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

APRIL

2021

Abbey Road
Not a zebra crossing in sight. Abbey Road DLR station is built on the original route of the Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway which opened between Stratford and Canning Town stations in 1846. The line became part of what is now known as the North London Line in 1979. The Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway had four tracks over this section of route. The western pair were redeveloped as part of an extension to the London Underground’s Jubilee Line in 1999 and the eastern pair, which carried the North London Line service, were cut back at Stratford in 2006. The tracks were converted for use as part of the Docklands Light Railway.

The area between Canning Town and Stratford has been identified for major regeneration and new development as part of the Lower Lea Valley. The street that it serves is named after the nearby Stratford Langthorne Abbey.

The station is nowhere near the other, better-known Abbey Road of Beatles fame, with the celebrated zebra crossing near St...
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APRIL

2021

Stratford High Street
Stratford High Street is a DLR station and the location of an earlier station from 1847 to 1957, known initially as Stratford Bridge and later as Stratford Market. The first station on the Stratford High Street site was opened as Stratford Bridge on 14 June 1847 between Stratford and Canning Town stations. In 1879, the Great Eastern Railway opened a wholesale fruit and vegetable market at Stratford to rival Spitalfields Market, and the station was renamed Stratford Market on 1 November 1880.

The line through the station site to North Woolwich closed in December 2006 for works to start on conversion of the North London line to DLR operation. The station reopened as Stratford High Street as part of the Stratford International extension on 31 August 2011.

The original red brick station buildings from the original station still stand on the south side of Stratford High Street.
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APRIL

2021

Market Square, BR1
Bromley was granted a market charter in 1205 and the square dates from then. Bromley’s very first charter was granted by King Ethelbert of Kent in 862.

A traditional wooden market building lay at the centre of Market Square until the 1830s. The building had open sides where the market would take place.

This structure was replaced by the ’Old New Town Hall’, built by Coles-Child.

In 1933, the narrow row of houses and shops between the High Street and Market Square were demolished and replaced by Arts and Crafts buildings.
»read full article

APRIL

2021

Jubilee Crescent, E14
Jubilee Crescent was built in 1935 by architect G R Unthank. Local ship repairing firm, R. & H. Green & Silley Weir Ltd were based in Blackwall and were part of a long shipbuilding tradition. R. and H. Green Ltd was formed from the long-established Blackwall firm of Wigram and Green who were famous shipbuilders in the 19th century, however with the decline of Thames shipbuilding in the early 20th century, R. & H. Green became part of a ship repairing partnership called R. and H. Green and Silley Weir.

It was the chairman of the firm, John Silley, who was determined to provide homes for retired workers of the shipbuilding and repairing industries. John Silley was a committed Christian who contributed toward the YMCA and numerous other charities. Silley had already built some dwellings for his workers in Falmouth and chose the Isle of Dogs to build a series of dwellings.

Silley approached the Port of London Authority and persuaded them to give him 1.5 acres on the edge of the Mudchute in exchange for some land ow...
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APRIL

2021

Monza Street, E1W
Monza Street lies south of the Shadwell Basin. Shadwell Basin was formerly part of the London Docks and nowadays is one the most significant bodies of water surviving from the historical period.

Monza Street was originally called Star Street and, like other nearby streets, contained small chandlers and other maritime shops.

As Fiona Rule notes in ’London’s Docklands: A History of the Lost Quarter’, by the 1880s, most of the shops had disappeared and in Star Street, lightermen advertised their services on small brass plaques fixed to the front doors of their homes.
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APRIL

2021

Aldwych, WC2B
The name Aldwych derives from the Old English eald and wic meaning ’old trading town’ or ’old marketplace’; the name was later applied to the street and district. In the seventh century, an Anglo-Saxon village and trading centre named Lundenwic (’London trading town’) was established here approximately one mile to the west of Londinium. Lundenwic probably used the mouth of the River Fleet as a harbour or anchorage for trading ships and fishing boats. It was recorded as Aldewich in 1211 but then the name Aldwych largely disappeared from history for some 800 years.

The Aldwych and Kingsway scheme was the London County Council’s first large urban improvement scheme in central London. It was opened in 1905 and signalled the council’s vision of London as a modern city of tree-lined boulevards, office blocks and free-flowing traffic.

There had long been calls for a new route for traffic between Holborn and Fleet Street, but it was not until the London County Council came into existence that the scheme took shape. A new road was proposed between Holborn and Fleet Street. The slum properties ...
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APRIL

2021

Woodcote Valley Road, CR8
Woodcote Valley Road falls within the boundary of William Webb’s Garden Estate at Woodcote. The Webb Estate was built by William Webb from 1898. Webb was a local estate agent and spent his lifetime developing his Garden Estate idea.

He designed Woodcote Valley Road to lead to his 1903 model village, Upper Woodcote Village, in the south-western corner of the Webb Estate.

At the centre is a four acre green.

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APRIL

2021

Amen Court, EC4M
Many of the highways and byways around the precincts of St Paul’s Cathedral bear names which have ecclesiastical origins. It is very likely that Amen Court housed the scribes and letter writers employed in writing the great volumes of the Cathedral.

Reputedly built by Sir Christopher Wren, Amen Court is a secluded solace hidden away behind Ave Maria Lane. This little Court contains the late 17th century houses of the residentiary cannons of St Paul’s Cathedral, some of which still retain the original torch-light extinguishers, positioned by their doors. One or two are further graced with old iron foot scrapers. Tucked away at the far end a pretty garden adds the finishing touches to this tranquil setting.

Before the Great Fire, the ground on which Amen Court is constructed was occupied by the Oxford Arms, one of the many galleried coaching inns of the City. All were built on a similar style where the galleried rooms, usually of two storeys, bordered three sides of the court and the fourth side was built up with stabling. In the Oxford Arms courtyard the stables lay on the ...
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APRIL

2021

Allington Street, SW1E
Allington Street was named after Allington in Lincolnshire. Allington Street is first found in 1827, a year when a rash of new streets and terraces appeared in the future Victoria area.

They were all named, and for no apparent reason, after towns scattered over the country: Allington (Lincs), Stockbridge (Hants), Shaftesbury (Dorset), Bedford, Trelleck (Mon), Pembroke, Hindon (Wilts) and Howick (Lanes). Names of towns were a common source of street names among uninspired builders.

Apart from Allington Street and Howick Place, they have all since disappeared.
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APRIL

2021

Allcroft Road, NW5
Allcroft Road was built between 1862 and 1870 to links Queen’s Crescent with roads to the south. The church of St Martin’s was built in 1865 at the expense of John D. Allcroft. Allcroft was a wealthy Shropshire gentleman who was concerned about the spiritual welfare of the hundreds of workers and artisans moving into the developing neighbourhood. A memorial to him was erected in the church after his death in 1893.

J. Sainsbury built an important North London depot in Allcroft Road in the 1880s.

After Second World War devastation in the area, the northern section of the road went under the bulldozer and disappeared.
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APRIL

2021

Barfett Street, W10
Barfett Street is a street on the Queen’s Park Estate, W10 Barfett Street forms part of the Queens Park Estate, built by the Artisans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company.

The Artisans Company’s first project was Shaftesbury Park, a development of 1,200 two-storey houses covering 42.5 acres built in 1872 on the site of a former pig farm in Battersea. The success of Shaftesbury Park led to the construction of Queen’s Park, built in 1874 on a far more ambitious scale on 76 acres of land to the west of London, adjacent to the railway line out of Paddington (Queen’s Park station opened in 1879), purchased from All Souls College, Oxford.

The architecture of that estate of some 2000 small houses is distinctively Gothic-revival, with polychrome brickwork, pinnacles and turrets along the bigger roads.

Barfett Street was originally called "B Street" since the Estate had street names of numbers and letters: Avenues 1-6 and streets A-P.
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APRIL

2021

Forest Hill
Forest Hill was sparsely populated until the coming of the railway in the mid-19th century. The name Forest Hill, originally simply ’The Forest’, referred to the woodland which once covered the area and which was a relict of the Great North Wood.

While in 1809, the Croydon Canal opened, however, the large number of locks meant it was not a commercial success, and it was bought by the London & Croydon Railway Company (L&CR) who used the alignment to construct the London Bridge to Croydon railway line. The local station was opened by the London & Croydon on 5 June 1839, as Dartmouth Arms (the name of the local inn).

When the Crystal Palace was moved from Hyde Park to Sydenham in 1854, many large homes were built on the western end of Forest Hill along with Honor Oak. In 1884, London’s oldest swimming pool was constructed on Dartmouth Road. The tea merchant Frederick Horniman built a museum to house his collection of natural history artifacts. He donated the building and its gardens to the public in 1901 and this became the Horniman M...
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APRIL

2021

Greenwich
Greenwich is a town, now part of the south eastern urban sprawl of London, on the south bank of the River Thames. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian (0° longitude) and Greenwich Mean Time. The town became the site of a royal palace, the Palace of Placentia from the 15th century, and was the birthplace of many Tudors, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The palace fell into disrepair during the English Civil War and was demolished to be replaced by the Royal Naval Hospital for Sailors, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and his assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor. These buildings became the Royal Naval College in 1873, and they remained a military education establishment until 1998 when they passed into the hands of the Greenwich Foundation. The historic rooms within these buildings remain open to the public; other buildings are used by University of Greenwich and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

The town became a popular resort in the 18th century and many grand houses were built there, such as Vanbrugh Castle es...
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APRIL

2021

West Smithfield, EC1A
West Smithfield is the oldest street of the Smithfield area. Smithfield and its market was founded in 1137. The ancient parish of St Sepulchre extended north to Turnmill Street, to St Paul’s Cathedral and Ludgate Hill in the south, and along the east bank of the Fleet (now the route of Farringdon Street). St Sepulchre’s Tower contains the twelve ’bells of Old Bailey’, referred to in the nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons". Traditionally, the Great Bell was rung to announce the execution of a prisoner at Newgate.

A livestock market was in the area as early as the 10th century.

As a large open space close to the City, Smithfield was a popular place for public gatherings. In 1374 Edward III held a seven-day tournament at Smithfield. Possibly the most famous medieval tournament at Smithfield was that commanded in 1390 by Richard II.

The Priory of St Bartholomew had long treated the sick. After the Reformation it was left with neither income nor monastic occupants but, following a petition by the C...
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APRIL

2021

Old Ford Road, E3
Old Ford Road stretches two and a quarter miles from Bethnal Green to Bow. Old Ford Road represents two separate ways from different points to the sometime passage across the Lee, one being from the west, the other from the south, which in meeting converged with a third from the north which is known now as Wick Lane, the communication with Hackney.

In ancient times the estuary of the river Lee extended as far as Hackney Wick, and during the period when the Romans were in Britain the marshes which lay above it and on either side were crossed in the direction of Leyton by a stone causeway of which portions have been found, but of any contemporary road leading to it no traces have been discovered, although Roman remains were unearthed in 1868 in the coal and goods yard attached to Old Ford Station. The probability is that there was no military highway of massive construction such as those found elsewhere, but a track formed by use which led through woods and over the open fields to the first fordable place on the river Lee or Lea, a name derived ...
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APRIL

2021

Crossharbour
Crossharbour is a station on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) Bank-Lewisham Line in Cubitt Town. The station opened as ’Crossharbour’ on 31 August 1987 but was renamed in 1994 to ’Crossharbour and London Arena’. After the neighbouring London Arena was demolished in 2006, the original name was reinstated. Just to the north of the current station, the London and Blackwall Railway built Millwall Docks station. This operated between 1871 and 1926.

The ’cross harbour’ name refers to the nearby Glengall Bridge across Millwall Inner Dock. The bridge’s construction was a neccessity for the developers to obtain planning approval for the dock when it was built in 1868.

In 1969 Tower Hamlets council completed the St John’s estate on the Cubitt Town side of the station. The project was begun 17 years earlier by Poplar Borough Council.
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APRIL

2021

Narrow Street, E14
Narrow Street is a road running parallel to the River Thames through the Limehouse area. Many archaeologists believe that Narrow Street represents the line of the medieval river wall. This wall was built to reclaim riverside marshland and to protect it from the tides.

A combination of tides and currents made this point on the Thames a natural landfall for ships. The first wharf was complete in 1348. Lime kilns or oasts (’lymehostes’) used in the production of mortar and pottery were built here in the fourteenth century.

Houses were then built, on the wall itself at first, but then outwards onto the foreshore by a process of encroachment. Indeed, the eastern end of Narrow Street was previously known as Fore Street.

The area grew rapidly in Elizabethan times as a centre for world trade. The neighbourhood supplied ships with ropes and other necessities; pottery was also made here for the ships. Ship chandlers settled here building wooden houses and wharves in the cramped space between street and river.

By the t...
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APRIL

2021

Westminster Bridge, SE1
Westminster Bridge links Westminster on the west side with Lambeth on the east side. Westminster Bridge was built between 1739–1750 under the supervision of Swiss engineer Charles Labelye.

For over 600 years, the nearest Thames bridge to London Bridge had been at Kingston. A bridge at Westminster was proposed in 1664, but opposed by both the Corporation of London and watermen. A bridge was built at Putney in 1729 and the Westminster Bridge scheme finally received parliamentary approval in 1736. Financed by private capital, lotteries and grants, Westminster Bridge opened on 18 November 1750.

The bridge assisted the development of south London. Roads on both sides of the river were built and improved, including Charing Cross Road and the area around the Elephant & Castle.

By the mid-19th century the bridge was subsiding badly and expensive to maintain. The current bridge was designed by Thomas Page and opened on 24 May 1862. Since the removal of Rennie’s New London Bridge in 1967 it is the oldest road structure which cros...
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APRIL

2021

Orange Square
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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APRIL

2021

Aste Street, E14
Aste Street is a short street which once connected the western ends of Roffey Street and Judkin Street. There had been a housing boom in Cubitt Town which finished in 1867. A housing slump continued for over a decade before a revival of activity during the 1880s.

In 1882 the Millwall Dock Company produced a plan to set out Aste Street, Judkin Street, Muggeridge Street and Roffey Street in an area behind East Ferry Road. The plan was approved but barely carried out as planned with only ten houses being built in Judkin Street.

Muggeridge Street, Roffey Street and Aste Street were not started by 1902. Muggeridge Street was abandoned in 1904 and in 1908 it was agreed that much of Roffey Street and Aste Street would not continue as planned.

Aste Street is now a street with modern housing in keeping with the later Canary Wharf ’style’.
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APRIL

2021

Dollis Hill
Dollis Hill tube station lies on the Jubilee Line, between Willesden Green and Neasden. Metropolitan Line trains pass though the station, but do not stop. The Dollis Hill Estate was formed in the early 19th century, when the Finch family bought up a number of farms in the area to form a single estate. Dollis Hill House itself was built in the 1820s.

William Ewart Gladstone, the UK Prime Minister, was a frequent visitor to Dollis Hill House in the late 19th century. The year after his death, 1899, Willesden Council acquired much of the Dollis Hill Estate for use as a public park, which was named Gladstone Park.

Mark Twain stayed in Dollis Hill House in the summer of 1900. He wrote that ’Dollis Hill comes nearer to being a paradise than any other home I ever occupied’.

With the advent of a station at Dollis Hill in 1909, the area began to urbanise. It became a suburban area favoured by Jewish Londoners moving out of the East End - its synagogue opened in 1938.

The code-breaking Colossus computer, used at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, was built at the Post Off...
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APRIL

2021

Norfolk Street, WC2R
Norfolk Street ran from the Strand in the north to the River Thames and, after the Victoria Embankment was built (1865–1870), to what is now Temple Place. Norfolk Street was built on an area originally occupied by Arundel House and its gardens. This was the property of the Howard family, Dukes of Norfolk. Norfolk Street and its neighbouring streets - Arundel Street, Howard Street and Surrey Street - were all built after Arundel House was demolished by the earl in 1678.

10 Norfolk Street was Hastings House, home to the Women Writers’ Club from 1894. The early literary agent A. P. Watt practised there. The Middle Classes Defence Organisation was also based in this building.

Oswaldestre House was at 33 Norfolk Street. The name refers to the another title of the Duke of Norfolk, Baron Oswaldestre. of the Dukes of Norfolk. Oswaldestre House was associated with radio technology. The Western Electric Company had an early radio station (2WP) in the building in 1922.

Former inhabitants of Norfolk Street included writers Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alfred Tennyson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Washington ...
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APRIL

2021

Clarendon Crescent, W2
Clarendon Crescent was said to be the longest road in London without a turning. By 1861 Desborough Lodge and Westbourne Farm had been demolished and Clarendon Street, Woodchester Street and Cirencester Street were build on their lands.

There was a rapid social decline in the streets between the railway and the canal. Subletting to weekly lodgers had made Brindley Street the most overcrowded in Paddington, with over 3 people to a room. By 1869, when the worst areas were near the canal basin at Paddington Green.

Clarendon Street (later Crescent) had 17 people per house on average. Subletting had gone so far that a room might have different tenants by day and by night and could only be controlled by declaring buildings to be lodging houses. Such decay was attributed in 1899 to the canal, as elsewhere in London, to isolation arising from a lack of through traffic and to the density of building.

The road was renamed from Clarendon Street to Clarendon Crescent, probably as part of the 1937 London-wide renaming scheme.
...
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APRIL

2021

Playford Road, N4
Playford Road was built in 1869/1870. Playford Road was originally Palmerston Road and name after Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, (1784-1865), Prime Minister, February 1855 to February 1858 and from 1859 to November 1865.

However Playford Road itself commemorates John Playford (1623-86) who had a 20 roomed house in Islington High Street. His wife kept a
boarding school for young ladies, opposite to the parish church. His son was baptised there on 6 October 1665. In 1650-1 appeared his ’The English Dancing Master, or Plaine and Easie Rules for the Dancing of Country Dances, with the Time to Each Dance’. This work ran to no less than 18 editions up to 1725.

Clifton Court was built in Playford Road during 1968.

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APRIL

2021

Boxall Road, SE21
Boxall Road was formerly Boxall Row. In about 1773, wheelwright John Shaw and builder William Levens built six brick houses at the eastern end (starting with a wheelwright’s shop), for Robert Boxall, lessee of ’The Greyhound’ Inn. The road was gradually extended westward, to link up with Turney Road in the late 1870s.

Dulwich Village was expanding rapidly by the late 1870s and this brought work for gardeners, cooks and other occupations that tended to the needs of the wealthy. There was an increasing shortage of accommodation for the low-paid.

One of the Governors of Dulwich College therefore set up the Dulwich Cottage Company Ltd (DCCL) to provide low rental housing for those who attended to the richer homes of Dulwich. It acquired land from Dulwich College Estate that faced onto Boxall Row.

Cottages in Boxall Road were designed by Charles Barry Jnr, architect to the Dulwich Estate, in the ’Dutch/German’ style designed to blend in with the character of the locality, despite being smaller.
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2021

Ethelburga Street, SW11
Ethelburga Street was named after Saint Æthelburh (Ethelburga), founder and first Abbess of Barking. Ethelburga was the sister of Earconwald, Bishop of London. Earconwold founded a double monastery at Barking for his sister, and a monastery at Chertsey for himself. Barking appears to have already been established by the time of the plague in 664 AD.

Ethelburga had been at some time based in a manor which was sited in what became Battersea Park near to Albert Bridge Road.

Before Battersea Bridge was built around 1771, the area contained scattered houses, lanes and tracks. Once lane which then stretched right across the modern Battersea Park was Marsh Lane. The section across the park disappeared but the remainder of Marsh Lane was made into Ethelburga Street in 1871. At the time, the street stretched from Battersea Bridge Road to Albert Bridge Road.

A house called Park House (now demolished) was built in 1873 at the (north) corner of Ethelburga Street and Battersea Bridge Road for Benjamin Cooke, a builder who built a lot of Battersea.
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2021

Bevington Road, W10
Bevington Road is a street in North Kensington, London W10 It runs from Golborne Road in the northwest and formerly ran on to Acklam Road - today though it ends in a cul-de-sac.

At the western end, a pub called the Carnarvon Castle separated it from Portobello Road. Also near that end is Bevington Primary School, built on the site of a former side street called Angola Mews.
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2021

College Crescent, NW3
College Crescent was built by the Eyre family. The Eyre family were local landowners and became keen to promote building. In 1794 a plan was drawn up on the model of Bath, with a crescent, circus and a square. The plan was never executed but from 1802 development on the Eyre estate was directed by John Shaw, a young architect inspired by the town-planning ideals of the late 18th century. In 1803-4 he exhibited views of a projected circus and in 1807 building began on the Marylebone portion.

In 1819 Col. Eyre began the first of several attempts to promote the construction of a public road through his estate, ultimately successful in the Finchley Road Act of 1826. Finchley New Road and Avenue Road, the southern part of which existed by 1824, went northward into the Hampstead portion of Eyre’s land and were built by 1829. The Swiss Cottage tavern was built at the apex of the two roads by 1841.

College Crescent was then laid out in the 1840s, and by 1852 the first thirteen houses had been built there. T...
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2021

Marble Arch
Marble Arch station was opened on 30 July 1900 by the Central London Railway. Like all the original stations on the CLR, Marble Arch was served by lifts to the platforms but the station was reconstructed in the early 1930s to accommodate escalators. This saw the closure of the original station building, designed by the architect Harry Bell Measures, that was situated on the corner of Quebec Street and Oxford Street, and a replacement sub-surface ticket hall opened further to the west. The new arrangements came into use on 15 August 1932. The original surface building was later demolished.

The platforms, originally lined in plain white tiles, were refitted with decorative vitreous enamel panels in 1985. The panel graphics were designed by Annabel Grey.

The station was modernised in 2010 resulting in new finishes in all areas of the station, apart from the retention of various of the decorative enamel panels at platform level.
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2021

Collingwood Street, E2
Collingwood Street was at the heart of the Old Nicol rookery. In 1680, John Nichol of Gray’s Inn leased just over four acres of gardens for 180 years to a London mason, Jon Richardson, with permission to dig for bricks. The land became built up piecemeal with houses. Many of the local streets were named after Nichol.

At least 22 houses were built in Old Nichol Street in 1801-2, probably on the sites of 17th-century ones.

An area of this was named Friar’s Mount probably after James Fryer who farmed it in the 1720s. Friar’s Mount was sold to Sanderson Turner Sturtevant, a tallow chandler who was leasing out ground on the west side of Turk Street by 1804. A John Gadenne was building on the west side of Mount Street in 1807. Mount Street, from Rose Street to Virginia Row, existed by 1806. Nelson Street and Collingwood Streets ran west from Mount Street by 1807.

A garden - Kemp’s Garden - was taken for building at about the same time. Mead built nine houses in Mead Street in 1806 and others were un...
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