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Featured · * ·
MARCH
19
2024
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.


Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence


Click here to explore another London street
We now have 664 completed street histories and 46836 partial histories
Find streets or residential blocks within the M25 by clicking STREETS


FEBRUARY
27
2015

 

Frognal, NW3
A road called Frognal runs from Church Row in Hampstead downhill to Finchley Road and follows the course of a stream which goes on to form the River Westbourne. In 1878, Frognal was described as a beautiful suburban village, full of gentlemen’s seats. In 1903 it still had an air of affluence but was overlooked by ’many windowed, scarlet-faced mansions’ and had lost its ’aimless paths and trees’. Building had covered most of the frontage to the road, old as well as new, and was encroaching on the large private gardens.

Frognal has a diverse architecture, with many architecturally notable buildings. The central area, lacking large council estates, has undergone less change than some other parts of Hampstead. University College School, an independent day school founded in 1830, relocated to Frognal (the road) in 1907. Frognall Grove, Grade II listed, (1871–72) was large house inherited by the architect George Edmund Street, who made additions to it. It was later subdivided into four semi-detached houses.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
26
2015

 

Hackney College
The Village Itinerancy Society, a Congregationalist college, was transformed into Hackney Theological Seminary. This was renamed as Hackney College in 1871 and later relocated from its origins in Hackney to a new building in Hampstead.

New College, another institution, and Hackney College became constituents of the University of London’s Faculty of Theology when the faculty was created in 1900. They were united by Act of Parliament in 1924 as Hackney and New College, which was renamed New College, London in 1936.

New buildings were erected behind the Hackney College premises at Hampstead, and were opened in 1938.

When, in 1972, most English Congregational churches joined the newly formed United Reformed Church (URC), and only a small number remained independent, the New College’s work was reorganised. In 1976, its library was donated to Dr Williams’s Library. Since 1981, the work of the college has been continued by the New College London Foundation, which trains ministers for the URC and Congregational churches.

After closure in...
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FEBRUARY
25
2015

 

Sandwell House
Sandwell House was owned by three generations of the Wachter family. In 1655 William Hitchcock, merchant tailor, built a 'mansion house' to the south of what was later known as Sandwell.

Sandwell was held by three generations of Wachters, London merchants, possibly Jews, from c. 1649 to 1686.

By 1762, a Mr Armine Snoxell owned the house and stabling.

As West Hampstead developed at the turn of the 20th century, the house was demolished and Sandwell Mansions constructed on the site.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
24
2015

 

Hillfield
By 1644 Hillfield was already mentioned in parish records. Richard Gibbs, a goldsmith, acquired Hillfield on the east side of West End (or Kilburn) Lane, north of Jacksfield, together with two houses in 1644.

One may have been the decayed brick house purchased from Gibbs before 1663 by the father of Matthew Blueh, a Chancery clerk.

The Hillfield estate was held by another Londoner in 1685 and the house was 'new fronted and much beautified and another house built' after 1703 by Henry Binfield.

Both houses, with their coach houses, were owned by Mary Binfield in 1762. One was West End Hall and the other possibly Treherne House.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
24
2015

 

Kensal Green
Kensal Green, site of England’s oldest cemetery still in use. Kensal Green is the site of Kensal Green Cemetery, the oldest English cemetery still in operation, which contains many elaborate Victorian mausoleums, including those of William Makepeace Thackeray and Anthony Trollope.

Kensal Green is now a residential area with good transport links to central London, surrounding districts include Willesden Green to the north, Harlesden to the west, Brondesbury and Queens Park to the east and Ladbroke Grove to the south. The names Kensal Green and Kensal Rise are used somewhat interchangeably by non-residents to denote the same district, although residents differentiate between the areas based on proximity to the local tube and railway stations.

Roughly speaking, the area west of Chamberlayne Road, north of Harrow Road and south of Kensal Rise railway station is considered Kensal Green while that to the east of Chamberlayne Road and north of the station is considered Kensal Rise. These boundaries are by no means fixed h...
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FEBRUARY
23
2015

 

East Row, W10
East Row is a road with a long history within Kensal Town. The first settlements of Kensal New Town were in place by 1840, including East Row, Middle Row, West Row and South Row. At the beginning, the area was known as a laundry colony, that being the main occupation of the neighbourhood.

Kensal New Town in those days had something of a rural character, with many people keeping pigs.

The village had six public houses.

Things began to change quickly after the opening of the Hammersmith and City Railway and the station on Ladbroke Grove (originally called Notting Hill) in 1864. That meant that people who were working in the City could now commute from Notting Hill and this stimulated the building of houses, shops and pubs on the farmland to the south.

In the 1870s, what had been a footpath leading from Portobello Road to Kensal Road was turned into a road which became Golborne Road.

The cottages depicted in the photograph were unusually run-down and small, e...
»more


FEBRUARY
23
2015

 

Gas Light and Coke Company
The gasometers of the Gas Light and Coke company dominated North Kensington until demolition in the late 20th century. In 1845 the Western Gas Company had opened a gasworks on land, previously the property of Sir George Talbot, with frontages to both the canal and the railway.

Taken over by the Gas Light and Coke Company (also known as the Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company) was a company that made and supplied coal gas and coke. It is identified as the original company from which British Gas plc is descended.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
22
2015

 

Exmoor Street (1950)
Photographed just after the Second World War, looking north along Exmoor Street. A bomb had demolished many of the houses of St Charles Square, in the right foreground. The western end of Rackham Street can be seen behind on the right. The gasometer which dominated the area, survived the war, finally demolished in the 1980s.

With all the bomb damage meaning unhabitable housing, the streets are largely empty of people.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
21
2015

 

Woodbine Cottage
Woodbine Cottage was situated at the south-eastern corner of the Flitcroft estate. It was probably built in the 1860s and was home to the Eley family and later of the society beauty, Mrs Laura Thistlethwayte. In 1895 Lyncroft Gardens was constructed through the site of the cottage and its grounds.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
20
2015

 

Hudson’s the chemist (1906)
Hudson’s, a chemist shop, stood on the corner of Ilbert Street and Third Avenue in the Queen’s Park estate. The Queens Park Estate was built from 1874 by the Artisans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company. It stretches from Kilburn Lane down to the Harrow Road. The architecture of the estate of some 2000 small houses is distinctively Gothic-revival, with polychrome brickwork, pinnacles and turrets along the bigger roads.

It retains First Avenue, Second Avenue etc up to Sixth Avenue, and originally had streets A-P. The street names have been made into full words, (Alperton Street, Barfett Street, Caird Street, Droop Street, Enbrook Street, Farrant Street, Galton Street, Huxley Street, Ilbert Street, Kilravock Street, Lothrop Street, Marne Street, Nutbourne Street, Oliphant Street, Peach Street).

It was on this estate that the first QPR footballers had their homes.

This photograph dates from 1906.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
19
2015

 

West End Hall
West End Hall (once called New West End Hall) was one of the mansions of West End (West Hampstead). Several houses in West End were mentioned in the early 17th century and by the mid century London merchants were building larger ones.

West End Hall was owned 1796-1807 by the family of the Hon. Richard Walpole, M.P., in 1807 by Lord Walpole, and 1815-89 by John Miles and his wife.

West End Hall was a square red-brick house, built probably at the end of the 17th century and was described by contempories as "of respectable antiquity and standing back behind a rather dilapidated wooden palisade but a row of magnificent elms lines the street before". In the grounds, a fair was held annually on July 26 and two following days.

Publisher John Miles married Ann Chater in 1810; and the couple moved to West End House three years later. They became benefactors of West End. Eustace Hamilton Miles, their grandson, was born there in 1868.

Eustace went to Kings College Cambridge in 1887, and he began a distinguished career in racquets (an ...
»more


FEBRUARY
18
2015

 

Westminster Cathedral Choir School
Westminster Cathedral Choir School is a boarding and day preparatory school for boys in Victoria. All choristers at the cathedral board at the school. The school has direct passageways to the Cathedral on Victoria Street and is therefore considered a part of it.

It is one of two Roman Catholic cathedral schools in the United Kingdom, the other being St John’s in Cardiff, Wales.

»read full article


FEBRUARY
17
2015

 

Thavie’s Inn
Thavie’s Inn was a former Inn of Chancery, associated with Lincoln’s Inn, established at Holborn, near the site of the present side street and office block still known as Thavies Inn Buildings. Thavie’s Inn is one of the earliest Inns of Chancery on record, both by date of establishment and dissolution. It remains a well-known City of London landmark, where Lloyd’s Bank is situated, on the opposite side of Holborn Circus from Ely Place.

Lincoln’s Inn sold Thavie’s Inn for redevelopment in 1785, the proceeds being used to erect ’Stone Buildings’

Read the Thavie’s Inn entry on the Wikipedia...
»read full article


FEBRUARY
16
2015

 

Shroffolds Farm
Shroffolds Farm was situated in Southend hamlet, on the road from Bromley. Part of the future Downham housing estate was (Great) Shroffolds Farm owned by the Earl of Northbrook. His 441 acre holding - called the Lee Estate - also included the nearby Holloway (also known as Halloway) Farm. It took its name from an ancient Manor, Shrafholt, owned in the Middle Ages by the Banquel family.

Shroffolds lay to the north and Holloway to the west of Southend. The people of Lewisham used to take weekend walks over the “Seven Fields”. Southend Hall was owned by the wealthy Forster family and there were two water mills on the River Ravensbourne.

The 258 acre Shroffolds Farm was mainly used for mixed agriculture. John Dale was listed as its tenant farmer in 1843.

The land was purchased by the London County Council in 1920 and Shroffolds Farm ceased to be.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
15
2015

 

Manor Farm
Manor Farm was originally a farm in Boreham Wood. Manor Farm is the name traditionally given to a farm that was part of a manor.

It was the southernmost farm to be engulfed by the building of the new Borehamwood estate, being situated just to the north of modern Stirling Corner.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
15
2015

 

Goldhawk Road, W6
The W6 section of Goldhawk Road runs down to Stamford Brook station. The Shepherd’s Bush section of Goldhawk Road runs west-east but takes a south turn as the W6 section of the road begins.

At this corner used to lay Queen Charlotte’s hospital, a major west London maternity unit. Ravenscourt Park lies behind the hospital site.

Stamford Brook station lies at the point where the road ends within the area of Chiswick.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
14
2015

 

St Martins Mission
Saint Martin's Mission was originally known as Rackham Hall as it was situated on Rackham Street. It was built by Mr Allen, a local builder. It was the Mission Church of Saint Michael and All Angels, Ladbroke Grove.

After 1916 it become a parish stretching from Ladbroke Grove to St Quintin's Park.

The area was bombed during the Second World War, and the whole of Rackham Street disappeared in the early 1950s.

A theory discussed about the photo is that it may show the last days of Rackham Street as people were packing to move out.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
13
2015

 

Eresby Road, NW6
Eresby Road ran from Kingsgate Road to Kilburn High Road with a turning for Kingsgate Place about halfway down. Eresby Road was laid out in 1879 - across the southern part of the Little Estate, owned by the Powell-Cotton family. 26 houses were built there between 1883 and 1885. 12 more were built between 1891-2.

Cottages called Clarence Place backed onto a small lane. They were demolished in the 1890s as Kilburn High Road developed.

Eresby Road disappeared with the building of a new housing estate in the 1970s and Kingsgate Place was diverted to run along the side of the new estate and emerge here.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
12
2015

 

Potter’s Iron Foundry
In the nineteenth century, many West Hampstead people had jobs in Potter’s Iron Foundry. The iron and brass foundry of Thomas Potter & Sons was established c. 1860 by Thomas Potter of Poplar House, a West End resident by 1854.

Twelve cottages called Potter's Buildings (later West Cottages) were under construction by George Potter immediately north of the foundry in 1864, apparently because local hostility made it impossible for his workmen to find other accommodation. There was also hostility to plans for making gas to light the workshops, with the result that a half-built gasometer could be used only as a water tank.

Among the foundry's products were metalwork for the outer screen walls of G. E. Street's Law Courts (built 1874-82) and for Welbeck Abbey (Notts.), besides church fittings. A younger Thomas Potter, who lived at the Elms in the 1880s, built on sites north of Poplar House and around Sumatra Road. The foundry had closed by 1894 and was replaced by the flats called Welbeck Mansions.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
10
2015

 

West End Park
West End Park was created from fields known as the 'Little Estate'. In 1851 West End was a hamlet mainly of agricultural labourers, gardeners, craftsmen, and tradespeople for daily needs, with an innkeeper and two beershop keepers and a schoolmistress; the few gentry included Rear-Admiral Sir George Sartorius (1790-1885) of West End House, a retired ironfounder, a surgeon, some civil servants, and a clergyman.

South of the village, the fifteen years from 1879 witnessed great developments after the opening of the third and final railway through the area, the Metropolitan & St. John's Wood, with a station in West End Lane (West Hampstead). Stations on the other two lines opened in 1880 and 1888.

The first to exploit the railway was Donald Nicoll MP, owner of a gentlemen's outfitter's in Regent Street, who leased Oaklands Hall between 1861 to 1872.

He owned portions of the Little Estate to the north and west, together forming a 23 acre estate which he called West End Park.

Nicoll was a directo...
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FEBRUARY
8
2015

 

Portobello Farm
Portobello Farm House was approached along Turnpike Lane, sometimes referred to as Green’s Lane, a track leading from Kensington Gravel Pits towards a wooden bridge over the canal. In 1740, Portobello Farm was built in the area near what is now Golborne Road. The farm got its name from a popular victory during the War of Jenkins’ Ear, when Admiral Edward Vernon captured the Spanish-ruled town of Puerto Bello (now known as Portobelo in modern-day Panama).

Green’s Lane became known as Porto Bello Lane; the title which it held by 1841.

The farmstead extended westward beyond what is now Ladbroke Grove covering land afterward occupied by St. Charles Hospital.

The Portobello farming area covered the land which is now St. Charles Hospital. The farm itself was sold to an order of nuns after the railways came in 1864. They built St Joseph’s Convent for the Dominican Order or the Black Friars as they were known in England.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
7
2015

 

Upton Park
Upton Park is an area of the East London borough of Newham, centred on Green Street which is the boundary between West Ham and East Ham. The term ’Upton Park’ first applied to a housing estate developed to the east of West Ham Park in the 1880s. The estate took its name from the adjacent village of Upton with the suffix ’Park’ added for marketing reasons. The estate’s developers paid for a new station to be built which was named after the estate.

As a consequence the area surrounding the station became known as Upton Park rather than the term being limited to the original housing estate.

The southern end of Green Street runs alongside the western edge of the Boleyn Ground, the former home ground of West Ham United FC. The club initially rented the land from Green Street House, known locally as Boleyn Castle because of its imposing nature and an association with Anne Boleyn. The football stadium has long been commonly known as Upton Park.

West Ham United Football Club’s Upton Park was closed on the final game of the season against Manchester United 2015/16 - it ha...
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FEBRUARY
6
2015

 

Albion Mews, W2
Albion Mews is a cobbled cul-de-sac that is approached through an entrance under a building on Albion Street. The Mews is one of a number of mews called Albion orginally. There was an Albion Mews North, an Albion Mews West and this one before the others were renamed.

Albion Mews is part of the Church Commissioners’ Hyde Park Estate, and Westminster City Council’s Bayswater Conservation Area.

The Mews contains 16 properties used for residential purposes. The Mews runs approximately North-South in similar configuration to Archery Close, another original/surviving Mews around the corner, off Connaught Street. The Mews originally provided stable/ coach house accommodation for the larger houses in Albion Street. Conservation Area controls now apply to new development in the Mews.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
5
2015

 

Beckford’s Estate
Beckfords, belonging to the family of the same name, consisted of 15 acres north of Mill Lane and west of Fortune Green Lane. It was sold in 1865 to the Real Property Company and in 1868 to the Land Company of London, which laid out Hillfield Road and Aldred Street in building plots.

Development was slow. Two houses and a temporary church were built in Mill Lane, east of the junction with Aldred Road, in 1874 and one plot fronting Mill Lane, sold in 1875, was built on by 1878. Premises for Field Lane boys' industrial school were built on the north side of Hillfield Road in 1877. Sustained building began in 1878 and by 1890 some 88 houses, by various builders, had been erected in Hillfield Road; 16 were built in 1888 in Aldred Road by Cossens, who lived there, and the Pavement, nos. 41-83 (odd), was built in Mill Lane. In 1908 Berridge House opened next to the industrial school, at the junction of Hillfield Road and Fortune Green Lane, as the National Society's training college for teachers of domestic subjects.
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FEBRUARY
4
2015

 

Treadgold Street, W11
Treadgold Street is part of the Avondale Park Gardens Conservation Area. The earliest part of the area to be developed was the area to the south of Treadgold Street with the erection of St. Clement’s Church in 1867.

Between 1870 and 1895, the terraced houses in Stoneleigh Street, Sirdar Road, Treadgold Street, Grenfell Road and the south side of Mary Place went up.

The post war developments have altered some of the original Victorian street plan. This is most noticeable with the shortening and blocking off of the eastern end of Treadgold Street and the north end of Ansleigh Place for the construction of Saint Francis of Assisi School and Bomore Road which was moved south for the construction of Treadgold House and the leisure centre.




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FEBRUARY
4
2015

 

National School
A National School was established in West End during 1844. National schools were founded in 19th century England and Wales by the National Society for Promoting Religious Education. These schools provided elementary education, in accordance with the teaching of the Church of England, to the children of the poor.

They provided the first near-universal system of elementary education in England and Wales. The schools were eventually absorbed into the state system, either as fully state-run schools or as faith schools funded by the state.

The West End National school, together with a cottage for the schoolmistress was built in the grounds of Cholmley Lodge in 1844.

The Emmanuel Church of England Primary School is now on the site.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
3
2015

 

Corner of Rackham Street, Ladbroke Grove (1950)
The bombing of the Second World War meant that some whole streets were wiped off the future map. Rackham Street, in London W10, was one of them. On the left (south) side of the street, a local tradesmen's trolley can be seen - possibly a knife sharpener.

However, a clue to the empty streets can perhaps be seen further down the street. A huge gap in the houses shows the bomb damage from 1940, some ten years before.

The photographer of these shots toured streets, perhaps knowing the fate of the area. The view would be utterly transformed by subsequent redevelopment in the early 1950s.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
2
2015

 

Red Lion
The Red Lion was situated at 34 Kilburn High Road. Rebuilt in the late 19th century, this pub had occupied this site since 1444.

This pub was known as The Westbury at time of closure in 2012.
»read full article


FEBRUARY
1
2015

 

Fairyland
During the period leading up to and during the First World War, 92 Tottenham Court Road was the location of a shooting range called Fairyland. In 1909, it was reported in a police investigation that the range was being used by two Suffragettes in a possible conspiracy to assassinate Prime Minister Herbert Asquith.

It was the place where, in 1909, Madan Lal Dhingra practised shooting prior to his assassination of Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie.

Other residents of India House and members of Abhinav Bharat practised shooting at the range and rehearsed assassinations they planned to carry out.

It was also the place where, with regard to in R v Lesbini (1914), Donald Lesbini shot Alice Eliza Storey. R v Lesbini was a case that established in British, Canadian and Australian law that, with regard to voluntary manslaughter, a reasonable man always has reasonable powers of self-control and is never intoxicated

The shooting range was owned and run by Henry Stanton Morley (1875-1916).
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