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 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...

Avenue Road, DA8

Avenue Road follows the line of the original path leading to Lesney Farm and the Erith Manor House. In 1769 William Wheatley laid out an avenue of elms. Wheatley came from a prominent Erith family and was Lord of the Manor of Erith by then. He built a new manor house which was slightly blighted by a legend that the avenue was haunted by a headless woman being driven by a headless coachman and four black horses.

In 1858 the manor house was pulled down and the far Erith end of Avenue Road (around the railway lines) seems to have been developed at that time. In August 1874 the Wheatley estate was sold off, fetching £170 000 with the open land being sold for building development.

Even so, in the late nineteenth century with all of its pressure for new housing, the road developed only slowly.

In the twentieth century, Avenue Road was extended west along the remaining line of elms. At the western end, in the post Second World War years, council housing was built by Erith Borough Council. The very first development of the new Lesney Farm Esta...

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DECEMBER

2020

Tube Mapper Project
https://wwwamazoncouk/dp/0750994371/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=theundergro07-21&linkCode=w00&linkId=0c3e449b00d457af8e03965b586d2a72&creativeASIN=0750994371 The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.
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NOVEMBER

2020

East India Dock Wall Road, E14
East India Dock Wall Road followed an early 19th century high stock brick wall leading to the former East India Dock East India Dock Wall Road was laid out as a road between 1822 and 1824 and gave access to Brunswick Wharf (built 1834) and ran parallel to Naval Row - where the two roads diverged is a connecting flight of steps for pedestrians.

The construction of warehouses along the north side of the Export Dock in 1816 led to the building of a general office at the west end of the quay. The beginnings of East India Dock Wall Road started as no more than a path to serve the building. The warehouse was a plain single-storey brick building, partly top-lit by means of a glazed lantern, with an entrance in the centre of the west front through a porch flanked by paired pilasters. This building survived until after the Second World War.

East India Dock Wall Road’s main purpose by the 1840s was to connect Blackwall station (and the Brunswick Temperance Hotel) to the outside world. Blackwall had been a railway station which served as the eastern terminus of the Commercial R...
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NOVEMBER

2020

Queen’s Theatre
The Queen’s Theatre is located in Shaftesbury Avenue on the corner of Wardour Street The original plan was to name this venue ’The Central Theatre’. After a lengthy debate involving the owners, it was named The Queen’s Theatre and a portrait of Queen Alexandra was hung in the foyer.

It opened on 8 October 1907 on the corner of Shafter\sbury Avenue as a twin to the neighbouring Hicks Theatre (now the Gielgud Theatre) which had opened ten months earlier. Both theatres were designed by WGR Sprague.

In September 1940, a German bomb landed directly on the Queen’s Theatre, destroying the façade and lobby. The production at the time was Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca starring Celia Johnson, Owen Nares and Margaret Rutherford. The theatre remained closed until a ₤250,000 restoration was completed by Westwood Sons & Partners almost 20 years later. The auditorium retained its Edwardian décor while the lobbies and exterior were rebuilt in a modern style. The reconstructed theatre opened on 8 July 1959 with John Gielgud’s ...
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NOVEMBER

2020

Spa Road, SE16
A train left Deptford railway station for Spa Road station at 8am on 8 February 1836 - it was the first train in London In 1770, one Thomas Keyse discovered a natural spring. He had opened a tea garden beside what is now Spa Road, on the banks of the River Neckinger. The fortuitous discovery of a chalybeate spring enabled the gardens to be described as ’Bermondsey Spa’. During the 18th century, drinking mineral water was considered good for one’s health. As a result Bermondsey boomed and led to the development of the health-giving elixir which ’Spa Road’ commemorates. Unlike the tapwater-based spring in the nearby ’Only Fools And Horses’ Peckham, Bermondsey Spa was the real deal, although it closed in 1804.

The road then spent thirty quiet years until it took its place in London history as the capital’s first station: Spa Road became the terminus of the London and Greenwich Railway (later the South Eastern and Chatham Railway). Keyse’s tea gardens were roughly situated at the site of the station on the south side of Spa Road.

Spa Road - then Grange Road -...
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APRIL

2020

Alexandra Road Estate
The Alexandra Road estate, often referred to as Rowley Way, is a housing estate in the London Borough of Camden. Since the 1950s, tower blocks surrounded by public open space had been the preferred method for councils to replace terraced housing while maintaining the same high population density. By the mid-1960s, the shortcomings of that method were becoming apparent.

The Alexandra Road Estate was designed in a brutalist style in 1968 by Neave Brown of Camden Council’s Architects Department. Construction work commenced in 1972 and was completed in 1978.

Neave Brown believed that ziggurat-style terraces, little higher than the terraces they replaced, could provide a better solution for council housing. Th estate is constructed from site-cast, board-marked white, unpainted reinforced concrete.

The estate has suffered less vandalism than many Camden estates, and it was granted Grade II* listed status in 1993, the first post-war council housing estate to be listed.
»read full article

APRIL

2020

Alexander Street, W2
Alexander Street was built in 1853 by Alexander Hall of Watergate House, Sussex. Alexander Hall owned several acres of land around this site, largely occupied by the principal London depot of his family’s quarry-owning interests, conveniently situated beside the main railway line into Paddington.
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APRIL

2020

Ave Maria Lane, EC4M
Ave Maria Lane is the southern extension of Warwick Lane, between Amen Corner and Ludgate Hill. Ava Maria Lane’s name is derived from the feast day of Corpus Christi.

Monks chanting the Lord’s Prayer set off from Paternoster Row (Pater Noster being the Latin opening words of the Lord’s Prayer) in procession to St Paul’s Cathedral. They would reach the final “Amen” as they turned into Ava Maria Lane – also responsible to the name Amen Corner.

Ave Maria Lane is home to the Stationers’ Hall, the livery hall of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers since 1670.
»read full article

APRIL

2020

Purley Oaks
Purley Oaks station was opened by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway on 5 November 1899 Nearby, Brighton Road school was built in 1873 when the area was still undeveloped and livestock grazed at Purley Oaks Farm until the end of Victoria’s reign. The conditions of the sale at auction of Purley Oaks Farm in 1903 included the provision that houses were built for the professional classes.

The station was opened as part of the improvements to the main line and the opening of the Quarry Line. However much of the surrounding land remained agricultural until the First World War. In 1916 James Relf established a market garden near the station.

The school was renamed Purley Oaks in 1922 as the area started to develop with suburban housing.

A short walk away from Purley Oaks is Sanderstead railway station with services to Victoria and East Grinstead.

On Saturday 4 March 1989, it was affected by the Purley station rail crash.
»read full article

APRIL

2020

Alma Place, NW10
Alma Place lies between Kensal Green Cemetery and the railway. Alma Road, a small cul-de-sac, is a small terrace of houses built around 1860. It is tucked into the space between the lodge and gates of St Mary’s Cemetery to the south and the terrace fronting Harrow Road to the north. It lies directly over the western end of the tunnel which carries the railway between Willesden Junction and Kensal Green.
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APRIL

2020

Ace Cafe
The Ace Cafe is a former transport cafe located in the Stonebridge area on the A406. The Ace Cafe opened in 1938 to accommodate traffic on the then-new North Circular. The cafe was open 24 hours a day and started to attract motorcyclists in the evening and at weekends.

The emergence of the teenager, an increase in traffic, and the British motorcycle industry at its peak made the Ace a success. Young people started to meet at the cafe to socialise and listen to rock’n’roll on juke boxes.

It became especially popular in the 1950s and 1960s with ’Rockers’.

It is a notable venue in motorcycle culture which originally operated from 1938 until 1969 when it closed.

The cafe closed in 1969 but reopened on the original site in 1997 as a cafe and entertainment venue.
»read full article

APRIL

2020

Virginia Primary School
Virginia Primary School is a mixed school in Tower Hamlets, built in 1887. The location of the school when it opened - ’The Old Nichol’ was one of the most notorious slums in London.

During the early 1880s the plight of the poor and their housing were subjects of great debate. Prime Minister William Gladstone ordered a Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes was established, and the Housing of the Working Classes Act followed in 1885.

In 1891, Parliament passed the Public Health (London) Act and the Boundary Street Scheme Act. The demolition of the Old Nichol began in 1893 and the building of the Boundary Estate began in 1895. The Boundary Estate was formally opened in 1900 - the world’s first council housing estate. The demolition rubble was used to construct a mound in the middle of Arnold Circus at the centre of the development and a bandstand was placed at the top. The estate consists of multi-story brick tenements radiating from the central circus, each of which bears the name of a location along the ...
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APRIL

2020

The 1860s map of London
"Stanford’s Library Map of London and its Suburbs" was published in 1862 Edward Stanford’s 1860s map shows the growth of London at a key time of its development and with the impact of the railways.

Stanford had embarked on an ambitious cartographic project - a series of large copper-engraved wall maps of the continents which he called Stanford’s Library Maps. The London map was published at a scale of 6 inches to the mile.

Stanford took the Ordnance Survey 12 inch to a mile sheets of their Skeleton Survey for the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, and dispatched his own surveyors to complete an immense quantity of detail for which this map is notable.

The original map extent runs from Hammersmith in the west), Greenwich (east), Crouch End (north), Anerley (south). Please note that the Underground Map project does not yet cover the southwestmost section of the original map.

»read full article

APRIL

2020

Museum Street, WC1A
Museum Street is so-named since it approaches the main entrance of the British Museum. The British Museum collection dates from 1753 with the building on the site since 1823. However the street dates from before the 14th century. It was a rural lane until the late 17th century when the growth of London caused its urbanisation.

It was at first called Peter Street which may refer to a saltpetre manufacturer which is thought to have existed there. After the area became urban, the road was the site of slum tenements.

An attempt at gentrification saw its name changed to Queen Street. It became home to parish schools for the education of local poor children.

A bookseller called Charles Mudie opened a bookshop and stationers. He explored the possibility of lending books as well as selling them and Mudie’s Select Library proved so popular that, after a decade, it moved out to larger premises. The street then became fashionable area with many of the foremost writers of the day gathering in taverns to converse. The occult Atlantis Bo...
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APRIL

2020

Lord Hills Road, W2
Lord Hill’s Road was at first called Ranelagh Road. By the middle of the eighteenth century, Westbourne House - a large house and also known as Westbourne Place - had been rebuilt as an elegant Georgian mansion by the architect Isaac Ware. Residents had included Sir William Yorke (a Venetian ambassador), architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell (a distant relative of diarist Samuel Pepys) and finally General Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill.

The River Westbourne flowed in a southeasterly direction across Paddington and beside Westbourne House. In its last incarnation it was the Ranelagh sewer - some of its course was still open in 1871 along the later line of Kilburn Park Road and Shirland Road. This was then built over but further south, it had already disappeared beneath new roads known as Formosa Road, Ranelagh Road and Cleveland Square.

General Rowland Hill left Westbourne House in 1836 and following his departure, the mansion was demolished and replaced by Westbourne Park Villas. Hill was Commander-in-Chief of...
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APRIL

2020

Great Western Road, W11
The name of the Great Western Road dates from the 1850s. It was named after the Great Western Railway whose railway lines run under a bridge on the road. Before the railway and before the canal, the line of the future road ran south as a path from the Harrow Road towards Bayswater. It is visible on the 1750s Rocque map.

First the canal in 1801 and then the Great Western Railway in 1838 disrupted the route. However by the 1850s, the road began to exist in its current form. The 1860s saw housing, which had ended in 1855 at St Stephen’s Church and Hereford Road in Paddington, spread to the Kensington boundary.

By 1865, terraces were lining westward extensions of Westbourne Grove and Westbourne Park Road, Artesian Road, and an eastward extension of the Talbot Road. Small terraced houses and shops stood by 1867 along the south side of Kensal Road and by 1869 along the north side, backing the canal.

Building also stretched north-westward along Great Western Road past Westbourne Park station when that...
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APRIL

2020

Alexander Square, SW3
Alexander Square is a garden square in Chelsea. John Alexander was the inheritor of the Thurlow Estate through being a descendent of the first husband of Anna Maria Browne.

In 1826 Alexander drew up plans to for a speculative development with the builder James Bonnin. George Basevi became the architect of the scheme when under construction in 1829.

Alexander Square and South Street (now South Terrace), Alfred Place (now Alexander Place), North Terrace, Alexander Place and York Cottages were subsequently built.

The communal garden at the centre of the square is a third of an acre in size.
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APRIL

2020

Bolsover Street, W1W
Bolsover Street - home to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital since 1907. Rocque’s map of 1746 shows the area to be mainly open fields - Bilson’s farm located to the north with hand-dug quarries for road construction in the immediate area.

Norton Street and Upper Norton Street were part of the Portland Estate and laid out as part of the development of the area in the 18th century. They were named after the village of Norton on the Duke of Portland’s Welbeck Abbey estate in Nottinghamshire. At first, Norton Street was described to be home to many artist and sculptor studios and was "the smartest of the local streets socially" up to about 1820.

After about 1825, a decline had set in. Norton Street with Cirencester Place became the local focus of a wider outcry against prostitution.

In 1858, the streets had a change of name and were combined to become Bolsover Street – reflecting links to the Cavendish family and their Derbyshire estate. The name change was designed to rescue its reputation.

...
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APRIL

2020

Aldgate
Aldgate was one of the massive gates which defended the City from Roman times until 1760. Stow wrote in his Survey of London of 1598 that ’It hath had two pair of gates, though now but one; the hooks remaineth yet. Also there hath been two port-closes; the one of them remai

The gate stood at the corner of the modern Duke’s Place and was always an obstacle to traffic. It was rebuilt between 1108–47, again in 1215, and reconstructed completely between 1607-09. The gate was finally removed in 1761; it was temporarily re-erected at Bethnal Green.

While he was a customs official, from 1374 until 1386, Geoffrey Chaucer occupied apartments above the gate. The Augustinians priory of Holy Trinity Aldgate was founded by Matilda, the wife of King Henry I, in 1108, on ground just inside the gate.

Within Aldgate ward, Jews settled from 1181, until their expulsion in 1290 by King Edward I. The area became known as Old Jewry. Jews were welcomed back by Oliver Cromwell, and once again they settled in the area, founding London&rsqu...
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APRIL

2020

Pickax Street, EC2Y
Pickax Street once ran from Long Lane to Goswell Road (which before 1864 was called Goswell Street). The word ’Pickax’ may derive from ’Pickt Hatch’ - an area of brothels said to be in this part of London during the Elizabethan era.

Pick Hatch is mentioned in both ’The Merry Wives of Windsor’ ("Goe … to your Mannor of Pickt-hatch") and in ’The Alchemist’ ("The decay’d Vestalls of Pickt-hatch\).

The principal features on the west side of Pickax Street in the late seventeenth century were two substantial inns - ’The Horse and Groom’ and ’The Black Horse’.

Extended yards came into being behind the inns after the break-up around 1700 of the old houses and gardens on the east side of Charterhouse Square. Black Horse Yard was the largest, with stables, coach houses and gallery apartments.

By the late eighteenth century the name Pickax was no more in use, and the road was incorporated into Aldersgate Street.
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APRIL

2020

London (1926)
In 1926 Claude Friese-Greene shot some of the first-ever colour film footage around London, capturing everyday life. Friese-Greene’s technique - innovated by his father and called Biocolour - captures London in striking detail, as if putting the whole city in a time capsule. The people pass before us like ghosts.

Biocolour produced the illusion of true colour by exposing each alternate frame of ordinary black-and-white film stock through a two different coloured filters. Each alternate frame of the monochrome print was then stained red or green. Although the projection of Biocolour prints did provide a tolerable illusion of true colour, it suffered from noticeable flickering and red-and-green fringing when the subject was in rapid motion. In an attempt to overcome the colour fringing problem, a faster-than-usual frame rate was used.

Claude, born Claude Harrison Greene was the son of colour film pioneer, William Friese-Greene.

After William’s death in 1921, Claude Friese-Greene continued to develop the Biocolour system during the 1920s and renamed the...
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APRIL

2020

Mitre Square, EC3A
Mitre Square is a small square in the City of London. It occupies the site of the cloister of Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate which was demolished under Henry VIII during the Dissolution.

It is connected via three passages with Mitre Street, to Creechurch Place and, via St James’s Passage, to Duke’s Place.

The south corner of the square was the site of the murder of Catherine Eddowes by Jack the Ripper. This was the only murder located within the City of London.
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APRIL

2020

St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge
St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge is a Grade II* listed Anglican church. The church was consecrated in 1843 and designed by Thomas Cundy the younger. It was the first in London to champion the ideals of the Oxford Movement.

The chancel with its rood screen and striking reredos was added in 1892 by the noted church architect George Frederick Bodley.

A memorial commemorates 52 members of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry who died on active service in World War II, carrying out work for the Special Operations Executive.

The church is located at 32a Wilton Place.
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APRIL

2020

Philharmonic Hall
The Philharmonic Hall was a major music hall throughout the 1860s and early 1870s. The Philharmonic Hall was built by the contractors Holland and Hannen on the site of some former tenements. It opened with a banquet on 7 November 1860. The Hall was the first of many places of entertainment that would be built on this site, culminating in the Islington Empire of 1908.

The Hall was redecorated in 1874 and the building was also renamed the Philharmonic Theatre, with a seating capacity for some 758 people. Alas it was destroyed by fire in September 1882. The Grand Theatre opened on its site in August 1883.

Like its predecessor, the (first) Grand Theatre was destroyed by fire, this time only four years after being built, during the staging of the annual Christmas pantomime on 29 December 1887.

The owners, Holt and Wilmot, immediately set about rebuilding the Theatre with Frank Matcham again doing the redesign. The second Grand Theatre reopened a year later on 1 December 1888 with a production of ’The Still Alarm’.
...
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APRIL

2020

Swinton Street, WC1X
Swinton Street was named after the two Swinton brothers. It is situated on the east side of Gray’s Inn Road north of and parallel with Acton Street.

The Swinton Estate lay to the east of Gray’s Inn Road and extended to the River Fleet. Its northern boundary was a common sewer and its southern side was the back of the houses on the northern side of Frederick Street.

James Swinton was a builder and surveyor from Gravesend. His brother Peter Swinton was listed in 1776 as residing in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street and a ’Doctor in Physick’.

Swinton Street was described on 7 September 1778, as "a street now building." Two years before that, it was a short cul-de-sac ending in a fence. The first occupants enjoyed a view down the meadows to the Fleet.

The extension eastwards began in the late 1830s. In 1841 there were 37 houses and by 1844 it was fully built.

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APRIL

2020

Acton Street, WC1X
Acton Street is found on the east side of Gray’s Inn Road and connects it with King’s Cross Road. Named after Acton Meadow which formerly occupied this site, Acton Meadow was in turn named after its landowner..

The western end was built as a short cul-de-sac in the early 1770s. The eastern end, where the street was later extended, has principal features to Swinton Street. It may be the work of the same builders.

Even as late as 1834, Acton Street was still unfinished. It was finally completed by 1845.

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APRIL

2020

Acorn Walk, SE16
Acorn Walk is named after a former area of the Surrey Commercial dock system. There was once a dock called the Acorn Pond which ran south from a point nearby. A cargo handling area was known as Acorn Yard.

Keeping the acorn theme, a small row of houses called Acorn Place lay across the north side of Trinity Churchyard.
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APRIL

2020

Weston’s Music Hall
Weston’s Music Hall was a music hall and theatre that opened in 1857. In 1906, the theatre became known as the Holborn Empire. The theatre was constructed on the site of the Six Cans and Punch Bowl Tavern. The licensed victualler - Henry Weston - had already transformed the former Holborn National Schoolrooms into a music hall some years before. The facility was his response to the success of Charles Morton’s Canterbury Music Hall in Lambeth.

The theatre was renamed the Royal Music Hall in 1868, and then changed names again in 1892, becoming the Royal Holborn Theatre of Varieties.

The hall’s early years were presided over by an exacting chairman and master of ceremonies, W. B. Fair, famous for the song ’Tommy, Make Room for Your Uncle’. He chose the acts, warmed the audience up for each succeeding performance, and encouraged them at all times to interact with the performers throughout the evening.

In 1905 the theatre was bought by the variety impresario Walter Gibbons and in the following year, he had the theatre auditorium remodelled by Frank Matcham. It w...
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APRIL

2020

Home of Rest for Horses
The Home of Rest for Horses was situated at the corner of Furzehill Road and Barnet Lane, near Borehamwood. Opened as a Charity in 1886, the Home of Rest for Horses became a refuge where horses and donkeys could rest and find peace and contentment following their devoted service, purpose-built stables were opened in 1933.

It was demolished in the 1970s to make way for housing. The Home moved to Buckinghamshire where it thrives to the present day.

In the photograph, the stables and fields are pictured.
»read full article

APRIL

2020

Farriers Way, WD6
Farriers Way was built on the site of the former Home of Rest for Horses. Starting in 1886, the Home of Rest for Horses came to Borehamwood in 1933 from Cricklewood, and had extensive grounds, all now covered by housing. It was much loved by the locals who visited often, particularly at the weekend.

In 1968, the Elstree Rural District Council foresaw a housing shortage and requested that the Home of Rest’s site might be rezoned and scheduled as suitable for housing development. The charity began to look for new premises and a year later a new site was purchased in Speen, Buckinghamshire.

The home finally closed in 1975 and relocated to Speen, Princes Risborough where it still is today.

The names of all roads on this estate have connections to horses.
»read full article

APRIL

2020

St. Thomas’s Square, E9
St Thomas’s Square was laid out by Robert Collins in 1772 on land leased from St Thomas’s Hospital. St Thomas’s Hospital owned a lot of the land of Hackney - much of this had been previously been owned by the Hospital of the Savoy who by 1517 owned 6 acres of London Fields.

On the south-east corner was the 1771-built St Thomas’s Chapel. This site later became the Empress Cinema which opened in 1912. The cine,a became the Essoldo in 1937 and finally a bingo hall. The building was demolished in 1996 to build a new residential block for Cordwainers College.

The central area was open space until 1892. That year it was described by Benjamin Clarke as "anything but picturesque".

In 1892 it was laid out as a public garden by Hackney District Board. Hackney Borough Council purchased the garden in 1915 for £50.

The northwest corner of the square suffered bomb damage during the Second World War. After the war, the northern and eastern sides were compulsorily purchased by the London County Council in 1952 to build flats...
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APRIL

2020

North Park Farm
North Park Farm, also known as Plum Farm, dates from the mid 16th century or before. North Park Farm was an arable farm which had started off at around 75 acres but grew to about 278 acres. It specialised in wheat but later on, market gardening. It was owned by the Earl of St Germans.

Two brothers, Edward and Samuel Sheppard took over the farm in 1849 and it was run on their behalf by William Fry at first. Fry was reported in 1871 as living at North Park Farm but had left by 1881.

By the time of the 1861 census, Edward Sheppard and his family were living at the new 1850s-built farmhouse which was located about halfway along the modern Duncrievie Road (which was later laid out on the line of the farm track). Edward died in 1892.

Samuel Sheppard and his family moved to the newly-built Eliot House at North Park Farm in 1867 and stayed there until 1904. Eliot House (or Lodge) is still on the Hither Green Lane / Duncrievie Road corner. His son, also called Samuel, would later take over Bellingham Farm.

The sale o...
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APRIL

2020

Great Marlborough Street, W1F
Great Marlborough Street was named after John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. In the 16th century, the land it was laid out over belonged to the Mercer’s Company but was surrendered to Henry VIII in 1536.

The land was subsequently owned by a brewer Thomas Wilson whose son Richard sold it to William Maddox in 1622. Maddox called the estate ’Millfield’.

In 1670, William Maddox’s son Benjamin let the land to James Kendrick who in turn sub-let what is now Great Marlborough Street to John Steele. The land remained undeveloped, with building focusing on Tyburn Road (Oxford Street) to the north.

The street began development in the early 18th century, when Steele let five acres of land to Joseph Collens for property development. It was named after John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough who as commander of the English Army won the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.

The Pantheon was based at the far eastern end of Great Marlborough Street, built on what had previously been gardens in 1772. A popular place of e...
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APRIL

2020

Orange Square, SW1W
Orange Square is a small open area in Belgravia. Under the mature London plane trees of Orange Square is a statue of a young Mozart by Philip Jackson. Mozart as an eight year old lived at 180 Ebury Street in 1764 and 1765 while on a grand tour of Europe with his father. There, the child prodigy composed his first two symphonies.

In 1764, Orange Square - then called Pimlico Green - was an open area with sheep and donkeys grazing, and market gardens providing local vegetables.

Orange Square has a pub called The Orange which started as the Orange Coffee House and Tavern in 1776.

A timber yard was built around 1839 by John Newson who lived and worked from 19 Bloomfield Terrace. He built the houses of Bloomfield Terrace, called after the original name of his wife as well as some in the neighbouring streets of Ebury Street and Bourne Street. The shops on Pimlico Road, which date from the early 1840s are the oldest surviving buildings on Orange Square. Around this time the informal name Pimlico...
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