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.

Bonner Street (1960s)

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...

Bonner Street, E2

Bonner Street was named for Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London from 1539–49 and again from 1553-59. Bonner Street was once split into Bonner Street as its southernmost part and Bonner Lane in the north.

The area east of Bethnal Green was rural but Bishop’s Hall existed, occupied by Bishop Bonner. In 1655, the local manor house was demolished and the material used to build four new houses in the area. By 1741, the four houses were described as joining the main building on the west. The most easterly house, next to the lane, was a public house - probably the Three Golden Lions.

Other houses were built in Bonner Street by 1800 and spread eastward during the next decade.

»more

SEPTEMBER

2021

Green Lanes, N21
Green Lanes is part of an old route that led from Shoreditch to Hertford Green Lanes may have been in use from the second century during Roman times - its name derives from its connecting a series of greens en route, many of which no longer exist as greens.

In the mid 19th century the southernmost part was renamed Southgate Road - until that occurred, the Green Lanes name referred to a much longer thoroughfare. It possibly originated as a drovers’ road along which cattle were walked from Hertfordshire to London.

Green Lanes ultimately runs north from Newington Green, forming the boundary between Hackney and Islington, until it reaches Manor House. As it crosses the New River over Green Lanes Bridge, it enters the London Borough of Haringey. From the junction with Turnpike Lane the road temporarily changes its name and runs through Wood Green as ’High Road’, resuming its Green Lanes identity again after the junction with Lascott’s Road. It then continues north through Palmers Green and Win...
»more

SEPTEMBER

2021

Pinner Park Farm
One of the last of the major Middlesex farms Pinner Park Farm is a 93 hectare site surrounded by suburban residential areas. It is owned by the London Borough of Harrow and leased to Hall & Sons (Dairy Farmers) Ltd, which formerly ran it as a dairy farm. It is designated as a Site of Nature Conservation Importance.

Pinner Park has existed since the 13th century, when it was part of a large area around Harrow placed under the control of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The woodland was then used as pannage for pigs, but by the 15th century most of the trees had been cut down for timber and charcoal and the cleared areas were used mainly for pasture. Part of the park was also stocked with roe deer, protected from the depredation of local people by a high bank (parts of which still exist) and two ditches. The park held about 100 deer by the end of the 15th centre.

From the middle of the 15th century, the park was leased by the archbishopric to local farmers. In the 16th century, when the lordship and owne...
»more

SEPTEMBER

2021

Winchmore Hill
Winchmore Hill is a district in the London Borough of Enfield bounded on the east by Green Lanes (the A105) and on the west by Grovelands Park Once a small village hamlet in the parish of Edmonton, Winchmore Hill borders Palmers Green, Southgate, Edmonton, Enfield Chase and Bush Hill Park. At the heart is Winchmore Hill Green, a village green surrounded by shops and restaurants. The nearest Underground station is at Southgate which is on the Piccadilly Line.

Of particular note in Winchmore Hill is Grovelands Park which originated as a private estate before being partly being sold to the council in 1913. What remained in private hands, is the famous Priory Clinic.

Prior to occupation by the Romans, the area was occupied by the Catuvellauni tribe. It is believed that this tribe built an ancient hill fort on the mound where the Bush Hill Park Golf clubhouse now stands.

The earliest recorded mention of Winchmore Hill is in a deed dated 1319 in which it is spelt Wynsemerhull. By 1565 the village was known as Wynsmorehyll, becoming Winchmore Hill by the time it was ment...
»more

SEPTEMBER

2021

St Giles
St Giles is a district of central London, at the southern tip of the London Borough of Camden There has been a church at St Giles since Saxon times, located beside a major highway. The hospital of St Giles, recorded c. 1120 as Hospitali Sancti Egidii extra Londonium was founded, together with a monastery and a chapel, by Queen Matilda, wife of Henry I. St Giles (c. 650 – c. 710) was the patron saint of lepers and the hospital was home to a leper colony, the site chosen for its surrounding fields and marshes separating contagion from nearby London.

A village grew up to cater to the brethren and patients. The crossroads which is now St Giles Circus, where Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road, Tottenham Court Road and New Oxford St meet, was the site of a gallows until the fifteenth century. Grape Street, in the heart of the St Giles district, runs beside the site of the hospital’s vineyard.

The monastery was dissolved during the Reformation and a parish church created from the chapel. The hospital continued to care for lepers until the ...
»more

LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

roger morris Atherton Road, IG5 Added: 16 Oct 2021 08:50 GMT	Atherton Road, IG5 (1958 - 1980) I moved to Atherton road in 1958 until 1980 from Finsbury Park. My father purchased the house from his brother Sydney Morris. My father continued to live there until his death in 1997, my mother having died in 1988. I attended The Glade Primary School in Atherton Road from sept 1958 until 1964 when I went to Beal School. Have fond memories of the area and friends who lived at no2 (Michael Clark)and no11 (Brian Skelly) Reply
margaret clark Thrawl Street, E1 Added: 15 Oct 2021 22:23 GMT	Margaret’s address when she married in 1938 ^, Josepine House, Stepney is the address of my mother on her marriage certificate 1938. Her name was Margaret Irene Clark. Her father Basil Clark was a warehouse grocer. Reply
Martin Eaton Shoreditch Added: 14 Oct 2021 03:56 GMT	Boundary Estate Sunbury, Taplow House. Reply
Simon Chalton Duppas Hill Terrace, CR0 Added: 10 Oct 2021 21:52 GMT	Duppas Hill Terrace 1963- 74 I’m 62 yrs old now but between the years 1963 and 1975 I lived at number 23 Duppas Hill Terrace. I had an absolutely idyllic childhood there and it broke my heart when the council ordered us out of our home to build the Ellis Davd flats there.The very large house overlooked the fire station and we used to watch them practice putting out fires in the blue tower which I believe is still there. I’m asking for your help because I cannot find anything on the internet or anywhere else (pictures, history of the house, who lived there) and I have been searching for many, many years now. Have you any idea where I might find any specific details or photos of Duppas Hill Terrace, number 23 and down the hill to where the subway was built. To this day it saddens me to know they knocked down this house, my extended family lived at the next house down which I think was number 25 and my best school friend John Childs the next and last house down at number 27. I miss those years so terribly and to coin a quote it seems they just disappeared like "tears in rain". Please, if you know of anywhere that might be able to help me in any way possible, would you be kind enough to get back to me. I would be eternally grateful. With the greatest of hope and thanks, Simon Harlow-Chalton. Reply
Linda Webb Hungerford Stairs Added: 27 Sep 2021 05:51 GMT	Hungerford Stairs In 1794 my ancestor, George Webb, Clay Pipe Maker, lived in Hungerford Stairs, Strand. Source: Wakefields Merchant & Tradesmens General Directory London Westminster 1794 Source: Hungerford Stairs Reply
jack stevens Whites Row, E1 Added: 26 Sep 2021 13:38 GMT	Mothers birth place Number 5 Whites Row which was built in around 1736 and still standing was the premises my now 93 year old mother was born in, her name at birth was Hilda Evelyne Shaw, Reply
Ron Shepherd 91 Fernhead Road, W9 Added: 18 Sep 2021 17:28 GMT	More Wisdom Norman Joseph Wisdom was born in St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, West London. Reply
Jonathan Penner Pennard Road, W12 Added: 11 Sep 2021 16:03 GMT	Pennard Road, W12 My wife and I, young Canadians, lodged at 65 (?) Pennard Road with a fellow named Clive and his girlfriend, Melanie, for about 6 months in 1985. We loved the area and found it extremely convenient. Reply

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...
»more

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.
»read full article

NOVEMBER

2019

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

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.
»read full article

NOVEMBER

2019

East India Dock Road, E14
East India Dock Road is an important artery connecting the City of London to Essex, and partly serves as the high street of Poplar It takes it name from the former East India Docks and its route was constructed between 1806 and 1812 as a branch of the Commercial Road. The road begins in the west at Burdett Road and continues to the River Lea bridge in the east in Canning Town.

It laid within the parish of Limehouse with the western end in the former Gravel Pit Field.

The westernmost end, west of Stainsby Road and Birchfield Street was built up between 1847 and 1853 (north side) and 1850 and 1860 (south side).
»read full article

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.
»read full article

NOVEMBER

2019

Albany, W1J
The Albany is an apartment complex in Piccadilly, divided into apartments 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 bachelor apartments (known as "sets").

The main block was subdivided the main block and its two service wings, and by adding two new parallel long buildings covering most of the garden, running to a new rear gate building on Burlington Gardens.
»read full article

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...
»more

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’.

»read full article

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.
»read full article

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.
»read full article

NOVEMBER

2019

Bell Lane, AL2
Bell Lane nowadays runs parallel to the M25, slightly south of it. It is an ancient lane connecting London Colney and Colney Street. The modern site of the McDonald’s restaurant is the former site of the Bell Inn.

Arsenal FC has its training ground near Bell Lane.

Thomas Telford’s London Road (1795) was part of his overall plan for the London to Holyhead road. It was later the A6 trunk road but when the M25 arrived, the eastern end of Bell Lane was diverted near to the Bell to accommodate the motorway.
»read full article

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.

»read full article

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.

»read full article

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 ...
»more

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.
»read full article

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.
»read full article

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.
»read full article

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...
»more

NOVEMBER

2019

Aberdeen Lane, N5
Aberdeen Lane was originally called Ivy Grove 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.
»read full article

NOVEMBER

2019

Mayplace Road East, DA1
Mayplace Road East runs west-east through the DA1 and DA7 postcodes. The road dates from before the suburbanisation of the area, as Mayplace Lane and then Mayplace Road. Mayplace Farm lay along its side as the lodge to Martens Grove was also on the road.
»read full article

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.
»read full article

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.

»read full article

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.
»read full article

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.
»read full article

PREVIOUSLY ON THE UNDERGROUND MAP...