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Featured · * ·
MARCH
28
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


AUGUST
17
2017

 

Adam And Eve Mews, W8
Adam And Eve Mews is a street in Kensington. Adam and Eve Mews is a cobbled mews entered under a covered entrance on the south side of Kensington High Street.
Some houses have been painted in bright colours, whereas others are faced in plain brick.

The mews forks south and west at the end; at the western section again forks north leading to a very private cul-de-sac which also contains some recently built mews-style houses.

Many of the houses have attractive roof gardens with lots of shrubs by the front doors.

Adam and Eve Mews is named after ‘The Adam and Eve’, an ancient inn with two acres of gardens which used to stand on the site. The site was quite long and narrow and did not really lend itself to building typical large London houses.

William Willett, a speculative builder in the area, bought the land and got permission in 1880 to build a series of stables to serve the surrounding larger houses. The 2-storey stable blocks were put up in 1880 – 1881 w...
»more


AUGUST
16
2017

 

Abbey Orchard Street, SW1P
Abbey Orchard Street was the heart of a former slum area. Abbey Orchard Street was built over a former orchard belonging to the monks of Westminster Abbey.

The street was built up in the rapid expansion of London following the Great Fire of 1666, but there may have been a path here long before, trodden out by the Abbey’s local peasant tenants on their way to labour in the orchard.

In time, the street’s fortunes declined.

The Devil’s Acre was a notorious slum on and behind Old Pye Street, Great St Anne’s Lane (now St Ann’s Street) and Duck Lane (now St Matthew Street) in the parish of Westminster.

In the 19th century it was considered one of the worst areas of London - The Devil’s Acre. As with a number of streets at the time, the building of Victoria Street was aimed at removing the slums in the area, and particularly the Devil’s Acre. The street was formally opened in 1851 and, as with other such projects, it displaced rather than removed the slum.

The...
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AUGUST
15
2017

 

St Agnes Place, SE11
St Agnes Place was once the most famous squatted street in London. St Agnes Place was originally laid out in 1805 with No. 1 built in 1805, and Nos. 3, 5 and 7 in 1808.

It became famous as a squatted street which resisted eviction orders for more than 30 years. When a number of derelict houses were scheduled for demolition to extend Kennington Park in 1969, squatters occupied the properties and a High Court injunction prevented the demolition.

The residents of St Agnes paid utility bills and for several years were run by a housing cooperative with diverse occupancy, and in the last few years a larger number of young homeless people.

Bob Marley stayed at the street on several occasions in the 1970s. St Agnes Place had a Rastafari community and had a Rastafari temple along with other related social centres.

The street was run by a housing cooperative until 2005, when Lambeth London Borough Council obtained an eviction order. Demolition was completed in 2007.

In 2010 Lambeth Co...
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AUGUST
13
2017

 

White Kennett Street, EC3A
White Kennett Street was named after a Bishop of Peterborough. White Kennett was Bishop of Peterborough in 1707, and previously rector of the nearly St Botolph’s Aldgate.
»read full article


AUGUST
13
2017

 

St Augustine’s Church of England High School
St Augustine’s Church of England High School is a Voluntary Aided Church of England comprehensive school in the West London borough of Westminster, Kilburn. The school is a Science College and has a sixth form. St Augustine of Canterbury is the patron saint of the school. It is located adjacent to its affiliated primary school and parish church St Augustine’s Church.

The school traces its origins to Mother Emily Ayckbowm, who also founded the Community of the Sisters of the Church, working in conjunction with the first vicar of the nearby St. Augustine’s church. The school was opened on 16 May 1870 in Andover Place with seven students, with specifically the High School opening in 1884 as an all boys’ secondary school; the present division into primary and secondary schools being complete by 1951.

In 1969, the present school buildings were opened, with St. Augustine’s High School becoming a Church of England comprehensive school.

In February 2009, the school received a nearly £20 million investment under the BSF programme for schools, which entailed a major refurbishment providing a ne...
»more


AUGUST
12
2017

 

Kennington Park
Kennington Park is a public park in Kennington, south London. It was opened in 1854 on the site of what had been Kennington Common, where the Chartists gathered for their biggest "monster rally" on 10 April 1848. Soon after this demonstration the common was enclosed and, sponsored by the royal family, made into a public park.

Kennington Common was a site of public executions until 1800 as well as being an area for public speaking. Some of the most illustrious orators to speak here were Methodist founders George Whitefield and John Wesley who is reputed to have attracted a crowd of 30,000.

The common was one of the earliest London cricket venues and is known to have been used for top-class matches in 1724. Kennington Park hosts the first inner London community cricket ground, sponsored by Surrey County Cricket Club whose home, The Oval, is close to the park.

In the 1970s, the old tradition of mass gatherings returned to the park which was host to the start of many significant marches to Parliament. Tod...
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AUGUST
11
2017

 

Archbishop Tenison’s School
Archbishop Tenison’s School moved to The Oval in 1928 Thomas Tenison, an educational evangelist and later Archbishop of Canterbury, founded several schools in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. A boys’ school now at the Oval was founded in 1685 in the crypt of St Martin’s in the Fields and relocated by 1895 in Leicester Square on the site previously occupied by the Sabloniere Hotel.

The school moved to The Oval in 1928, with the new building being opened by the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII). A girls’ school was formally established in 1706 for 12 girls and in 1863 a new school building was erected at 18 Lambeth High Street. The girls school closed in 1961, when it amalgamated with Archbishop Temple’s Boys School to form a mixed VA school. The building was used by Temple’s as a first-year annex from 1968 to 1974, when Archbishop Temple’s School closed. Archbishop Tenison founded another school in nearby Croydon in 1714.

Archbishop Tenison’s at The Oval became a grammar scho...
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AUGUST
10
2017

 

Ossulston Estate
The Ossulston Estate is a multi-storey council estate built by the London County Council in Somers Town between 1927 and 1931. The estate was built to rehouse those poor who were not being served by the LCC’s new suburban estates, and was significantly denser to suit the urban site. It was located on the site of the Somers Town slum, between Euston and St Pancras stations. The original proposal made in 1925 was for 9-storey blocks on the American model, which would have required lifts, and with more expensive flats for private tenants on the highest floors. This was rejected and the height reduced to a maximum of 7 storeys, with fewer lifts and no private flats. The provision of central heating was also eliminated, but the buildings were unusual in providing electricity from the start, and Levita House had the first central heating system installed by the LCC.

The design, by G. Topham Forrest, chief architect of the LCC, and his assistants R. Minton Taylor and E.H. Parkes, was influenced by Viennese modernist public housing such as Karl Marx-Hof, which Forrest had visited. The estate consists...
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AUGUST
9
2017

 

Wood Lane (1914)
Wood Lane - apparently London’s "go-to" station. There was a bewildering confusion of station names in the area, because the London & South Western Railway, which ran trains along the tracks of the West London Railway through Addison Road, in 1869 constructed a branch line which curved westwards from Addison Road down to Richmond with stations eventually opened at Shepherd’s Bush (in Shepherd’s Bush Road south of the Green), Hammersmith in Grove Road, and Shaftesbury Road (later renamed Ravenscourt Park). In 1868 the Metropolitan line Hammersmith station was moved further south, nearer to the Broadway, and to compound the duplication of names, the District line in 1874 extended its track from Earls Court and formed another Hammersmith station on the south of the Broadway.

This was not, however, the last Hammersmith station, because the Piccadilly line opened theirs in 1906 and at the same time the District line, which had previously run their trains through to Richmond on the branch line of the UzSWR took ...
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AUGUST
8
2017

 

Bury Street, SW1A
Bury Street runs north-to-south from Jermyn Street to King Street, crossing Ryder Street. The street first appears by the name Berry Street in rate books of 1673.

Most likely it takes its name from Bury St Edmonds as Rushbrooke - the country seat of the Jermyn family - was situated nearby. From 1643 until 1660, the landowner was known as Baron Jermyn of St. Edmundsbury.

The freehold of the street belongs to The Crown Estate.

Previous residents included writer Jonathan Swift, poets Thomas Moore and George Crabbe.
»read full article


AUGUST
8
2017

 

Friern Barnet Lane, N11
Friern Barnet Lane was an important road by 1814. Friern Barnet’s road system was established by the late 15th century. The main north-south route of that date became known as Whetstone High Road in the north, as Friern Barnet Lane between Whetstone and Colney Hatch, and as Colney Hatch Lane from there to Muswell Hill. It had been the principal highway from London to Barnet and the north of England but by the early 14th century the main road ran through Hornsey Park to Finchley and thence to rejoin Friern Barnet Lane at Whetstone, along the route of the modern Great North Road.

Friern Barnet Lane, also known as Friern Lane, was Wolkstreet c. 1518. Colney Hatch Lane, so called from 1846, was Halliwick Street (Halwykstrete) in 1398 and Muswell Hill Lane or Aspen Lane in 1801. No route led westward, except via Whetstone. To the east a road led from Colney Hatch to Betstile, where it met roads to Enfield, Tottenham and Wood Green, East Barnet, and the modern Oakleigh Road. It was known in turn as Betstile Lane between 15...
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AUGUST
8
2017

 

Park Village East, NW1
Park Village East was part of a proposed canal-side village. Nash’s Regent’s Park development incorporated an entire range of house sizes and styles. Within the Park were large villas set in their own grounds for the very rich, and imposing stucco terraced palaces for the wealthy. Outside the Park were middle class villas in Park Village and the markets and barracks, each with their working class housing, near the Cumberland Basin. It was built as a complete new town on the edge of London.

John Nash saw the romantic possibilities of the new Regent’s Canal which was being built around the northern edge of his new Regent’s Park. On the way to the new hay market which he was planning in Cumberland Basin, would be a secluded, peaceful valley bordering the canal. He envisaged a pretty ‘village’ on its banks, as an annexe to his noble Corinthian terraces in Regent’s Park itself. In stucco, with tall windows leading out to wooded gardens overlooking the canal. On the edge of London, they would be the equivalent of Blaize ...
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AUGUST
6
2017

 

Yorkshire Road, CR4
Yorkshire Road is part of Pollards Hill. Pollards Hill is a residential district crossing the border of the south London boroughs of Croydon and Merton between Mitcham and Norbury. It is the name of a council ward in Merton. The district is bisected by the Croydon/Merton boundary along Recreation Way. With no road connections between the Croydon and Merton portions of the district, they retain very different characteristics.

Mitcham Borough Council’s solution to the post-war housing shortage was to build prefabricated ‘Arcon’ bungalows at Pollards Hill. The first bungalows were ready as early as January 1946, and were meant to last about 10 years; in fact, many were still in use in the mid-1960s.

The four maisonette blocks were built by the Council in the 1950s on Yorkshire Road, beginning with Westmorland Square in 1950 and the final block, Bovingdon Square, in 1956; the other two were Hertford Square and Berkshire Square. The pre-fabs were mostly demolished in the 1960s, to make way for ...
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AUGUST
5
2017

 

New Local Government Network
Nokes Estate was an agricultural estate in the Earl’s Court area, formerly known as Wattsfield. Since at least the sixteenth century this area, reckoned as seventeen but in fact nearer eighteen and a quarter acres, had been known as Wattsfield.

Essentially, it included part of Earls Court Lane (now Earls Court Road) and Barrow’s Walk (now Marloes Road) and contained an orchard and several fields on which Abingdon Villas, Scarsdale Villas and neighbouring roads were later built .

In 1593 it was owned by Robert Fenn and remained in that family until Sir Robert Fenn sold it, with its advantage of a westward abutment on Earl’s Court Lane, to William Arnold in 1652. The Arnolds kept it until 1673, when it was bought by John Greene, and it remained with representatives of the Greene family until at least 1755.

Rocque’s mid-century map shows Barrows Walk bounding its eastern side, on the present line of Marloes Road.

By 1810 the owner was Samuel Hutchins, who in that year bought the enfranchisement from Lor...
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AUGUST
3
2017

 

Ossington Street, W8
Ossington Street leads from Moscow Road at its north end to the Bayswater Road at its south end. In the 1830s, a section of Gravel Pit Field was transformed into Ossington Street, extending from the former Uxbridge Road to Moscow Road. Initially named Victoria Grove, it was later renamed Ossington Street in 1837 when it became part of Kensington. It is speculated that the street derived its name from Viscount Ossington.

On the western side, the buildings consisted of two-story terraced cottages with basements, accompanied by a mews located behind them. Victoria Grove Mews retains its original name to this day.

To the south, a number of terraced houses were leased to William Ward, a builder from Marylebone. Ward also erected an inn and five shops, known as nos. 1 to 6 Wellington Terrace, between Victoria Grove and the former Paddington boundary, around 1840.

By 1865, the majority of Bayswater had been developed, leaving only a few spaces for further construction, particularly south of Moscow Road and along the eastern side of Victoria G...
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AUGUST
2
2017

 

Blackbird Hill Farm
Blackbird Hill Farm was situated on the corner of Birdbird Hill and Old Church Lane. It is unknown when Blackbird Hill Farm was first established. There were at least five “villagers” cultivating small areas of land in this part of Kingsbury at the time of the Domesday Book in 1085, but old records suggest that many local inhabitants died during the Black Death plagues of the mid-14th century. About 100 years later, in 1442, there is a mention of what may have been a farm on this site, and when a detailed map of the parish was drawn in 1597 it clearly showed a property called Findens here, a group of buildings around a yard with a strip of land, just over an acre, attached.

The large field behind it is shown as being leased to John Page, gentleman, by St Paul’s Cathedral (‘The Deane of Powles’), while the land on the opposite side of the main track was held by Eyan Chalkhill, who also had a watermill on the River Brent. In 1640, Findens was a 12-acre smallholding.

By the time of John Rocque’s map of 1745, there w...
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AUGUST
1
2017

 

Chandler’s Cross
Chandler’s Cross is a hamlet south of Sarrat, Hertfordshire. Its pub, the Clarendon Arms, became a restaurant in the 2000s.

A nearby hotel is The Grove, set in 300 acres. This has hosted major events such as the G20 London summit and the 2013 Bilderberg Conference. As a house, it was remodelled by various architects including Surveyor of the King’s Works, Robert Taylor on the site of a medieval manor house as a home for the Earls of Clarendon, second creation, the Villiers family who downsized their estates to one they have long held at Swanmore, Hampshire following the 1914 increase of estate duty.
»read full article


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