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...

»more

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...
»more

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...
»more

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...
»more

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.
»read full article

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

DECEMBER

2020

Parkleys, KT2
The Parkleys estate was built in the mid-1950s and was Grade-II listed in 1998. The road runs around flat-roofed blocks in either a three-storey H-plan configuration with a central entrance stairwell or a two-storey terraced configuration, enclosing shared courtyards.

The flats have large timber windows which span the length of the flats and distinctive concrete tile-hanging.

The estate is lushly planted with retro-looking foliage and despite the styling being very much of its time, the quality of the design means it holds up today as a fine example of preserved modernist architecture.
»read full article

DECEMBER

2020

Kewferry Drive, HA6
Kewferry Drive connects Rickmansworth Road and Kewferry Road. The hilly part of Rickmansworth Road was formerly Kewferry Hill. Kewferry is probably derived from the name of John de Kevere, who had dealings with the Abbey of Bec over property in Northwood in the 1290s. Kewferry spawned in turn a Kewferry Road and a Kewferry Drive.

Kewferry Drive is a private road with houses dating from the 1930s.

The now-closed entrance shaft to Northwood Chalk Mine lies beneath the drive of a bungalow in Kewferry Drive. Brickwork on the entrance shaft dates from the 17th century. The debris heap at the foot of the shaft was excavated and found to contain the complete skeletons of a horse and cow, old tin cans, a complete metal trough, a tin trunk that contained parts of a gin trap, some dissecting needles, parts of a windlass, an excavation tool and two bone implements used for making pins.

The shaft was rediscovered by a Mr Roy in 1946 when, within two days of returning from war service, he fell through the rotted sleepers.
»read full article

DECEMBER

2020

Deacons Hill Road, WD6
Deacons Hill Road is a road connecting Barnet Lane and Allum Lane. Deacons Hill Road was created in the 19th century by the owner of Deacons Hill House in Barnet Lane, George Monck Gibbs, to provide easier access to the railway station which was opened in 1868. He would often be seen driving a pony and trap. Deacons Hill House is now the site of Deacons Heights.

After Monck’s death, the local council purchased the road in 1898 and called it New Road. It became Deacons Hill Road in the 1920s.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Deacons Hill was a wealthy area and many people associated with the film industry lived here. The most famous of these was the film producer Herbert Wilcox and the actress Anna Neagle. They helped style Boreham Wood as the British Hollywood.

»read full article

DECEMBER

2020

St John’s Hill
St John’s Hill is the highest point in the area. St John’s Hill is the summit of the high ground of Notting Hill.

When the Kensington Hippodrome was in operation before 1841, the grassy mound here formed a sort of natural grand-stand. Given railings since it was a right-of-way, it served as a free vantage point for pedestrians to watch the racing.

The summit of the hill is described by Florence Gladstone as being a point along ’Upper Lansdown Terrace’ rather than where the church was later placed.
»read full article

DECEMBER

2020

Vestry House Museum
The Vestry House Museum features the history of Waltham Forest. Situated in Walthamstow Village, the building used to house the parish workhouse, and was later a police station and private home.

It now contains themed displays capturing the unique heritage of the local area and includes a Victorian parlour, costume gallery and wonderful display of locally manufactured toys and games.

A collection of 80 000 historic photographs from across the Borough is accessible to everyone by appointment. The volunteer-run garden is an oasis in which to relax and enjoy the arrival of spring.

On permanent display in the museum is the Bremer Car, the first British motor car with an internal combustion engine, which was built by Frederick Bremer in a workshop at the back of his family home in Connaught Road, Walthamstow. The car first ran in 1892 and was donated to the museum by Bremer in 1933.
»read full article

DECEMBER

2020

Mint Street, SE1
Mint Street, an ancient Southwark street, (now) runs off Marchelsea Road. Mint Street dates from before 1679 in which year Thomas Lant married the daughter of Sir Edward Bromfield, and thus acquired an interest in a house called Suffolk Place. By then, Mint Street is shown on Morden and Lea’s map of 1682 and was closely developed.

The Mint Street area had been known as ’The Mint’. It was a slum area with privileges for debtors until The Mint in Southwark Act 1722 removed these rights. The area remained a slum until the 19th century.

The St Saviour’s Union Workhouse at Mint Street is thought to have provided Dickens with the model for the scene in Oliver Twist where the starving boy "asks for more". The workhouse in Mint Street dated back to 1729. In October 1731 it was reported that “there are now in it 68 Men, Women, and Children, of which all that are able, spin Mop-Yarn, and Yarn for Stockings, which are knit by the Women; and beside this Work, 25 Children are taught to read, and say their Catechism.”

»more

DECEMBER

2020

Barnes Cray
Barnes Cray is located on the Greater London border with Kent, bordering Dartford. Barnes Cray is named for the Barne family, who owned land here in the mid-18th century.

Up until the Victorian era it was a hamlet a kilometre downstream of Crayford where no more than sixteen homes were clustered. A calico-printing works drew water power from the culverted River Wansunt in early Victorian times, being later adapted for the manufacture of rubber goods, then felt and finally Brussels carpets. This carpet mill was demolished by 1890 and Barnes Cray House, the next largest building, was cleared by 1933, ending its days as a nursing home.

The remnants of the settlement became absorbed into Crayford with the building of a garden village to facilitate the expansion of Vickers’ armaments factory during the 1915 to 1919 period. Six hundred cottages were built in a variety of styles.

In 1920 the area became part of the Crayford Urban District of Kent (having previously been in Dartford Rural District).

Following Wo...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Dartford
Dartford lies at the heart of the Thames Gateway, one of the largest growth areas in the UK. Dartford is going through a period of great change with a rising population and extensive new commercial and residential development.

Originally a Roman settlement, Dartford is an old market town connected in history with Wat Tyler’s rebellion of 1381. Dartford was known at various times in its history as Darentford, Tarentford and Dorquentford.

The town centre boasts notable historic buildings. Holy Trinity Church dates from Norman times and has a mediaeval mural. The Royal Manor Gatehouse dates from the time of Henry VIII.

There is a museum and library in the town centre, which also has a wide range of shopping facilities. Two weekly markets are held in the town on Thursdays and Saturdays.

A number of ancient parishes lie to the south of the town, each of which has its own links with English history. Evidence of this can be seen in the many fine churches and old buildings that remain. Darenth Country Pa...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Parsifal Road, NW6
Parsifal Road runs from Finchley Road to Fortune Green Road. The land had belonged to the Flitcroft estate and the name Parsifal Road was approved in 1883.

New College was built at the eastern end in 1887. Between 1890 and 1897, 13 large detached and semi-detached houses were built in Parsifal Road.
»read full article

DECEMBER

2020

Barra Hall Park
Barra Hall Park is an 11 hectare formal park situated near the centre of Hayes. Barra Hall was originally a manor house, and formerly known as Grove House. In the late eighteenth century it was home to Harvey Combe, who became Lord Mayor of London in 1799. In 1871 was bought by Robert Reid, an auctioneer and surveyor who claimed descent from the Reids of Barra. After enlarging and refacing the building he changed its name to Barra Hall in 1875.

On 20 December 1923, Hayes Urban District Council bought Barra Hall and its grounds from then owner Ethel Penfold for £5700 in order to use it as a town hall.

The Barra Hall building was officially opened as town hall on 23 February 1924 and its grounds became a municipal park with playground, tennis courts and a paddling pool opened by music hall star Jessie Matthews. Barra Hall Park features ornamental lawns, recreational grass areas, rose and shrub beds, seasonal bedding and mature trees.
»read full article

DECEMBER

2020

Barons Keep, W14
Barons Keep is a gated community of flats off of Gliddon Road, Barons Court. Barons Keep was purpose-built block with communal gardens dating from 1937.

The area had been the western edge of the Gunter Estate - land purchased piecemeal by James Gunter from 1799 and mainly used as market gardens.

Barons Keep was built as a U-shaped range of blocks designed to look like an ocean-liner. The orientation of the buildings was chosen to provide each flat with a view over the open land on the other side of Gliddon Road. This was formerly St Paul’s School playing fields, but is now occupied by Hammersmith & Fulham West London College.
»read full article

DECEMBER

2020

Barnet Bypass, EN5
The Barnet Bypass, part of the A1, was opened in 1928. The Barnet Bypass is the northern extension of the 1926-built Great North Way. From Fiveways Corner (Mill Hill), the A41 and A1 continue together as Watford Way to Apex Corner where they separate, with the A41 turning west, and the A1 turning to run straight north as the Barnet Way / Barnet Bypass. This dual carriageway was part of a 1920–4 road improvement programme that was mentioned in parliament in 1928 as being completed by the end of that summer.

This route of the A1 was built to provide a way around busy Barnet - the previous routing - with its difficult hill.

The northbound carriageway passes the entrance to Scratchwood, an area of ancient forest which is now a local nature reserve, then crosses the A411 from Watford to Barnet at the Stirling Corner roundabout.

Past Stirling Corner, the A1 as the Barnet Bypass skirts Borehamwood, before turning northeast and running through open countryside to Bignell’s Corner. At Bignell’s ...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Barking Park
Barking Park covers just under 30 hectares to the east of Barking town centre. Barking Park was established in 1896 and was officially opened on 9 April 1898 by Councillor C. L. Beard JP, Chairman of Barking Town Urban District Council.

The park’s most significant feature is a 910 metre long boating lake on the north side of the park. Other facilities include tennis and basketball courts, two bowling greens (indoor and outdoor), a children’s playground, a waterpark, football pitches and a flower garden. A lido was built in 1931 but this was closed permanently in 1988.

Barking Park Light Railway, a miniature passenger railway in the park, opened in the early 1950s. The railway closed between 2005 and 2008 during a change of ownership.
»read full article

DECEMBER

2020

Brondesbury
Brondesbury was originally "Brand’s manor" - a small hamlet in Middlesex. Brondesbury was an ancient hamlet in Willesden parish owned by St.Paul’s Cathedral in medieval times.

A rural area for much of its history, some houses were built on Willesden Lane only in 1847. It was on a hill, which made it suitable for better quality housing and larger villas were built in Brondesbury. Several of them served as hostels for Belgian refugees during the First World War.

Brondesbury station opened on 2 January 1860 as Edgeware Road (Kilburn) station on the Hampstead Junction Railway. It was renamed several times: Edgware Road on 1 November 1865, Edgware Road and Brondesbury on 1 January 1872, Brondesbury (Edgware Road) on 1 January 1873 and finally Brondesbury on 1 May 1883.

A mill stood in adjacent Mapesbury, which was destroyed by fire in 1863. This incident led to the creation of a volunteer fire services in Kilburn.

In 1866 the parish of Christchurch, Brondesbury, was ...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

All Saints Notting Hill
All Saints church was designed by the Victorian Gothic revival pioneer William White, who was also a mountaineer, Swedish gymnastics enthusiast and anti-shaving campaigner. In 1852 the Reverend Walker bought 51 acres of Portobello farmland from Mary Anne and Georgina Charlotte Talbot. This covered the whole strip of North Kensington lying east of Portobello Lane, from Portobello farmhouse on the north to Lonsdale Road and Western Terrace on the south. On this land which joined the ‘Ladbrooke estate’, Walker commenced to build ‘a new town’ and erect an elaborate church to the memory of his parents.

The road on which the church was built was called St Columb’s Road, and the church was dedicated to St Ann, but the name of ‘All Saints’ was soon substituted.‘This ‘very stately and abnormal stone church, built after the model of that at St Columb’s Major in Cornwall was structurally completed in 1855, but owing to pecuniary difficulties was left without glass or furniture till 1861.’ Meanwhile it stood boarded up and weed-grown near a pond, the open ground behind being sometimes occupied by gypsies. A footpath which starte...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Greek Orthodox Church of All Saints
All Saints, Camden Town is a Greek Orthodox church known as the Greek Orthodox Church of All Saints. Camden Town was developed from the 1790s onwards in the then largely rural parish of St Pancras, on the northern fringe of London. The parish church was one of the oldest in England, but it had been neglected since the 14th century when most of the inhabitants of the parish had moved to Kentish Town in the northern part of the parish.

In 1822 a new parish church, St Pancras New Church, on Euston Road in the southern part of the parish, was consecrated, but it was intended mainly to serve the population in its immediate vicinity. In 1818 a Church Building Act had been passed by Parliament to facilitate the construction of new churches in London’s many new districts, including this one for Camden Town.

The church was built between 1822 and 1824 and was known as first as the Camden Chapel, then, unofficially, as St Stephen’s. It did not receive the dedication of All Saints until 1920. It was designed by the father and son team of William and Henry Inwood...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

The Steelyard
The Steelyard was the main trading base (kontor) of the Hanseatic League in London during 15th and 16th centuries. The word ’Steelyard’ derived from the Middle Low German Stalhof / Dutch Staalhof.

The Steelyard was located on the north bank of the Thames beside the outflow of the Walbrook, in the Dowgate ward of the City of London. The site is now covered by Cannon Street station and commemorated in the name of Steelyard Passage.

The first mention of a Hansa Almaniae (a "German Hansa") in English records is in 1282, concerning merely the community of the London trading post, only later to be made official as the Steelyard and confirmed in tax and customs concessions granted by Edward I, in a Carta Mercatoria ("merchant charter") of 1303.

The true power of the Hanse in English trade came much later, in the 15th century, as the German merchants, led by those of Cologne expanded their premises and extended their reach into the cloth-making industry of England. This led to constant friction over the legal position of English merchants in...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Agar Town
Agar Town was a short-lived area, built in the 1840s, of St Pancras. From 1789 the area was the private estate of William Agar of Elm Lodge. To contemporaries he was commonly called, ’Councillor Agar,’ and known as an eccentric and miserly lawyer. In the 1810s Agar fought a desperate battle to prevent the cutting of the Regent’s Canal through his property, although his underlying motive may simply have been to maximise the compensation he received.

William Agar died in 1838 and his widow soon began to grant building leases on part of the estate, while retaining Elm Lodge. The neighbourhood was started in 1841 with Agar’s widow leasing out small plots on the north side of the canal.
The 72 acre site was built of the lowest quality materials on 21 year leases. An area was a population of labourers living in houses they built for themselves, was generally considered a slum. Street names belied the type of area and included Canterbury Place, Durham Street, and Oxford Crescent.

The local vestry failed to provid...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Wells Street, W1D
Wells Street - ’Welses Lane’ - is first recorded in 1692. Wells Street is an old route, marking the boundary between former freeholds: the Cavendish–Harley, later Portland and then Howard de Walden estate to the west, and the smaller Berners estate to the east.

By the beginning of the eighteenth century, landuse in Marylebone was by no means purely agricultural. Clay and gravel pits abounded due to London’s encroachment, and a tenant of one of the eastern fields, George Wells, had been called a brickmaker as far back as 1658. Wells Lane or Street, named after him, was another old track, but did not connect with Oxford Street till the 1690s.

George Wells occupied the fields east of the lane, called Newlands, when they were bought by Josias Berners in 1654, and where he erected some long-vanished buildings.

Wells (‘Welses’) Lane is first recorded in 1692, when James Long, the Covent Garden inn-keeper and brewer interested in the lands to its west, got permission to create a short route from ...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Dorset Street, E1
Dorset Street was a small thoroughfare running east-west from Crispin Street to Commercial Street. Developed as a footpath across the south side of the ’Spital Field’ in 1674, originally known as Datchett Street after the Berkshire home of the Wheler family who owned much land in this area, the name was soon corrupted to Dorset Street.

By the mid 18th century, Dorset Street, like many others in the area, was the home of artisans and silk weavers, living and working in four-storey townhouses with attic workshops, however these prosperous times came to an end by the 1840s and many properties were turned into common lodging houses. A pub, the Blue Coat Boy, stood on the north side (first recorded in 1825, but thought to be considerably older), approximately half way along the street and is believed to be one of the first pubs to serve the nearby market. The Blue Coat Boy was later joined by two more pubs, The Horn of Plenty on the northern corner with Crispin Street and the Britannia, a beer house, on the corner with Commercial Street.

There were many...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Holland Park Avenue, W11
Holland Park Avenue is one of London’s most ancient thoroughfares. The Romans made Holland Park Avenue their main road into London from Silchester and the west, but it probably existed as an ancient British trackway long before that. In Roman times it ran through a densely forested area, part of the huge forest that was later known as the Forest of Middlesex (which according to a 12th century description was full of red and fallow deer, boars and wild bulls).

After the Romans left, the road appears to have deteriorated to such an extent that the then smaller parallel road to the south that is now High Street Kensington took over as the main way into London for travellers from the West of England. But the old road continued to be used by travellers from Oxford and Uxbridge, and until the 19th century it was known as the Uxbridge Road, or sometimes simply the “North Highway”.

From the Middle Ages onwards, the forest was gradually cleared, to be replaced by arable farmland and meadows. Gravel pits began to be worked a...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Royal Aeronautical Society
The Royal Aeronautical Society, also known as the RAeS, is a British-founded multidisciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community. The objectives of Society include: to support and maintain high professional standards in aerospace disciplines; to provide a unique source of specialist information and a local forum for the exchange of ideas; and to exert influence in the interests of aerospace in the public and industrial arenas.

The Society was founded in January 1866 with the name The Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. Early or founding members included James Glaisher, Francis Wenham, the Duke of Argyll, and Frederick Brearey. In the first year, there were 65 members. In 1868 the Society held a major exhibition at London’s Crystal Palace - John Stringfellow’s steam engine was shown there. The Society sponsored the first wind tunnel in 1870-71, designed by Wenham and Browning.

In 1918, the organization’s name was changed to the Royal Aeronautical Society.

During the 1940s, the RAeS responded to the wartime need to expand the aircraft industry. The Socie...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

West Ham
West Ham is a district in East London, located just over six miles east of Charing Cross. West Ham was an administrative unit, with largely consistent boundaries, from the 12th century to the formation of the London Borough of Newham in 1965. The area was originally a manor in the county of Essex, then an ancient parish and ultimately a county borough.

A settlement is first recorded as Hamme in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 958 and then in the 1086 Domesday Book as Hame. The name means ’a dry area of land between rivers or marshland’, referring to the location of the settlement within boundaries formed by the rivers Lea, Thames and Roding and their marshes. The earliest recorded use of West Ham, as distinct from East Ham, is in 1186 as Westhamma.

The boundary between West and East Ham was the now lost Hamfrith Waste and Hamfrith Wood in the north (then the southernmost parts of Epping Forest). There was a small natural harbour known as Ham Creek.

West Ham underwent rapid growth from 1844 following the Metro...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Old Kent Road, SE1
The Old Kent Road is famous as the cheapest property on the London Monopoly board. The route of Old Kent Road is one of the oldest trackways in England and was first metalled by the Romans as the road from Dover to Londinium. The Saxons later called this Watling Street. Chaucer’s pilgrims travelled along this route from London and Southwark on their way to Canterbury.

Although the name appears as simply Old Kent Road on maps, it is usually referred to by Londoners as The Old Kent Road. The Old Kent Road runs from the Bricklayers’ Arms roundabout, where it meets the New Kent Road, Tower Bridge Road, and Great Dover Street, to New Cross Road, which begins a little to the east of the mainline railway bridge - the change in street-name is coincident with the border with Lewisham borough. Before the county of London was created this would have been the boundary between Surrey and Kent, hence the change in name.

At the junction with the presently named Shornecliff Road (previously Thomas Street) was the bridge crossing of S...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Tenter Ground
Tenter Ground harks back to the seventeenth century when this patch of land was surrounded by weavers’ houses and workshops and used to wash and stretch their fabrics on ’tenters’ to dry. The ground was established by the French Protestant Huguenot weavers, who had fled to Spitalfields from Catholic persecutors in France during the seventeenth century.

This area was bounded in the seventeenth century by Lolesworth field and the Wheler estate on the north, Wentworth Street and the hamlet boundary on the south, Rose Lane on the east and Bell Lane on the west. The bounding streets on the south, east and west were built up by the 1640s and the northern boundary was formed into the south side of White’s Row in about 1650. The central plot of ground remained open, however, until the second decade of the nineteenth century and was the last part of Spitalfields to be formed into streets.

In 1550 the area had, like the later Fossan and Halifax estates to the east and west, formed part of two closes in the Manor of Stepney lying between Hog Lane (Middlesex Street) and Brick Lane. By about 1642 it was, like the Fossan estate, held on lease by Willi...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Hewer Street, W10
Built as part of the St Charles’ estate in the 1870s, it originally between Exmoor Street to a former street called Raymede Street. Alfred Hewer was the Secretary of the Land and House Investment Society, which developed the fields of Portobello Farm into streets in the 1860s.

Ernest Walsh, contributing as part of the BBC People’s War in 2004 wrote about Hewer Street:

I was 17 years old when the following incident happened and was living in Notting Hill.

The street shelters were erected just after the outbreak of war. The low square buildings were fitted with bunks to sleep 10 persons and were sited along the road-side.
For nearly two years since 1940,vhen the raids on London really started, the brick built shelters had been our sleeping quartets; built mainly to protect civilians from shrapnel and falling masonry.

As soon as the warning sounded, the family would gather bedding, tea-pot and kettle, and settle down for the night; knowing that there would be no reprieve until the dawn. No luxuries, such as running water, toilet facilities or li...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Chiswick High Road, W4
Chiswick High Road is the main road through Chiswick. Chiswick was a riverside village that got its name, rather unglamorously, from the Old English for ‘cheese farm’ because of an association with an annual cheese fair.

Chiswick was known chiefly for Chiswick House, near its centre, and for 18th- and 19th-century buildings at Chiswick village, referred to as Old Chiswick, and Strand-on-the-Green, respectively at the eastern and western ends of a loop in the Thames.

The parish’s main settlements, lying near its edges, were separated until the 19th century by fields, gardens, and parkland. Forerunners of the existing Chiswick House, which was created by the earl of Burlington (d. 1753) and enlarged by his Cavendish heirs, the dukes of Devonshire, lay between Chiswick village and, to the northwest, Little Sutton and Turnham Green.

The parish had offered a country retreat for Henry VI and later for prelates in the 15th century and for courtiers and the scholars of Westminster from the 16t...
»more

DECEMBER

2020

Isleworth Ait
Isleworth Ait is a teardrop-shaped island in the River Thames of just under 4 hectares in area. Also known as Isleworth Eyot, the long Isleworth Ait is on the Tideway facing Old Isleworth and the towpath alongside the Royal Mid-Surrey Golf Club.

Isleworth Ait was once a centre for the production of osier - a willow which used to be harvested on the island to weave baskets to carry fruit and vegetables grown in Middlesex to the markets in London. Much of the island has resulted with the combination of five pre-19th century neighbouring islands, overall covering a broader area and partially reduced by river erosion intensified by passing boat traffic.

The island faces Heron’s Place and a number of commercial buildings.

The islet is covered with densely packed trees, and provides a sanctuary for a variety of wildlife. It is home to more than 57 species of bird life, including the tree-creeper, kingfisher and heron. Two rare species of air-breathing land gastropods also live on the island, the two-lipped door snail Balea biplicata<...
»more

DECEMBER
3
2020

Hampstead Road, NW1
Hampstead Road connects the Euston Road with Camden. There was until the reign of William IV, a rustic corner of the outskirts of London between King’s Cross and St John’s Wood.

The prætorium of one Roman camp was visible where Barnsbury Terrace is now and the remains of another were situated opposite old St Pancras Church. Herds of cattle grazed at Rhodes Farm near where Euston station is now. In 1707 there were no streets west of Tottenham Court Road and one cluster of houses only, besides the ’Spring Water House’ nearly half a century later, at which time what is now the Euston Road was still part of an expanse of verdant fields.

In the reign of George IV, as Samuel Palmer writes in his History of St. Pancras: "the rural lanes, hedge side roads, and lovely fields made Camden Town the constant resort of those who, busily engaged during the day in the bustle of . . . London, sought its quietude and fresh air to re-invigorate their spirits. Then the old ’Mother Red Cap’ was the e...
»more

DECEMBER
2
2020

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...
»more

DECEMBER
1
2020

Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. 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.
»read full article

MAP YEAR:	1750	1800	1810	1820	1830	1860	1900	1950	2023	Show map without markers
ZOOM:	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17 18	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17 18
	TIP: To create your own sharable map, right click on the map

PREVIOUSLY ON THE UNDERGROUND MAP...