER

2019

Aldford Street, W1K
Aldford Street is named after Aldford, a property on the Grosvenor family’s Cheshire estates. It was formerly known as Chapel Street before 1886, as it led to the Grosvenor Chapel.

Building originally dated from 1730. Sir Richard Grosvenor agreed with Grosvenor Chapel builders - Benjamin Timbrell, Robert Scott, William Barlow and Robert Andrews - that in consideration of their ’hazard and expense’, he granted them additional land nearby at low ground rents.

They jointly received two blocks on the west side of South Audley Street opposite the chapel. Building continued westward during the next few years, the four partners’ holding being slightly enlarged in 1737.
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NOVEMBER

2019

Campden Hill Gardens, W8
Campden Hill Gardens runs northwards from Aubrey Walk. During the reign of Elizabeth I, a 20 acre farm named Stonehills lay south of (the now) Holland Park Avenue. Its owner Sir Walter Cope sold it to Robert Horseman in 1599 and it became the possession of the Lloyd Family.

A grocer from New Bond Street, Evan Evans, bought a section of the Lloyd Estate before he died in 1825. His great nephew Robert Evans inherited it.

In 1870, Robert Evans decided to develop the estate and granted leases to local builders John Reeves and George Butt. They bought the freeholds of most of the plots from him and built most of the houses.
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NOVEMBER

2019

Slade Green
Slade Green was originally called Slades Green. The area was sparsely populated and Slades Green had only 66 people in 1848 but in 1849 the North Kent Line was built. Slades Green gained a National School in 1868 and St Augustine’s Church opened in 1899.

Sladesgreen Farm was the centre of a market gardening area known locally as ’Cabbage Island’ located between Moat Lane (formerly Whitehall Lane) and Slade Green Road.

Slade Green railway station was opened on 1 July 1900 to serve the developing local community following the construction of a rail depot designed to service steam locomotives for South Eastern and Chatham Railway. It was at first called ’Slades Green’ and it was not until 1953 that this was changed to Slade Green.

By 1910 a complete ’railway village’ of 158 houses had been built. The significance of the village had increased by 1905 and that it had absorbed historically important Howbury Manor.

Explosions at a former Trench Warfare Filling Fact...
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NOVEMBER

2019

Aberdeen Lane, N5
Aberdeen Lane was originally called Ivy Grove Mews and also Aberdeen Mews. Ivy Grove Mews - later Aberdeen Mews - and built at the back of large houses in Aberdeen Park, became Aberdeen Lane by 1916. The street was lengthened in 1924 and 1930.

There had been a project, abandoned in the 1850s, to lay out a 500 acre public park which would have been bigger than Hyde Park. The park would have been bounded by Balls Pond Road, Seven Sisters Road, the Stoke Newington reservoirs and the Great Northern Railway.

The failed park earmarked the area to development with Aberdeen Park and Aberdeen Lane dating from the 1850s.
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NOVEMBER

2019

Hockley-in-the-Hole
Hockley-in-the-Hole was an area where bear-baiting and duelling took place in the 18th century. Hockley-in-the-Hole was situated roughly where the Ray Street Bridge stands, north of the junction of Clerkenwell Road and Farringdon Road.

It stood in the valley of the Fleet and its name seems to have been derived from the frequent flooding of the Fleet - Hockley, in old English, meaning ’a muddy field’. By 1756 the locality was narrow, and surrounded by bad housing. Soon after that, the road was widened, raised and drained.

On the later site of the ’Coach and Horses’ in Ray Street, stood the Bear Garden, which, in Queen Anne’s time, rivalled the Southwark Bear Garden of Elizabethan days. The earliest advertisement of the ’amusements’ here occurred in the Daily Post dated 10 July 1700.

In 1774 the notorious name of Hockley-in-the-Hole was formally changed to that of Ray Street.
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NOVEMBER

2019

St Augustine Watling Street
St Augustine, Watling Street was an Anglican church which stood just to the east of St Paul’s Cathedral. First recorded in the 12th century, it was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666 and rebuilt to the designs of Christopher Wren. This building was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War, and its remains now form part of St Paul’s Cathedral Choir School.

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NOVEMBER

2019

Bowes Park
Bowes Park is named after an old manor called Bowes. The Bowes Park area urbanised in the 1880s though the name is recorded in 1274 - by 1822 Bowes Farm was visible on one of the first Ordnance Survey maps in 1822 and 1877. Bowes is ultimately derived from Latin. The first owner of the manor was John de Arcubus (Latin for ’of the bows or arches’). John de Arcubus was one of many of his family who lived around St Mary-le-Bow church in the City of London.

Bowes Park is a centred around Myddleton Road which houses a number of shops.

Bowes Park railway station was first opened by the GNR in 1880 and is now a short walk from Bounds Green Underground station.
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NOVEMBER

2019

Airlie Gardens, W8
Airlie Gardens is named after the 5th Earl of Airlie (1826-1881), who lived on nearby Campden Hill at Holly Lodge. Holly Lodge - sometimes called Airlie Lodge - was the house where Lord Macaulay spent the last years of his life. It later became part of Queen Elizabeth College.

William Cooke was a Paddington builder who built Airlie Gardens in 1878 on the land of Elm Lodge. That year the Grand Junction Water Works Company surrendered the lease of the lodge. Some of its extensive grounds became the communal gardens for the new houses of Airlie Gardens.
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