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.

Great Portland 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.

Latest on The Underground Map...

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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JUNE

2023

Alba Place, W11
Alba Place is part of the Colville Conservation Area Originally the stable house accommodation for the main houses on Lancaster Road, the primary purpose of the Mews properties is now residential.

Alba Place is located on the site of an original Mews but has been redeveloped to a degree that it no longer contains any surviving Mews properties. It is a gated cul-de-sac off Portobello Road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, almost opposite Hayden’s Place (another redeveloped Mews). It contains 16 properties used for residential purposes.

Alba Place was Albion Place until 1937, one of the many patriotic names dating from the period immediately following the Crimean War.
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JUNE

2023

Canary Wharf to Canada Water walk
An unusual walk between stations on the Jubilee Line which involves asphyxiation One of my series of walks
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MAY

2023

Dunk Street
Dunk Street ran parallel to Great Garden Street (now Greatorex Street) to the west, and King Edward Street, which has also ceased to exist, to the east Dunk Street stretched approximately 200 metres from Old Montague Street to Hanbury Street, situated about 300 metres east of Baker’s Row, which is now the southern section of Vallance Road.

In 1643, Edward Montague, William Montague, and Mawrice Tresham acquired property from William Smith and others in the future Mile End New Town and Spitalfields areas.

This property comprised around forty-two or forty-three acres, which included five enclosed fields, a nursery, and a garden plot. A portion of this land would later become the southern half of Mile End New Town. Edward Montague eventually came into possession of all this land by approximately 1680.

The name Pelham Street was derived from Edward Montague’s wife, Elizabeth Pelham, who held ownership prior to their marriage.

In 1691, Elizabeth Pelham obtained a private Act that allowed her to grant leases for the rebuilding of dilapidated properties on her estates i...
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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Sue Meyrick Road, SW11 Added: 24 Sep 2023 19:09 GMT	Meyrick Rd My family - Roe - lived in poverty at 158 Meyrick Rd in the 1920s, moving to 18 Lavender Terrace in 1935. They also lived in York Rd at one point. Alf, Nell (Ellen), plus children John, Ellen (Did), Gladys, Joyce & various lodgers. Alf worked for the railway (LMS). Reply
Michael Tyrrell Avenue, DA16 Added: 20 Sep 2023 21:10 GMT	Momentous Birth! I was born in the upstairs front room of 28 Tyrrell Avenue in August 1938. I was a breach birth and quite heavy ( poor Mum!). My parents moved to that end of terrace house from another rental in St Mary Cray where my three year older brother had been born in 1935. The estate was quite new in 1938 and all the properties were rented. My Father was a Postman. I grew up at no 28 all through WWII and later went to Little Dansington School Reply
Mike Levy Arbour Square, E1 Added: 19 Sep 2023 18:10 GMT	Bombing of Arbour Square in the Blitz On the night of September 7, 1940. Hyman Lubosky (age 35), his wife Fay (or Fanny)(age 32) and their son Martin (age 17 months) died at 11 Arbour Square. They are buried together in Rainham Jewish Cemetery. Their grave stones read: "Killed by enemy action" Reply
Lady Townshend Bridge House Added: 8 Sep 2023 16:02 GMT	Tenant at Westbourne (1807 - 1811) I think that the 3rd Marquess Townshend - at that time Lord Chartley - was a tenant living either at Westbourne Manor or at Bridge House. He undertook considerable building work there as well as creating gardens. I am trying to trace which house it was. Any ideas gratefully received Reply
Alex Britton Roding Valley Added: 30 Aug 2023 10:43 GMT	Late opening The tracks through Roding Valley were opened on 1 May 1903 by the Great Eastern Railway (GER) on its Woodford to Ilford line (the Fairlop Loop). But the station was not opened until 3 February 1936 by the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER, successor to the GER). Source: Roding Valley tube station - Wikipedia Reply
Kevin Pont Roding Valley Added: 30 Aug 2023 09:52 GMT	Shhh.... Roding Valley is the quietest tube station, each year transporting the same number of passengers as Waterloo does in one day. Reply
Kevin Pont Dollis Hill Added: 30 Aug 2023 09:47 GMT	The connection with Bletchley Park The code-breaking computer used at Bletchley Park was built in Dollis Hill. Reply
Kevin Pont Hampstead Added: 29 Aug 2023 15:25 GMT	The deepest station At 58m below ground, Hampstead is as deep as Nelson’s Column is tall. Source: Hampstead tube station - Wikipedia Reply

Click here to explore another London street
We now have 628 completed street histories and 46872 partial histories

JUNE

2015

Red Lion Hill, N2
The contemporary Red Lion Hill connects Oak Lane and Central Avenue. Red Lion Hill, a significant obstacle on a drovers’ path, takes its name from a public house, the Red Lion. This dated from at latest the 1780s and is now replaced by a block of flats.

It is a lot shorter than its former length as it used to cover most of what is now King Street.

Minor roads grew up along the edge of what was Finchley Common. Bow Lane, named from its shape, existed at Fallow Corner south of East End by 1814. Farther south there was a settlement at Cuckolds Haven by 1678, linked by causeways before 1814. Red Lion Hill was named by 1821 but most of its course became King Street by 1920.

During work in 1934, ten old cottages in Red Lion Hill were set alight to enable the local fire service to give a demonstration.
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JUNE

2015

Kensal House
There are two Kensal Houses in London W10 - this was the original In the triangle between the canal and Harrow Road, a new Italianate villa stood by 1835. Called Kensal House and occupied by Alfred Haines in 1841, it was unusually large for its position.

In 1911, in association with the LCC, the Paddington & Kensington Dispensary for the Prevention of Consumption established an open air school for local tuberculous children, set in the estate of Kensal House.

Kensal House had an extensive garden and the Open Air School provided an education for children who would otherwise have been barred from normal school.

The original Italianate house survived in the 21st century, containing three storeys over a basement and of brick and stucco, the main façade having seven bays, a prominent cornice, and a Corinthian porch.

A 19th century wing has been added to the east and a modern one to the west. After serving as a school, the house was occupied by the Metropolitan Railway Surplus Lands Co. by 19...
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JUNE

2015

The Flora
The Flora is situated on Harrow Road, W10. The Flora was built in the 19th century from polychrome brick, and Pevsner notes its "angular window heads". The building is also notable for the contrasting brickwork above the windows and the floral motifs incorporated into the design.

The pub was known as The Flora Arms from 1881. In the nineteenth century, as The Flora Hotel, the building was the location for a number of inquests into deaths in the Queen’s Park area. Thomas Robinson Dipple was the publican for many years, from at least 1904 to 1921. Sometimes described as an "Irish" pub due to the large Irish community in the area, in the twentieth century the pub has been a favourite watering hole for supporters of the local football team Queen’s Park Rangers.

In April 1893, after QPR had beaten Fulham at at Kensal Rise in the final of the West London Observer Cup, the trophy was put on show in the pub.

The pub backs onto the Grand Union Canal.
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JUNE

2015

Beethoven Street School
Beethoven Street School was opened in 1881 to serve the community of the newly-built Queen's Park Estate. In the playshed of the school in September 1885, the first woodwork class in elementary schools in London was opened. The instructor was J .T Chenoweth. As the expenditure was illegal, it was disallowed and the class was temporarily suspended.

The course re-started with money provided by the City and Guilds Institute and was later taken up by the London School Board as a model for other schools.
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JUNE

2015

Redcliffe Gardens, SW10
Redcliffe Gardens began life as Walnut Tree Walk, a pathway running through nurseries and market gardens. The street, built between 1865 and 1873, is characterised by a wide street, mature trees, ample front gardens and large gault brick houses arranged as detached houses, pairs, groups of three and terraces.

Redcliffe Gardens is home to Redcliffe School’s prep school.
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JUNE

2015

Harrow Road (1920s)
Harrow Road in the 1920s, looking south east towards the Prince of Wales pub and the Emmanuel Church spire. On the right of the image can be seen the pre-war Harrow Road Market. Beyond the market is North Paddington School.

The market, almost opposite Benjamins furniture shop, later became a wood yard.
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JUNE

2015

Westbourne Lodge
Westbourne Lodge appeared in one of the earliest photographs in London. Westbourne Lodge was built before the Great Western Railway was built but once it had, the railway ran beside the Lodge.

The accompanying photo dates from 6 August 1857 and shows guests at the wedding of the Reverend Frederick Manners Stopford to Florence Augusta Saunders, daughter of Charles Saunders, first general secretary of the Great Western Railway. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was amongst the guests.

During the wedding, both Brunel and Saunders were able to experience trains running beside the wedding party along the railway which they had built.
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JUNE

2015

Coppetts Road, N10
By 1754 the modern Coppetts Road ran from Crouch End north towards Colney Hatch. By 1846 it was linked by a track south of Bounds Green brook to Colney Hatch Lane. At the northern end Coppetts Road met a route running westward from Colney Hatch shortly before it forked into two tracks crossing Finchley Common, later Woodhouse Road and Summers Lane. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries many copyhold lanes apparently led to individual holdings.

South of Bounds Green Brook there was only Coppetts Farm between 1783 and 1846.

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JUNE

2015

Ridler’s Tyre Yard
Ridler’s Tyres was situated in a part of Blechynden Street which no longer exists It was situated next to the railway bridge in Blechynden Street. This part of the street was redeveloped.
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JUNE

2015

Queen’s Park
Queen’s Park lies between Kilburn and Kensal Green, developed from 1875 onwards and named to honour Queen Victoria. The north of Queen’s Park formed part of the parish of Willesden and the southern section formed an exclave of the parish of Chelsea, both in the Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex. In 1889 the area of the Metropolitan Board of Works that included the southern section of Queen’s Park was transferred from Middlesex to the County of London, and in 1900 the anomaly of being administered from Chelsea was removed when the exclave was united with the parish of Paddington. In 1965 both parts of Queen’s Park became part of Greater London: the northern section - Queen’s Park ’proper’ formed part of Brent and the southern section - the Queen’s Park Estate - joined the City of Westminster.

Queen’s Park, like much of Kilburn, was developed by Solomon Barnett. The two-storey terraced houses east of the park, built between 1895 and 1900, typically have clean, classical lines. Those west of the park, built 1900–05, tend to be more Gothic in style. Barnett’s wife was f...
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JUNE

2015

The Apollo
The Apollo pub was located at 18 All Saints Road, on the southeast corner of the Lancaster Road junction. It was first listed as a pub, having been built as such in 1869. The first licencee was Mr Edward Ashley.

Until after the Second World War, the pub was a typical Victorian-stlye boozer, just like many others throughout London.

In the 1950s, All Saints Road became a centre for the local West Indian population with the pub at its heart - it was possibly the first pub in Notting Hill where black people were able to be served without hassle.

In 1964, Ringo Starr was across Lancaster Road from the Apollo (on the north east corner) in the Beatles film ’A Hard Day’s Night’. Ringo first appears on St Luke’s Road. From there he’s chased by two screaming girls down Lancaster Road to All Saints Road, where he goes into a second hand clothes shop and comes out in beatnik disguise.

When All Saints Road became part of the heart of the Notting Hill Carnival, the Apollo obtained a bit of a reputation.

After a riot ...
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JUNE

2015

Kilburn Bridge Farm
Kilburn Bridge Farm stood beside Watling Street until the late 1830s. Watling Street has long been running through Kilburn. The road stretched in Roman times from Dover to Wroxeter in Shropshire. Kilburn was a stopping point on the way to Willesden’s ‘Black Madonna’ shrine, and in turn a destination in itself to take the waters at the Kilburn Wells.
Around the turn of the nineteenth century, Kilburn Bridge Farm was reported as lying to the west side of Watling Street and consisting of 40 acres. It was worth £230 a year in 1795. The modern day site of the farm is just south of the junction between Kilburn Park Road and the Edgware Road.
The earliest mention of the farm dates from 1647 when a Mrs Wheatley leased 44 acres of pasture in five closes from the Bishop of London who owned the land.
In 1742, when Richard Marsh was tenant, the farmhouse and its yards stood by the road close to the Westbourne stream, with 39 acres in six fields to the south and west. It was named after the bridge where the Edgware Road crossed the stream...
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JUNE

2015

Cornwall Crescent, W11
Cornwall Crescent belongs to the third and final period of building on the Ladbroke estate. Development of this area became more attractive with the opening in 1864 of the Hammersmith and City branch of the Metropolitan Railway with a station on Ladbroke Grove. With it came the introduction of cheap workmen’s fares.

By that time the Ladbroke family had disposed of the land, either by selling the freehold or by giving 99-year peppercorn rents. The land on which Cornwall Crescent lies was in the hands mainly of two merchant-turned developers, Stephen Phillips, and the speculator and ex-Calcutta merchant Charles Blake, who had already developed successfully several other parts of the Ladbroke estate. They in their turn gave building leases to a variety of builders. The normal pattern was no doubt followed, according to which the builder had to build houses meeting certain standards; he then received a 99-year lease of the houses, which he would let out, thus recovering his costs, but he had had to pay a ground rent to the landowner. In practice, both the free...
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JUNE

2015

St Lukes Mews, W11
St Lukes Mews is a mews off of All Saints Road, W11. St Luke's Mews runs across All Saints Road from St Luke's Road to Basing Street. The western half was originally called 'Lancaster Mews' and appears as such on the 1900 map.

It has been inhabited by Marsha Hunt of 'Hair', Lemmy of Motörhead, Chet Baker, Richie Havens, Joan Armatrading of 'Love and Affection' fame, and Paula Yates.

In Hollywood W11 the mews appears in 'The Man Who Knew Too Little' - Bill Murray thwarts a mugging attempt, and 'Love Actually' - Andrew Lincoln expresses his feelings for Keira Knightley with Bob Dylan-style placards.
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JUNE

2015

Windsor Castle
The Windsor Castle dates from the 1820s but its main incarnation was as a classic Victorian public house, seminal in 1970s musical history. It started life as the building at one end of houses on the south side of the Harrow Road, then called Ormes Green.

When rebuilt about 1850, the new building was typical of the villa development in this part of Harrow Road. It has turrets on the top reminiscent of its namesake: the real Windsor Castle.

After passing about a hundred years as a classic local pub, it burst into musical significance.

It was renowned for early gigs by the Rolling Stones and the Who.

The pub was a punk rock venue in the mid to late 1970s. Playing there, among others, were Dr Feelgood, The Jam, U2 and the Psychedelic Furs. The 101`ers with Joe Strummer - his band prior to forming the Clash - played there. The inspiration for the ‘Protex Blue’ track is said to come from the contraceptive machine in the toilets of the Windsor Castle.

After moving considerably downmarket as a strip club, it closed in 2009.
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JUNE

2015

Spotted Dog
The Spotted Dog public house was one of the earliest buildings in Westbourne Green. It was located near to what later was nos. 12-18 Cirencester Street and, on Roque's 1746 map, is the last building along the Harrow Road before Kensal Green.

It stood very close to Westbourne Farm. ,The farm was occupied by the actress Sarah Siddons from April 1805 to Autumn 1817, while her brother Charles Kemble lived in a smaller house nearby for part of the time.

Later it was called the Westbourne Green Tavern and kept by Eleanor Winter, a witness to the 1802 Paddington Canal Murder.

The pub had disappeared by the 1860s.
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JUNE

2015

Codrington Mews, W11
This attractive L-shaped mews lies off Blenheim Crescent between Kensington Park Road and Ladbroke Grove. Given their uniformity, the houses must have been built all of a piece. They all have two stories. They are built of London stock brick with pitched roofs and decorative brickwork under the eaves. They have been much altered over the years, but those on the north side originally had almost certainly a double stable or stable and coach house below, and external stairs up to a door on the first floor, where there would have been accommodation for coachmen etc. This pattern survives only on No. 6 at the far end.

The mews was probably named after Admiral Sir Edward Codrington (1770-1851), who commanded a ship at Trafalgar, led the fleet at Washington and Baltimore in the American War and commanded the combined fleets of Britain, France and Russia at the battle of Navarino.
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JUNE

2015

Chepstow Villas, W11
Chepstow Villas is a road in W11 with a chequered history. Chepstow Villas is a pleasant leafy street that runs between Pembridge Villas and Kensington Park Road. It is intersected by Ledbury Road/Chepstow Crescent; Denbury Road/Pembridge Crescent; and Portobello Road.

Until the 1840s, the whole area was agricultural land. But in around 1840 the demand for housing began to increase and the second great surge of housebuilding began on the Ladbroke estate. The Ladbroke family, the owners of the estate, had begun to sell off parcels of land to speculators. James Weller Ladbroke retained the eastern part of what is now Chepstow Villas (numbers 1-15 odds and 2-32 evens), but the central part, up as far as Portobello Road, passed into the ownership of Robert Hall of Old Bond Street. And after James Weller Ladbroke’s death in 1847, his heir Felix Ladbroke sold the western plot to a speculating parson from Bedfordshire, the Rev. Brooke Edward Bridges, and the latter then sold it on to another developer, Thomas Pocock. So there were ...
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JUNE

2015

Elgin Mews, W11
Elgin Mews lies in Notting Hill. This small L-shaped mews runs from Ladbroke Grove along the back of the gardens of the north side of Westbourne Park Road before turning sharp right to emerge between Nos. 316 and 318 Westbourne Park Road. Unusually for the Ladbroke area, both entrances to the mews are through archways under buildings.

It was built in the 1860s (it does not appear on the 1863 Ordnance Survey map, but is already inhabited by the time of the 1871 census). Both sides of the mews were lined with small two-storey buildings, described in a 1960 Ministry of Housing report (quoted in old RBKC planning papers) as stables with accommodation above. There were no fewer than 28 units.

The 19th century inhabitants were mainly connected with horses - cab drivers, horse-keepers and grooms - but with a good sprinkling of labourers and minor tradesmen: a chimney sweep, a baker, a butcher’s assistant, a house painter etc. Whole families were packed into what must have been extremely cra...
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JUNE

2015

Manette Street, W1D
Manette Street in Soho is named after the character from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Manette Street is a small street in the Soho area of London, linking the Charing Cross Road to Greek Street. Dating from the 1690s, and formerly named Rose Street, it is now named after the fictional character of Dr Manette in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Buildings on the street include the Foyles Building and the Pillars of Hercules pub, and Goldbeater’s House, which still has an arm-and-hammer sign outside it, a replica of the original described by Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities.

The House of St Barnabas has a chapel and garden facing onto Manette Street, and an entrance to The Borderline nightclub is accessed from Manette Street.

The street was associated with anarchism in the 19th century, in particular in association with the Rose Street Club, known for its popularity with radicals of all nationalities.
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