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.

Baker Street

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 666 completed street histories and 46834 partial histories
Find streets or residential blocks within the M25 by clicking STREETS

NOVEMBER

2017

Stoneleigh Place, W11
Stoneleigh Place, formerly called Abbey Road, was built across a brickfield in Notting Dale. Before the 1870s, a large brickfield marked the western edge of the poverty-stricken area of Notting Dale. That decade saw the area filled in with Abbey Road (Stoneleigh Place) being built across the middle - Treadgold Street marked the northern perimeter of the field.

During the Second World War, a huge bomb which fell on Treadgold Street devastated the whole area. Stoneleigh Place and its surroundings was redeveloped.

At the end of Stoneleigh Place is a small allotment for the people who live in the adjacent flats.
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NOVEMBER

2017

Putney Bridge
Putney Bridge is a bridge crossing of the River Thames in west London, linking Putney on the south side with Fulham to the north. Construction of a bridge was first sanctioned by an Act of Parliament in 1726. Built by local master carpenter Thomas Phillips to a design by architect Sir Jacob Acworth, the first bridge was opened in November 1729, to become the only bridge between London Bridge and Kingston Bridge at the time. A toll bridge, it featured tollbooths at either end of the timber-built structure.

In October 1795, Mary Wollstonecraft allegedly planned to commit suicide by jumping from the bridge because she returned from a trip to Sweden to discover that her lover was involved with an actress from London.

In 1845, the bridge was specified as the starting point of a changed course for the annual Oxford - Cambridge University Boat Race.

The bridge was badly damaged by the collision of a river barge in 1870.

Although part of the bridge was subsequently replaced, soon the entire bridge would be demolished and in 1886 it was replaced by the stone br...
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NOVEMBER

2017

Upney
Upney - once a small village - is an area east of Barking which has its own tube station. Upney means ’higher island’ - the island being the area between two branches of Mayes Brook which passes

Most of Upney’s housing was built between the wars as part of the council’s slum clearance programme. Upney station opened in 1932. The dominant feature of the locality is Barking (originally Upney) hospital. Shortly before the First World War local people raised the money to found the hospital, and new blocks were added in the 1930s and 1960s.

Most of the hospital site was sold for residential development in 1999.

Upney station was opened in 1932 when the electrified District line was extended to Upminster from Barking. The station was constructed and initially operated by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway with services provided by the District line from the outset.
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NOVEMBER

2017

22 St Peter’s Square, W6
22 St Peter’s Square, in Hammersmith, is a grade II Listed building with a former laundry that has been converted to an architects’ studio and office building. The property is situated in the western corner of St Peter’s Square, that was laid out and built from 1827, opposite St Peter’s Church, Hammersmith. In the basement of the rear of the building is the former studio of Island Records known as The Fallout Shelter, 47 British Grove.

Number 22, unlike the predominant pattern of housing in St Peter’s Square, consists of a trio of linked houses, each of three stories plus basement, the only example of this layout in the square. The entrance retains the original eagle statue on the porch. Paired statues of dogs sit on the piers flanking the steps up to the front door. Until the 1890s the large private garden at the rear of the house was laid out as a long rectangular lawn bordered by shrubs and trees, with an open field to the South.

By 1894 the garden was completely covered by laundry buildings. The Royal Chiswick Laundry Western Dying and Cleaning Works was constructed behind the house fronti...
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NOVEMBER

2017

Roundwood Farm
Roundwood Farm lay between Willesden and Harlesden. As the area began to develop, a road which later became Longstone Avenue was built up to the farm.

The farm sold four of its fields on the opposite side of the avenue to the Gladstone Park project.

The rest of the farmlands were urbanised, though the track down to the farmhouse still forms a short cul-de-sac.
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NOVEMBER

2017

St. Mary Magdalen, Milk Street
St. Mary Magdalen, Milk Street, was a parish church in the City of London, England. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and not rebuilt. The church stood on the east side of Milk Street, north of its end in Cheapside, in Cripplegate Ward Within (parts of the parish were also in Bread Street Ward).

John Stow, in his Survey of 1603, described Milk Street as having many fair houses for wealthy merchants and others. He attributed the origin of street’s name to it being a place where milk was sold.

The earliest mention of the church was in 1162 as "St. Mary Magdalene in foro Londoniarum." It is also recorded as "St. Mary Magdalene, Milk Street" in a document dating from between 1203 and 1215. One notable clergyman who served the church was Francis Fletcher, who was briefly Rector of the parish, resigning in July 1576 to join Drake in his three-year circumnavigation of the world.

Stow, writing in 1603, notes that St. Mary Magdalene’s was a small church and that it had recently been repaired. He lists a number of important Londoners who had been buried in the church, including...
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NOVEMBER

2017

Kenilworth Castle
The Kenilworth Castle was a post-war pub in Notting Dale. It closed in 2014.
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NOVEMBER

2017

Heathwall Street, SW11
Heathwall Street follows the line of the Heathwall Ditch. The Heathwall Ditch was once an open ditch linking Nine Elms with the Falcon Brook, thereby making the ’island’ of north Battersea that gives the place its name (Old English Beadurices ege, ‘Badric’s island’).

In the fifteenth century, this became the Heathwall Sewer and the area surrounding it, which stretched as far as Nine Elms, was drained. The creation of the ditch paved the way for new development in the area and a number of new roads were established, including Kennington Lane, Black Prince Road and Lambeth Road.
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NOVEMBER

2017

Stokesley Street, W12
Stokesley Street is named after John Stokesley who was Catholic Bishop of London during the reign of Henry VIII. John Stokesley (1475–1539) was an English church leader.

He became Bishop of London and Lord Almoner in 1530, and in September 1533 christened the future Queen Elizabeth. His later years were troubled by disputes with Archbishop Cranmer; Stokesley opposed all changes in the doctrines of the church, remaining hostile to the English Bible and clerical marriage. Stokesley was a staunch opponent of Lutheranism and very active in persecuting heretics.

In May 1538, the King’s attorney took out a writ of Praemunire against Stokesley and, as accessories with him, against the Abbess Agnes Jordan and the Confessor-General of Syon Abbey. Stokesley acknowledged his guilt, implored Thomas Cromwell’s intercession, and threw himself on the King’s mercy. He obtained the King’s pardon, for it was not the Bishop but Syon that Cromwell aimed at.

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NOVEMBER

2017

Glengall Terrace, SE15
Glengall Terrace is a street whose history changed after the Second World War. The street is ultimately named after Glengall Wharf which was situated on the Grand Surrey Canal - all traces of the canal have passed into history.

Glengall Terrace was transformed after the Second World War as Burgess Park was extended. Many of the houses on the 1900 are now parkland.
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NOVEMBER

2017

Barking
Historically an ancient parish in Essex, Barking’s economic history is characterised by a shift from fishing and farming to market gardening and industrial development. In AD 735 the town was ’Berecingum’ and was known to mean "dwellers among the birch trees". By AD 1086, it had become ’Berchingae’ as evidenced by the town’s entry in the Domesday Book.

The manor of Barking was the site of Barking Abbey, a nunnery founded in 666 by Eorcenwald, Bishop of London, destroyed by the Danes and reconstructed in 970 by King Edgar. The celebrated writer Marie de France may have been abbess of the nunnery in the late 12th century. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, Barking Abbey was demolished; the parish church of St Margaret, some walling and foundations are all that remain.

A charter issued between 1175 and 1179 confirms the ancient market right. The market declined in the 18th century but has since been revived.

Fishing was the most important industry from the 14th century until the mid-19th. Salt water fishing began before 1320, when too fine nets were seized by City authorities, but expa...
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NOVEMBER

2017

Manor Way, WD6
Manor Way was one of the first new roads to be designed in the Boreham Wood Estate. Just before the Second World War, there were already plans for Borehamwood to expand, To the south of the newly-built Elstree Way, a upside down Y shape pattern of three new roads was laid out. Manor Way led from Elstree Way to a new roundabout where two other new roads met - Cranes Way and Ripon Way. Cranes Way led from the roundabout to Furzehill Road and Ripon Way from the same roundabout to the A1.

The roads, having been laid out, stayed largely as untarred chalk outlines during the 1940s as the war effort took the emphasis of planning away from house building. Manor Way had been designed to link proposed new housing with the industrial estates which had already sprung along Elstree Way to the new roundabout where a new community centre (later the Three Ways Community Centre) was to be surrounded by a small park.

But after the war, Borehamwood was earmarked out to be an overspill town. With bombed out families in London proper and still more in what w...
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NOVEMBER

2017

Beddington
Beddington is a suburban settlement in the London Borough of Sutton on the boundary with the London Borough of Croydon. The settlement appears in the Domesday Book as Beddinton(e) held partly by Robert de Watevile from Richard de Tonebrige and by Miles Crispin. Its Domesday Assets were: 6 hides; 1 church, 14 ploughs, 4 mills worth £3 15s 0d, 44 acres of meadow, woodland worth 10 hogs per year. It rendered: £19 10s 0d per year to its feudal system overlords.

The village lay in Wallington hundred and until the 19th century was in secular and ecclesiastical terms a large parish in its own right. Wallington was for centuries a manor in Beddington parish and although known as a shorthand for the area stretching from Cheam to Addington and from Chaldon to Mitcham . The name ’Wallington’ superseded Beddington’s former area almost completely in the early 20th century.

The local name ’Hackbridge’ was in the 13th century shown on local maps as Hakebrug, and named after a bridge on the River Wandle.

The locality has a landscaped wooded park at Beddi...
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NOVEMBER

2017

Connaught Close, W2
Connaught Close is a cul-de-sac off Connaught Street. Connaught Close is part of the Church Commissioners’ Hyde Park Estate, and Westminster City Council’s Bayswater Conservation Area

Originally called Albion Mews North, it contains ten properties behind the larger houses in Albion Street and Hyde Park Street.

The Mews runs north-south, is fairly small and curves around to the right half way down, where the cobbled surface turns into concrete.

Booth’s London Poverty Maps record the area in the late nineteenth century as being fairly comfortable with good, ordinary earnings.

In World War II, a bomb fell directly onto Connaught Close and several properties had to be rebuilt as a result.

Connaught Close is a good example of an original/ surviving Mews, now predominantly used for residential purposes. Notable alterations include small changes to the doors and fenestration, a conservatory and basement excavations.
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NOVEMBER

2017

St George’s Fields
St George’s Fields are a former burial ground of St George’s, Hanover Square, lying between Connaught Street and Bayswater Road. St George’s Fields was a burial ground from 1763, and later used for archery, games and as allotments. Nearby is Archery Close.

The land was owned by St George’s Church in Hanover Square, which sold it to developers in 1967 who left a few tombstones, adding character to the gardens. The Utopian Housing Association, the developers, were a housing trust.

The architects, Design 5, used a ziggurat style of building, retaining much of the open space whilst creating 300 dwellings. Parts of the double walls surrounding the burial ground - reputedly designed to frustrate grave robbers - have been preserved along with a number of tombstones.

The estate is now in private ownership although the grounds of St George’s Fields are opened to the public once a year under the London Garden Square Scheme and one of London’s oldest plane trees, with a girth of over 5 metres, may be seen set amongst the other trees.

Altho...
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NOVEMBER

2017

Albert Place, W8
Albert Place runs west off Victoria Road. The street is a cul-de-sac although there is a hidden footpath on the north side of the street leading to Cambridge Place.

Between the Vallotton Estate and Kensington Road to the north, was a house with grounds owned by William Hoof, a successful builder. He entered into a deal with Vallotton to construct Albert Place (at the time called Albert Road) partly on Vallotton Estate land and partly through his own back garden. He built the houses between 1841 and 1845.

There were fourteen houses. They are semi-detached and stucco fronted and the porches have square piers. Later a smaller cottage, numbered 8a, was crammed into the south west corner of Albert Place.

Carlotta Grisi (1819-99), the dancer for whom the role of Giselle was created, lived at no.9 in 1851.

George Robey, the comedian, lived at no.10 from 1926-1932

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NOVEMBER

2017

Wilby Mews, W11
Wilby Mews was maybe named after Benjamin Wilby who was involved in several 19th century development schemes. This mews off Ladbroke Road - beside the Ladbroke Arms public house - was originally called Weller Mews or Weller Street Mews, but it changed its name around 1860 to Wilby Terrace. The mews houses were built in the 1840s to serve the houses in Ladbroke Grove that were built in the 1830s and 1840s.

This cobbled mews has some of the oldest mews houses in the Ladbroke area - they have been significantly altered in most cases.

The residents of the mews were mostly coachmen and their families, and the stables were later converted to garages. The stables were originally owned or leased by the houses onto which they backed (with the coachmen working for the families).

In the second half of the 20th century, parts of the lower floors were taken over for accommodation. The origin of the name Wilby is uncertain, with suggestions that it comes from a developer named Benjamin Wilby, but there is no evidence of his involvement in the development of the Ladbroke estate.
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NOVEMBER

2017

Albert Mews, SW7
Albert Mews is a small cobbled mews, built in 1865 Albert Mews has an attractive arched entrance leading onto Victoria Grove - the entrance is next to number 26 - and a gargoyle on the top of the arch.

The east side consists of ground floor garages with living accommodation on the first floor. The entrance doors are on the first floor and they are approached along a first floor balcony which runs the extent of the terrace, with steps from the ground floor at either end of the terrace.

At the rear of the mews there is a small enclave of mews houses with more garages and space for additional parking. The cobbles here must be particularly hard on stiletto shoes!

Albert Mews is part of the Inderwick Estate.

The Mews has an entrance next to 26 Victoria Grove. The properties were built in 1865 by the Kensington builder, Charles Alden.
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NOVEMBER

2017

Palace Court, W2
Palace Court was built in the 1880s to connect the Bayswater Road to Moscow Road. Some houses were built in Palace Court in 1889 and flats called Palace Court Mansions were inhabited from 1890.

Many original Palace Court residents had ’aesthetic tastes’. They included Wilfrid Meynell and his wife Alice, the poet (1847-1922), the artist George William Joy (d. 1925), and the furniture expert Percy McQuoid (d. 1925).

Palace Court has been described as ’the most interesting place in the borough for late Victorian domestic architecture’.

At the south-east corner King’s Fund college occupies no. 2, in red brick and terracotta by William Flockhart, dated 1891. Similarly florid buildings stand next to it in Bayswater Road, although originally numbered with Palace Court, and include the yellow terracotta Westland hotel, formerly the Yellow House, no. 8, designed by George & Peto for Percy McQuoid.

Set back from the east side of Palace Court are nos. 10, 12, and 14, the first two forming a pair designed ...
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