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

AUGUST

2020

Lynedoch Street, E2
Lynedoch Street used to lie behind the Shoreditch Workhouse. Before an 1890s renaming this used to be Mary Street and connected Hoxton Steet with Kingsland Road.

The street came into existence when the new Shoreditch Workhouse was built in the 1860s.

In 1774, the authorities in Shoreditch raised money for a new workhouse. It was erected on a site known as the ’Land of Promise’ and the three-storey building including an infirmary and apothecary opened in 1777 with its main entrance on Kingsland Road. In 1784, a burial ground was consecrated at its southwest corner. The labour of the inmates was sold locally.

In 1813, James Parkinson was appointed as surgeon and apothecary. He established a separate fever block in the workhouse, which was the first in London. In 1817 he published an ’Essay on the Shaking Palsy’ in which he described the condition now known as Parkinson’s Disease.

In 1847, a Parliamentary sub-committee found the workhouse to be overcrowded. In 1849, the Trustee...
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AUGUST

2020

Bramley Mews, W10
Bramley Mews become part of a redelevopment of the area north of Latimer Road station in the 1960s. Before the coming of the Silchester Estate, Bramley Mews ran between Silchester Terrace and Bramley Road.
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AUGUST

2020

Westminster Bridge Road, SE1
Westminster Bridge Road runs on an east-west axis and passes through the boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark. Between 1740 and 1746, the Commissioners of Westminster Bridge bought land from the Archbishop of Canterbury and ground in Lambeth Marsh from the Lord Mayor and Commonalty of the City of London for the approach to the bridge on the southern (then-Surrey) side. This was the start date of Westminster Bridge Road.

The Roman Catholic St George’s Cathedral, Southwark is between Westminster Bridge Road and St George’s Road, the frontage to the diocesan offices being on Westminster Bridge Road. Morley College, an adult education college, is located on the road, and so is the associated Morley Gallery.

The Lincoln Memorial Tower built by Christopher Newman Hall in the late 19th century in memory of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation stands close to the junction with Kennington Road.

The London Necropolis railway station rebuilt its terminus in 1902, moving it to Westminster Bridge Road. The station was bombed in the London Blitz ...
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AUGUST

2020

Ely Place, EC1N
Ely Place is a gated road at the southern tip of the London Borough of Camden. It is the location of the historic Ye Olde Mitre public house and is adjacent to Hatton Garden.

It is the last privately owned street in London, having been originally an exclave of Cambridgeshire the location of the medieval abbey at Ely for the Bishops of Ely, and is managed by its own body of commissioners and beadles.

Ely Place stands on land that had been the site of Ely Palace or Ely House, the London townhouse of the Bishops of Ely from 1290 to 1772. Land in the Holborn area was bought by John de Kirkby in 1280. He was appointed Bishop of Ely in 1286 and on his death in 1290, he left the estate to the see of Ely.

In medieval times, bishops of Ely frequently held high state office requiring them to live in London; Ely Palace was the bishop’s official residence.

References to Ely Palace grounds occur in Shakespeare’s plays. It was at the house that in King Richard II, the Bard had John of Gaunt – who was living th...
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AUGUST

2020

Farrant Street, W10
Farrant Street is the missing link in the alphabetti spaghetti of the streetnames of the Queen’s Park Estate While there was never a street beginning with the letter J, the original streets of the Queen’s Park Estate began with the letters A through to P.

Farrant Street and Peach Street no longer exist (though there is a new Peach Road nearby). Peach Street was demolished by a 500 pound German bomb dropped by parachute. It left a big crater and the whole street was demolished. Debris from the blast was blown into the air and landed as far away as Willesden where "it fell among people coming out of a cinema."

Farrant Street went a different way. One amenity not provided, although mentioned in the initial Queen’s Park Estate prospectus, had been an open space for recreation. When Farrant Street was demolished in the 1970s, residents finally got their little oasis of greenery - a century after it was promised.

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AUGUST

2020

Wix’s Lane, SW4
Wix’s Lane is part of an ancient footpath which became made up into a formal road. Wix’s Lane, as a named footpath, ran behind the gardens and outbuildings of houses on North Side until the fine Board school and a long terrace of flats by Arthur Balls, were built in 1903-04.

In the locality, the upper end of Taybridge Road was developed by John Cathles Hill in 1894-95 as the Maitland House Estate, whilst the middle part of the street, Meteor Street, Jedburgh Street and Tregarvon Road were developed by H N Corsellis with very simplified red brick houses from 1897-1900 after the demolition of the house called Northside.
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AUGUST

2020

Western Dwellings
Western Dwellings were a row of houses, opposite the Western Gas Works, housing some of the workers. Western Dwellings was built beside the steps leading down to Southern Row. The flats were entered through arched door ways which lead onto stone stairways. The insides of these arched entrances were tiled in dark-coloured Victorian tiles with each panel portraying a scene of working people.

In the 1890s, an outbreak of typhoid was noted there.

Beside the flats was Hamrax, the motorcyclists’ emporium, and a tobacconists / sweet shop.
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AUGUST

2020

Millwall
Millwall is the historic name for an area on the west of the Isle of Dogs. Originally known as Marshwall, the area acquired its new name after its break with the parish of Poplar - Millwall was part of Poplar until the 19th century. The new name of Millwall was due to the large number of windmills built on the river wall in the 19th century. It became heavily industrialised, containing the workplaces and homes of a few thousand dockside and shipbuilding workers.

Millwall F.C. was founded in the area during 1885 as Millwall Rovers. The team moved south of the river to New Cross in 1910.

On 31 January 1858, the largest ship of that time, the SS Great Eastern, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was launched from Napier Yard. Due to the technical difficulties of the launch, this was the last ship of such a size to be built on the island.

In the 1860s, the Millwall Dock was built, extending from the Thames into the centre of the Isle of Dogs. The spoil from the dock was left as the Mudchute.

The postw...
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AUGUST

2020

Clonmore Street, SW18
The northern end of Clonmore Street is known for the Arts and Crafts flourishes on its housing. The ’Grid’ housing development was an outstanding success from the start mainly because it coincided with the evolution of a new type of city-dweller. The much improved education system of the later Victorian era produced families with a clerk, civil servant or shopkeeper at the head, people whose taste was being moulded by popular novels and monthly magazines.

Developers enticed them out to the suburbs with houses that were spacious and attractively designed.
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AUGUST

2020

Durham House Street, WC2N
Durham House Street was the former site of a palace belonging to the bishops of Durham in medieval times. The street is built in the form of an L. Two streets called William Street and James Street formerly covered the two sides of the L shape before it was renamed. These two streetnames were already being used for others in the area.

The Bishops of Durham had held land here from about 1220. Their inn, or mansion, first built around this time for Richard le Poor, faced onto the Strand behind a grand gatehouse, with its chapel and banqueting hall reaching down to the banks of the Thames.

When Thomas Cromwell drew up the schedule for religious house closures, Durham House was high on the list, and only three years after Henry VIII declared a severance with the church of Rome it fell into the hands of the Crown. Henry, who at this time was beginning to acquire too much property to cope with, made a gift of the house to the Earl of Wiltshire, and when he had finished with it, it became the home of Princess Elizabeth. Within the walls of Durham House Lady Jane Gr...
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AUGUST

2020

High Road, N12
High Road, N12 is part of the ancient Great North Road - leading from London to Edinburgh. The road from London which came to be known as the Great North Road played an important part in Finchley’s history. 16th century London map John Norden’s belief that the ancient highway to Barnet followed the line of Friern Barnet Lane was perhaps correct, since Finchley wood originally presented a barrier to travellers and Finchley’s earliest settlement was not on the line of the later Great North Road.

The change probably took place during the late 13th century or the 14th.

The hamlet of East End grew up during the 14th century at the exit of the road from Hornsey park but it is uncertain whether the route then passed directly northward across the common, as it did by Norden’s time, or whether it followed East End Road through Church End and along Ballards Lane to Whetstone.

Pavage was granted to the townsmen of Barnet in 1347 on the road from St. Albans to Finchley wood and to two Highgate men in 1354 for the road from Highgate...
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AUGUST

2020

Shaftesbury Avenue, W1D
Shaftesbury Avenue is a major street in the West End of London, named after Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury Avenue runs in a north-easterly direction from Piccadilly Circus to New Oxford Street, crossing Charing Cross Road at Cambridge Circus. From Piccadilly Circus to Cambridge Circus it is in the City of Westminster, and from Cambridge Circus to New Oxford Street it is in the London Borough of Camden.

Shaftesbury Avenue was built between 1877 and 1886 by the architect George Vulliamy and the engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette to provide a north-south traffic artery through the crowded districts of St. Giles and Soho. It was also part of a slum clearance measure, to push impoverished workers out of the city centre; although the street’s construction was stalled by legislation requiring rehousing some of these displaced residents, overcrowding persisted. Charles Booth’s Poverty Map shows the neighbourhood makeup shortly after Shaftesbury Avenue opened.

It is generally considered the heart of London’s West End theatre district, with the Lyric, Apo...
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AUGUST

2020

Royal Crescent, W11
The Royal Crescent is a Grade II* listed street in Holland Park. The Royal Crescent is consisting of two curved facing terraces in a crescent shape. The crescent is located on the north side of Holland Park Avenue, west of Addison Avenue, and to the east of the Holland Park Roundabout.

Between the facing terraces is a landscaped communal garden with expansive lawns and numerous trees. The houses themselves are stucco fronted and are built on four floors, with porticoed entrances, above which are small first-floor balconies with iron railings. Each of the end houses have circular corners.

Designed in 1839, The Royal Crescent was inspired by its older namesake in Bath, it differs from the Bath crescent in that it is not strictly a true crescent but rather two quadrant terraces each terminated by a circular bow in the Regency style, rising as a tower, a feature which would not have been found in the earlier classically inspired architecture of the 18th century which the design of the crescent seeks to emulate. The plan of...
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AUGUST

2020

Barons Court
Barons Court station serves the District and Piccadilly lines. Barons Court lies between West Kensington and Hammersmith on the District line, and between Earl’s Court and Hammersmith on the Piccadilly line.

When the through tracks were laid on 9 September 1874, the area now known as Barons Court was an area of market gardens west of the hamlet of North End. By the beginning of the 20th century, the area had been developed for housing. On 9 October 1905, the District Railway opened a station to serve the new developments and in preparation for the 1906 opening of the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (now the Piccadilly line), then under construction. There is now easy cross-platform interchange between the two lines: District and Piccadilly.

The station is now the final surface stop for eastbound trains on the Piccadilly line until emerging back into the open air at Arnos Grove. In the 1990s, the Grade II listed station was carefully restored to its original appearance.
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AUGUST

2020

Ormiston Grove, W12
Ormiston Grove dates from the Edwardian era. The area known as The Groves – taking in Ormiston Grove, Oaklands Grove and Adelaide Grove – is where developers originally built charming red-brick cottages that are now a collection of self-contained maisonettes and little houses dating from around 1908.
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AUGUST

2020

Warley Road, CM13
Warley Road connects Brentwood with Harold Hill. Warley Road’s main claim to distinction it that is a road with a CM13 postcode which lies within the M25. This distinction is really one for the nerds though...
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AUGUST

2020

Aubrey Road, W8
Aubrey Road leads into Aubrey Walk, which runs west of Campden Hill Road at the top of Campden Hill. It was named in the 1840s. Aubrey Road is on a steep slope going down to Holland Park Avenue.

It contains some of the most attractive houses in the area and these are substantial family houses set back from the road all in varying styles and with off-street parking. The houses range from Georgian to Gothic in style and a few of contemporary style.

In Tudor times, there was a 20 acre farm called Stonehills south of what is know Holland Park Avenue. Originally it was owned by Sir Walter Cope, who sold it to Robert Horseman in 1599. Eventually it came into the possession of the Lloyd Family who sold it in 1823 to Joshua Flesher Hanson, a substantial developer in the Notting Hill and Holland Park area. He built Campden Hill Square. Aubrey Road was originally designed as a service road for the houses on the west side of Campden Hill Square.

Hanson sold much of the land to James Hora, a surgeon, in 1841. Hora died shortly afterwards but his widow employed Henry Wyatt, an a...
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AUGUST

2020

Dollis Hill Lane, NW2
Dollis Hill Lane is an ancient throughway. At the time of the Enclosure Award of 1816, the area of a 16th century farm at Oxgate, another farm at the top of Dollis Hill, a mansion known as Neasden House and some 75 fields resulting from the enclosure. The region was typical open farming country and the only road across the area was Dollis Hill Lane which traversed it from east to west. Dollis Hill House was built in 1825 and the railway in 1868. By 1895 there was a golf-course to the south west.

Residential building really started in the south-east of Dollis Hill from 1907-08.

Of the major landmarks constructed in the first quarter of the century, the two most noteworthy are St. Andrew’s Hospital, built in 1913, and the Post Office Research Station which rose in 1923 on the site of the old Dollis Hill Farm. In the mid-1920s Edgware Road was developed and there was some small-scale building in the middle of Dollis Hill.

So far a large part of the area still retained much of its rur...
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AUGUST

2020

Braddyll Street, SE10
Braddyll Street dates from 1852. Many street names east of Greenwich relate to the Durham coal field. Col. Braddyll was one of the partners in the South Hetton Coal Company. Messrs Braddyll & Co. also then owned Dalden-le-Dale Colliery.

The locomotive ’Bradyll’ still exists and is believed to be the oldest surviving locomotive with six-driving wheels. Bradyll was built by Timothy Hackworth at his Soho Works in Shildon, County Durham in 1840. The locomotive can be seen in the National Railway Museum’s location at Shildon.

The street was labelled ’Braddyle Street’ on the Stanford 1860s map and its alignment followed the modern Thornley Place before it was later extended south.
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AUGUST

2020

Lea Bridge
Lea Bridge is a district spanning an area between the London boroughs of Hackney and Waltham Forest. It is named for a timber bridge built across the River Lea in 1745 which formed the dividing line between Middlesex and Essex. The road leading to it became known as Lea Bridge Road, with a tollhouse at the Middlesex bank. The bridge was rebuilt in 1821 and tolls continued to be levied until 1872.

Lea Bridge gives access to the lower reaches of the extensive Lee Valley Park. To the south are the Hackney Marshes, and to the north the Walthamstow Marshes.

The old Middlesex Filter Beds have been converted into a nature reserve, and on the Leyton side the Essex Filter Beds are now a reserve for birds. Next to the south side of the bridge are two pubs: ’The Princess of Wales’ and ’The Ship Aground’.

Lea Bridge station opened on 15 September 1840 by the Northern and Eastern Railway as Lea Bridge Road and is thought to be the earliest example of a station having its building on a railway bridge, with staircases down to the ...
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AUGUST

2020

Oxford Circus, W1B
Oxford Circus was originally called Regent Circus. The development of Oxford Street began in the 18th century once local fields had been purchased by the Earl of Oxford.

In 1739, a gardener called Thomas Huddle built property on the north side. Buildings were erected on the corner of Oxford Street and Davies Street in the 1750s and further development occurred between 1763 and 1793.

By the end of the 18th century, Oxford Street had been built up from St Giles Circus to Park Lane, containing a mix of residential houses, pubs and theatres.

Oxford Circus was designed as part of the development of Regent Street by the architect John Nash in 1810. The four quadrants of the circus were designed by Sir Henry Tanner and built between 1913 and 1928.
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AUGUST

2020

Colville Square, W11
Colville Square is a street in Notting Hill. In the middle ages the Colville area was farmland, part of the manor of Notting Barns, passing through various landlords and by the 18th century was owned by the Talbot family.

In 1852, the family attempted to sell the farmland, now reduced in size by earlier sales to the Great Western Railway and the gas company. As the land was considered too remote for building speculators to be interested, there was only one buyer, Dr. Samuel Walker, a speculative builder behind part of the neighbouring Ladbroke estate.

The building of All Saints’ Church began in 1852 but very little other building work took place. In 1860 the builder, George Frederick John Tippett acquired much of the land. He was a prominent builder of the time and combined the roles of landlord, developer and builder.

The development of his estate took place between 1860 and 1875. Three parts, one each in Colville Square, Colville Gardens and Powis Square, backed on to shallow comm...
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AUGUST

2020

Ballards Lane, N12
Ballards Lane is the main road linking Finchley Central with North Finchley. Ballards Lane was originally called Over Street, contrasting it with Nether Street, which still runs in parallel to the west. It was an important medieval thoroughfare, named after a family who were living here in 1263. The estate of Ballards Reding, later Wimbush Farm, stretched across to Fallow Corner.

By the 15th century large houses set in spacious grounds were appearing along the lane. Many of these properties were rebuilt in the 17th century.

With the construction of Regent’s Park Road the lane became a turnpike in 1826 and was extended to a new junction with the Great North Road, bringing an increase in development. By 1851 the lane had 56 houses and seven under construction, which was positively heaving for such a rural outpost of London at this time, and made it the most populous part of Finchley.

Most of Ballards Lane was rebuilt again from the early years of the 20th century onwards, much of it with parades of shops and flats.
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AUGUST

2020

Kirby Street, EC1N
Kirby Street was named for Christopher Hatton’s Kirby House in Northamptonshire. The author Strype in 1720 described this area as being "a very large place, containing several streets—viz., Hatton Street, Charles Street, Cross Street, and Kirby Street, all which large tract of ground was a garden, and belonged to Hatton House, now pulled down, and built into houses."

The Hatton Garden area between Leather Lane in the west and Saffron Hill in the east, and from Holborn in the south to Hatton Wall in the north, was developed as a new residential district in the Restoration period, between 1659 and 1694.

It was formerly the site of the mediaeval palace, gardens and orchard of the Bishops of Ely, forming their City residence. The palace stood in the south-east corner, on the site of Ely Place.

During the 1570s Queen Elizabeth’s Chancellor and favourite, Sir Christopher Hatton, held a lease of part of the site and developed Hatton House to the north-west of the palace. After his death it passed into the possession of La...
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AUGUST

2020

Kew Green, TW9
Kew Green is the road around the perimeter of the green of the same name. A meadow east of Kew Bridge was made into common land as part of a plan to build a new palace at Kew. Designed to replace the Dutch House, it was never carried out. In the early 19th century Sir Richard Phillips already described the ’dwelling-houses’ bounding Kew Green. Indeed, most of the older houses in Kew were built around the Green.

Within walking distance of the River Thames, the green acts as a good starting point for a rambling walk along the towpath. There is also a cricket pitch which is used frequently during the summer.

Kew Pond, an old horse pond is a habitat for a range of water birds. The water level is managed by a sluice gate that allows river water to fill the pond via an underground channel during the high spring tide.

There are a few pubs in Kew Green - the Coach and Horses at 8 Kew^ Green, the Greyhound at 82 Kew^ Green. The Rose and Crown - from 2013, The Cricketers is at 79 Kew^ Green.

From 1964 u...
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AUGUST

2020

Beaumont Street, W1G
Beaumont Street is the location of the King Edward VII Hospital and the Marylebone Library. Beaumont Street runs from Marylebone High Street to the junction of Westmoreland Street and Weymouth Street. It was named after Sir Beaumont Hotham, local leaseholder in the late 18th century.

The street’s story began soon after the Marylebone Gardens closed in 1776, the line of the northern half being mostly laid out over the site of the gardens. The southern part was already partly developed by then.

Building leases were granted to the Thomas Neales, senior and junior, and John White, among others in the late 1780s. The street was advertised as being in as "pleasant and as healthy a situation as in the country".

Shopkeepers and professionals moved in including a lady perfumer, surgeon, cheesemonger and a bookseller-stationer. Additionally there was a teacher of writing and accounting whose manuscript collection was open to the public.

The first residents in the 1790s included a botanical painter and a celebrated harpist, ...
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AUGUST

2020

Tweed Street, SW8
Tweed Street now lies under New Covent Garden Market. Frederick Haines, originally a solicitor, acquired land between Sleaford Street and what become Haines Street in the early 1860s. A plan was formulated by W. R. Glasier of Glasier & Son, surveyors. It comprised five new streets: Haines Street, Moat Street, Tweed Street, Arden Street and Cherwell Street.

The streets disappeared in the early 1970s as part of the siting of the New Covent Garden Market.
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AUGUST

2020

Market Place, N2
Market Place developed from Finchley’s Hogmarket - so named by 1897. Robert Osborne lived in 1557 at a house which may be identifiable with the Park Gate, later Park Lodge, in Hogmarket which was the home of the Odells and Jordans. East End House on the north side of East End Road, later part of John Bacon’s estates, may have been a new tenement mentioned in 1579.

On the south side of the road Old House and Elm House, later Elmshurst, may have dated from the late 16th century and been extended in the 17th; a fire-place in Old House was dated 1649.

Many inns appeared during the 18th century including on the Hogmarket, the George (from 1716) and the Three Horseshoes (1722-79).

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AUGUST

2020

Abbots Lane, SE1
Abbots Lane was named in memory of the medieval Abbots of Lewes. The Abbots of Lewes used their palatial mansion in Tooley Street when they came to visit Bermondsey. The Prior of Lewes supervised the foundation of the Cluniac Abbey at the bottom of Bermondsey Street — its main cloister now is where Bermondsey Square is.

Lewes Priory remained the head of the Cluniac order in England.

Abbots Lane was until the twentieth century known as Stoney Lane.
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