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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


JULY
31
2015

 

Belsize Lane, NW3
Belsize Lane is a thoroughfare linking Rosslyn Hill with Swiss Cottage. Belsize Lane is very old, being marked between hedges in Rocque’s 1745 map, and shown as leading to the grounds of the manor-house.

Baines says that about 1839 "Belsize Lane was long, narrow, and lonesome; midway in it was a very small farm, and near thereto the owner of Belsize House erected a turnpike gate to demonstrate his rights of possession."

While still an attractive road, the road is slightly too narrow for the modern buses which run along it. Traffic tends to buildup behind them.
»read full article


JULY
30
2015

 

Harrow Road, Kensal Green (1900s)
The corner of Ravensworth Road and Harrow Road in NW10.
»read full article


JULY
29
2015

 

St Charles’ Square Training College (1908)
St Charles’ Square Training College/Carmelite Convent. This photo was taken from the bottom of St Marks Park which was open land all the way to Highlever Rd at this point. Pangbourne Avenue where the Princess Louise Childrens hospital was (and is now the Argyll development) was not built until the 1920s.
»read full article


JULY
27
2015

 

The Crown
The Crown was situated at 57 Princedale Road. This pub was established in 1851 and this magnificent photo was taken by a photographer from Maxilla Gardens, Notting Hill.

It featured in a couple of episodes of ’Minder’, which was filmed on location in this area.

This pub became a bar/restaurant called The Academy in 1987.
»read full article


JULY
26
2015

 

Barnet Grass Speedway
Barnet Grass Speedway was active between 1929 and 1936, next to the recently constructed Barnet By Pass. It was the North London Motor Club that negotiated to run speedway on a twenty acre grass track that was adjacent to the Barnet Bypass. It was thus so convenient to travel to with plenty of room for spectators and their transport. The track was originally grass-covered rather than the more usual cinder or shale. The track was opened for the first meeting on the 27 July 1929.

The site remained the venue for open meeting through to 1936 although by 1934 the grass was all but worn away and cinders were added to the bends. The name for its final year was changed to simply ’Barnet Speedway’.

Closing in 1937 when the North London Motor Club failed to achieve an extension on the licence after having successfully completed eighty seven meeting meaning that speedway was lost to the area however the NLMC moved their speedway operation to High Beech leaving the owners of the land free to sell it on for building.

Once the circuit had been s...
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JULY
21
2015

 

Buses in Shenley Road
A 292 and 358 in Shenley Road. Facebook user Maureen Sullivan has worked out the following from the clues in the photo:

This photo was probably taken in August 1968 (the advertised film was released in July that year).

The green Route 358 in the background is the 12.53 departure from St Albans, running about 5 minutes late according to the clock on All Saints Church tower.

The 292 is for some reason displaying the Saturday only intermediate blind for Route 292A.

Buildings on the right are still being finished off, on the site of the old Baptist Church, once home to the 1st Borehamwood Scouts.
»read full article


JULY
18
2015

 

Hayden’s Place, W11
Haydens Place is a small cul-de-sac off of the Portobello Road. Hayden’s Place is a short mews is just off the Portobello Road between Westbourne Park Road and Lancaster Road. It was built in the 1860s. Its original name was Hayden’s Mews; it was only by the time of the 1901 census that was described as Hayden Place. The apostrophe seems to have crept in much later – it was still described as Hayden Place on the 1935 Ordnance Survey map.

In 1871, John Hayden, described in the census return as “contractor employing 6 men” was living at 1 Hayden Mews, and it must have been named after him. He may well have been responsible for building the mews.

Originally, the mews had 19 numbered dwellings in it, so it probably extended right down as far as Elgin Mews, between the back gardens of the houses in Westbourne Park Road and Lancaster Road. But by 1891, no more than three households are recorded in the census (five in 1901). It seems that sometime around 1890 the western end of the mews was built over to form a b...
»more


JULY
14
2015

 

Kilburn Bridge
Kilburn Bridge once marked the spot where the Edgware Road crossed the River Westbourne. Kilburn Bridge, which was recorded in 1398 and thought to have been built in the mid 13th century by the prior of Kilburn, carried Edgware Road across the Kilburn brook (the Westbourne River).

In 1826 the original stone bridge with a Gothic arch survived, flanked by brick portions added at two different periods. By that date repair was shared between the trustees of Marylebone turnpike and of the Kilburn Road.

In more modern times, as the river has been culverted and sent underground, there is no trace of the structure.

»read full article


JULY
12
2015

 

Apollo Victoria Theatre
The Apollo Victoria Theatre is a West End theatre, across from London Victoria Station. The theatre was built by architects Ernest Wamsley Lewis and William Edward Trent in 1929 for Provincial Cinematograph Theatres, a part of the Gaumont British chain. The theatre was built with two identical facades on Wilton and Vauxhall Bridge Roads. Construction is principally of concrete, with strong horizontal banding along the exterior sides of the auditorium. By contrast the entrances feature a cantilevered canopy, and are framed by vertical channelling, with two black marble columns rising to the roof line. The entrance is simple, making use of chrome trimmings, this leads to a nautical themed interior in the original Art Deco style that makes extensive use of concealed lighting, decorated with scallop shells and columns that burst into sculptured fountains at the ceiling.

The theatre had a 74 feet by 24 feet stage and was equipped with 10 dressing rooms and two suites for principals. The theatre was Grade II* listed on 28 June 1972.

The theatre op...
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JULY
11
2015

 

Dollis Avenue, N3
Dollis Avenue sprung to life in the Edwardian years. Early attempts to build up Olders Hill in the south-west corner of Finchley proved abortive. The National Standard Land Mortgage and Investment Co. bought the estate in 1880 but few lots had been built on by 1897.

Part of Grass farm, which adjoined Olders Hill to the north, was offered for building along Hendon Lane with similar lack of success in 1894. In 1901 that part of Finchley, while providing excellent sites, was thought to be undeveloped because of poor transport, which would be improved by trams.

After the arrival of trams in 1905 housing spread quickly.

There was building in 1906 on Grass Farm estate in Dollis Avenue, where Woodway Lodge, designed by Messrs. Bennet & Richardson, was one of several detached houses.
»read full article


JULY
10
2015

 

Barham Avenue, WD6
Barham Avenue was constructed on the site of two historic houses. A large house called Hillside once stood at the entrance to the future Barham Avenue.

Barham House stood to the east of Hillside. There had been a house on this site since about 1600 which had changed occupants many times and was renamed over the years. The last owner, famous publisher Andrew Chatto, was there in 1897. His son sold the property. In 1931 a local Estate Agent bought and demolished the house. He divided the ground into lots and this was the origin of Barham Avenue, built 1932.
»read full article


JULY
10
2015

 

East End Road, N3
East End Road was originally the route from the hamlet of Church End Finchley to the old Great North Road when it ran through Muswell Hill. Although apparently not so named until the late 19th century, it probably dated from the 14th-century growth of East End.

The road has had various names such as Manor Lane (19th century) and Finchley Road (18th century). In the medieval period a triangle of waste, called Hunts Green (1437), which stretched from Stanley Road to the Junction of Church Lane, was the location of the first hamlet of East End Finchley (1365).
»read full article


JULY
8
2015

 

Victoria Bus Station
Victoria bus station is a bus station outside Victoria Station in Terminus Place. Victoria Station was built in 1861, after Victoria Street had been built a decade earlier through a slum dubbed "Devil’s Acre" by Charles Dickens. It connected Westminster Abbey with this part of Pimlico which gained the name Victoria instead, after the station which the growing suburb surroounded.

Quickly becoming one of the busiest stations in London, the forecourt outside quickly became an important hub for omnibuses. By the 1930s, it had a substantial roof canopy spanning all lanes - this was demolished in April 2003 as part of a station refurbishment.

Victoria is now London’s busiest bus station. In 2015 it had 19 bus routes using the station, with 200 buses per hour passing through in the peak.

It services bus services managed only by Transport for London, and is not to be confused with Victoria Coach Station, a few hundred metres away.
»read full article


JULY
2
2015

 

Middle Row School
Middle Row School was established in the late 19th century to provide education to the children of Kensal New Town. Kensal New Town was a 19th century greenfield development of terraced workers housing sandwiched between the Grand Junction (now Union} Canal and the Great Western Railway, next to the Western Gas Company Gas Works.

The first schooling for the new settlement was provided by the church of St John's, Kensal Green (built in 1845. north of the Canal). St John's School was erected close to the church in 1850. and it was here that any child from Kensal New Town who wished to receive an education would have attended. There was also an early Ragged School in Kensal Road adjacent to the Canal where poorer children may have received a rudimentary education.

The passing of the 1870 Education Act brought about fundamental changes in British education, as the state started to replace the church as the main source of elementary education. From 1880 education became compulsory until the age often or when a certain standard of education was achieved, and by 1899 the mini...
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