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.

Amersham

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...

Amersham

Amersham is a market town 27 miles north west of London, in the Chiltern Hills, England. It is part of the London commuter belt. Amersham is split into two distinct areas: Old Amersham, set in the valley of the River Misbourne, which contains the 13th century parish church of St. Mary’s and several old pubs and coaching inns; and Amersham-on-the-Hill, which grew rapidly around the railway station in the early part of the 20th century.

Records date back to pre-Anglo-Saxon times, when it was known as Egmondesham.

In 1200 Geoffrey, Earl of Essex obtained a charter for Amersham allowing him to hold a Friday market and a fair on 7 and 8 September. In 1613 a new charter was granted to Edward, Earl of Bedford, changing the market day to Tuesday and establishing a statute fair on 19 September.

The area of the town now known as Amersham on the Hill was referred to as Amersham Common until after the arrival of the Metropolitan Line in 1892. After this date growth of the new area of the town gradually accelerated, with much work being done by the arch...

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NOVEMBER

2023

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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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Matthew Proctor Blackheath Grove, SE3 Added: 7 Dec 2023 17:36 GMT	Blackheath Grove, SE3 Road was originally known as The Avenue, then became "The Grove" in 1942. From 1864 there was Blackheath Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on this street until it was destroyed by a V2 in 1944 Reply
Peter Gambia Street, SE1 Added: 4 Dec 2023 07:05 GMT	Gambia Street, SE1 Gambia Street was previously known as William Street. Reply
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

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We now have 628 completed street histories and 46872 partial histories

MARCH

2015

Lauriston Lodge
Lauriston Lodge, now the site of Dene Mansions, was a large house in West Hampstead. Germain Lavie, J.P. was a lessee of Lauriston Lodge and some 11 acres, part of Gilberts estate, from 1806. The house, later occupied by Sir William Woods, Garter King-at-Arms, was of red brick with stained-glass windows and a fine entrance.

Despite being situated just to the west of West End Lane, Lauriston Lodge had its own access - a path called Sweetbriar Walk which ran all the way to the Edgware Road before the Midland Railway tracks were laid.

In 1881, Dennington Park Road was constructed on the line of Sweetbriar Walk and 58 houses were built there between 1883 and 1888.

Three blocks of flats, named Dene Mansions after Little Dene, home of the Ripley family who had been the final owners of the house, replaced Lauriston Lodge in 1904.
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MARCH

2015

Bridge House
Canal side house in Westbourne Park When the Grand Junction Canal was dug, John White, the owner of Westbourne Farm and an architect, built Bridge House on the north bank of the new canal in 1805.
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MARCH

2015

Earl of Zetland
The Earl of Zetland - a pub in the Potteries The Earl of Zetland was a pub located in Princedale Road. It was also, in its time, called The Tuscan and Bar One One Six.

The address is now given as 116 Princedale Road, previously it was at 116 Princes Street.

After being derelict for quite a while, an application was made to demolish it but the borough turned this down. Instead it was converted into an office (basement, ground and first floor levels) and a two bedroom flat.

Some scenes of the 1966 film ’Blow Up’ by Michelangelo Antonioni were filmed nearby.
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MARCH

2015

Rackham Street, eastern end (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. This photo shows the corner of Ladbroke Grove looking west down Rackham Street just after the end of the Second World War. Just beyond the Rootes advert was the local doctor's surgery. (Rootes, an auto manufacturor, was taken over by Chrysler long after the war.) Beyond the surgery, the houses - three floors and a basement flat, would generally house four or more families each.

During the night of 27/8 September 1940, after Nazi incendiary bombs, the central part of Rackham Street become a huge crater (though only one person was killed).

As the Luftwaffe aimed for the railway line and gas works, the nearby Princess Louise Hospital was also bombed three times and around a hundred incendiaries hit the St Charles convent and grounds.

In the early 1950s, the rest of Rackham Street was demolished to make way for the Balfour of Burleigh estate. Rackham Street left no trace - not even a name.
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MARCH

2015

Coppies Grove, N11
Coppies Grove is a modern development. The nearby Avenue district was cleared after 1969; by 1975, when there were still vacant patches, the Avenue itself, Stewards Holte Walk, Coppies Grove, and flats called Holmesdale and Stanhope were built.
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MARCH

2015

St Quintin Park Cricket Ground (1890s)
Before the turn of the 20th century, west of present day North Kensington lay fields - the future Barlby Road was the site of the St Quintin Park Cricket Ground. In this photo, we see a view which is roughly taken from the site of what became the Clement Talbot (Rootes) Motor Works, about ten years later.

To the left of the St Marylebone Infirmary (now St Charles Hospital) is a building that is now on the corner of Exmoor St and Barlby Road, marked on the 1900 map as the Color (sic) Printing Works. Beyond that is Edinburgh Road School (later Barlby Road School), built in 1880. This building was demolished in the early 1970s as part of the redevelopment of the streets to the south of the school and the new school was built further towards the junction with Ladbroke Grove.
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MARCH

2015

Earlsfields
Between Thorplands on the east and Shoot Up Hill on the west lay several fields called Earlsfields. Pastureage sold in 'Erlesfeld' was listed among the issues of the Hampstead manor in 1322. It is unlikely that Earlsfield was part of the original manorial demesne because of its position. It may have originated in assarted land that was later leased or granted out or it may have been tenant land which had escheated to the lord.

In 1632 John Kemp leased a cottage at Shoot Up Hill and two crofts called Earlsfield (6 acres). They, together with two cottages and a small close at Kilburn, passed on John's death in 1643 to his brother Francis Kemp of Willesden,

By the turn of the nineteenth century, the Greenhill family held Earlsfield. The estate was identifiable as two fields south of Mill Lane, forming a long strip of 7 acres, copyhold and heriotable. It passed to Samuel Hoare and his son Joseph, who sold it to the Midland Railway Company in 1867.

The other two long fields to the east were freehold, comprising a house and 14 acres in 1705. By...
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MARCH

2015

Cholmley Lodge
Cholmley Lodge, a two storeyed stuccoed house, was built in 1813. A National school and cottage for the schoolmistress was built on the north side of the village, on part of the grounds of Cholmley Lodge, in 1844.

In the early 20th century the property came under the ownership of Captain Henry Wilkes Notman, a wealthy Scot who had made his fortune in the railways.

Cholmley Lodge was demolished in 1921. On its grounds was then built seventeen blocks of flats fronting the four boundary roads: Mill Lane, Aldred Road, Hillfield Road, and Fortune Green Road. These blocks were put up between 1922 and 1927 and constituted Cholmley Gardens. Parts of the original lodge are still to be found in the extensive gardens of that latter road.

In particular, the main entrance steps and patio can still be found leading to the tennis court at the northern end of the gardens. Many of the retaining walls within the grounds were built using materials from the original house. Within the walls of the estate, one can find intere...
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MARCH

2015

Corbets Tey
Corbets Tay is a village located south of, and contiguous with, Upminster. Corbets Tey is first mentioned in 1461 as Corbinstye. The medieval manor of Gaynes occupied most of the southern Upminster area and some of its land has been under cultivation for over 2,000 years. On Corbets Tey Road, the rubble-walled tower of Upminster@@@s parish church of St Laurence dates from the early 13th century.

There was a tannery at Corbets Tey from 1573 to 1635 and gravel extraction took place in the vicinity from the 18th century. The most notable survival at the centre of the old village is High House, a tall farmhouse built around 1700 and still possessing a virtually complete original interior.

During the 1770s Sir James Esdaile commissioned a manor house at Gaynes, with a 100-acre park created from the surrounding farmland – but within about 50 years most of the mansion had to be demolished to make the property affordable to a new buyer. Esdaile also built Harwood Hall in 1782, and its distinctive castellations were added a cent...
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MARCH

2015

New West End
New West End was created in the 1840s on the Finchley Road. Four houses were built on a field of Platt's estate which jutted westward south of Teil's estate. The cluster were optimistically named New West End but eventually the name fell out of favour.
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MARCH

2015

Ladbroke Grove (1950)
Ladbroke Grove on the corner of St Charles Sqaure taken outside the Eagle public house, looking north, just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. This view would be utterly transformed after bombing and then subsequent redevelopment in the 1950s.
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MARCH

2015

Poplar House
Poplar House was occupied by one of the first developers of West Hampstead, Thomas Potter. Thomas Potter was the owner of Thorplands, an estate of 13 acres which was south of Mill Lane and west of West End Lane. Potter built about 15 houses fronting Mill Lane between 1873 and 1877 and the Elms and the Cedars next to the green by 1878.

Another 28 houses and a Methodist church were built on the estate fronting Mill Lane in 1886-7 and seven blocks of flats in West End Lane on what was called the Cedars estate in 1894. Some 49 houses were finally built in Inglewood Road on the site of Poplar House, in 1893-4.
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MARCH

2015

Little Chalfont
Little Chalfont is a 20th-century creation triggered by the coming of the Metropolitan Railway. A station called Chalfont Road was opened in 1889 at the northernmost point of Chalfont St Giles Parish where the parishes of Amersham, Chenies, and Chalfont St Giles met. At that time, the area was remote from the centres of the villages and towns, and consisted of isolated farms and cottages, and did not have a specific name.

The coming of the railway eventually brought local housing development, and a community developed around the station, which was renamed to Chalfont & Latimer station in 1915, a name which it retains today.

The first appearance of the name Little Chalfont is in the minutes of the Chalfont St Giles Parish Council on 15 January 1925, when, at the request of the inhabitants, it was agreed that the group of houses near the station should be named Little Chalfont instead of "Chalfont Road Village". For many years, Little Chalfont was split mainly in the Amersham Town Council area, and partly in Chalfont St Giles parish. Following a perio...
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MARCH

2015

Notting Hill Barn Farm
Notting Barns Farm was one of two farms in the North Kensington area. The farm, also known as Notting Hiil Barns Farm and Salters Farm, stood within countryside that was recorded as ’densely wooded thickets, the coverts of game, red and fallow deer, boars and wild bulls’ once known as Middlesex Forest.

It was approached via a footpath that was known as Green’s Lane. There is a sketch of the manor house but the farmhouse seems not so substantial a building as to have been a grand house.

It remains clear that there were two ponds serving the farm and the source of water was derived from the springs that gave rise to the streams or marshes south of the higher ground.

In 1880 the farmhouse house was still standing although by then surrounded by new building.
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MARCH

2015

Rackham Street, western end (1950)
A bombed-out Rackham Street, looking down from the junction with Exmoor Street. The huge bomb crater which actually had its epicentre on the north side of St Charles Square, one block south, can be seen. This one bomb fell in September 1940 and caused so much destruction that it was decided, after the war finished, to redevelop the whole area. Most of the street plan was changed utterly.
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MARCH

2015

Orme’s Green
Ormes Green was the former name for this part of Westbourne Park. In 1809, Edward Orme, a print seller of Bond Street, acquired the former Bell at Bayswater, called Elms House, with two houses behind it, formerly a single house, along with the Bayswater tea gardens. Soon he also held much property farther west along the Uxbridge Road, where he may first have made money from gravel. He turned to building and property speculation, mainly in the Bayswater area.

By the mid 1820s, he had been responsible for building Orme’s Green - named after his family like much of what he built. He built a row of houses, later called Belsize Villas, standing alone in the fields on the south side of Harrow Road.

The name eventually fell out of use.
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MARCH

2015

Wedlake Street Baths
In a time when most had somewhere to live but few had somewhere to wash at home, public baths were the place to go... Baths and a laundry to serve Queen's Park had been built in 1898, where the boundary with Kensington ran slightly south of the canal along Wedlake Street to Kensal Road. They were built next to Halfpenny (Ha'penny) Steps which allowed access across the canal from the Harrow Road to the baths for people from the Queen's Park Estate.

Wedlake Street Baths housed both a swimming pool and public baths. Families would go there for their weekly bath. There was a distinct system in place to use the facilities - you would get a numbered ticket and sat until your number was called. While you were in the bath, you could shout out to the attendent if you wanted more hot or cold water. The steel changing cubicles, a local remembered, were all made of steel - even the door. 'It felt like you were in stir!', remembered one.

Earlier times, people would leave their clothes unattended in the cubicle with the half door and a curtain on the top. Then it turned modern and the...
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MARCH

2015

Portobello Arms
The Portobello Arms was a former pub in Kensal Town, established in 1842. The 1911 census lists it as the licensee being called "Marshall" and situated at 248 Kensal Road. It was also listed as the headquarters of the Jubilee Angling Society.

The members of the Court Pleasant union regularly met there in the nineteenth century.

The Paddingion Mercury publishes the following correspondence in 1884:

Sir, I forwarded a petition to the Registrar General in October last drawing his attention to what we considered the nuisance of having to attend at a public house in Kensal Town known as the Portobello Arms for the purposes of registering the births and deaths of any of our children or relations and asking that the Registrar for the sub district might be removed to the new Vestry Offices in Kensal Road.

Not receiving an answer I wrote again on the 22nd of this month and received the following letter which I shall be glad if you will kindly publish.
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MARCH

2015

Ladbroke Grove railway bridge
Looking north over Bartle Bridge in the 1950s The iron bridge was built over the Great Western Railway with the notable feature of a separated road and pedestrian walkway.

The bridge was later the site for the 1999 Ladbroke Grove rail crash.

From a series of photos of locations used in the film The Blue Lamp.
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MARCH

2015

Kilburn High Road
What was Watling Street in earlier times, became Edgware Road and finally Kilburn High Road. It is a varied street. AA Milne lived at one end of the High Road and WH Smith at the other. Dickens once drank in The Black Lion. Ella Fitzgerald once sang in The Gaumont State Theatre, later a bingo hall, later still, a church. Ian Dury's original band was called "Kilburn And The High Roads".

Kilburn High Road railway station opened in 1852 as Kilburn & Maida Vale station by the LNWR. The current footbridge and street-level buildings are not so much the result of modernisation but of three or four major fires which have occurred here since the early 1970s. It is now part of the London Overground.
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MARCH

2015

Scratchwood
Scratchwood is an area on the edge of North London. It was the former name of the London Gateway Services, named after woodland lying between the present M1 and A1.

One of the apocryphal stories of London is that the guns of HMS Belfast, moored next to City Hall, are trained on Stratchwood Services.
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MARCH

2015

Hinde Street, W1U
Hinde Street was built from 1777 by Samuel Adams and named after Jacob Hinde who was the son-in-law of the landwoner Thomas Thayer. Hinde Street is home to a number of notable buildings. The Hinde Street Methodist Church, a grade II listed building with Historic England. It was built 1807-10, and rebuilt in the 1880s.

Number 2 on the south side is a Portman Estate development terraced town house built around 1790. The building is grade II listed and occupied on the ground floor by Bishop Instruments and Bows.

Numbers 11 and 12 on the north side between Manchester Square and Thayer Street are also Portman Estate terraced town houses that have shops on the ground floor and flats above. Both are grade II listed.

The novelist Rose Macaulay (1881-1958) lived at Hinde House on the north side from 1941 until her death.
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MARCH

2015

Compayne Open Space
As West Hampstead was developed, a series of private gardens were built behind the urban facades. Compayne Open Space lies between Compayne and Canfield Gardens, NW6.

It is split into three main characters. A hard surfaced tennis court area is located to the west of the site, in the middle of the site an open grassed area with a few scattered trees and an attractive, well laid out community garden to the east.

This garden provides a private, secluded space in which to relax.

A number of young trees and shrubs have been planted along with climbing species around trellissing to provide important vertical habitat.
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