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...

»more

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...
»more

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...
»more

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...
»more

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...
»more

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

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

AUGUST

2016

Polish Social and Cultural Association
The Polski Ośrodek Społeczno-Kulturalny (POSK) is the Polish Social and Cultural Association in London. It was founded and funded in 1967 at 238-246 King Street, Hammersmith where Poles who had escaped the occupation of their country congregated in west London.

POSK promotes Polish culture and art. It houses the Library of Poland in London, which was founded in 1942, exhibitions, film screenings, theatre performances and a regular jazz club. There is also a Polish cafe and a restaurant.
»read full article

AUGUST

2016

Boreham Wood Baptist Church
The Baptist Church, situated on the corner of Furzehill Road, opened on 14 July 1911. The first baptist chapel was in Station Road, (formerly Gas Works Lane), built by members in memory of Mrs Godfrey, The small chapel was converted into a cinema and called The Little Gem and then became a public toilet and later a flower shop.

In 1911 the church was resited.

The Baptist Church was demolished to make way for Furzehill Parade.
»read full article

AUGUST

2016

68 Shenley Road
68 Shenley Road was a shop on the corner of Furzehill Road - now disappeared. Later split into three separate shops, Buckingham House covered the present addresses 60-62 Shenley Road and the now demolished number 64. Buckingham House was the name that Richard Lidstone, a drapers, called his new shop which occupied the plot and went up soon after the turn of the twentieth century.

After the Second World War, George Lilley’s was occupying the corner plot of 64 Shenley Road - 62 and 60 had split off into other premises. Lilley’s was an electrical shop which by the 1950s was selling and repairing televisions.

In 1958, the entire block of buildings along Shenley Road between Furzehill Road and Drayton Road was demolished and replaced.

Lilleys was on the corner of Furzehill then Kilbys grocers shop, Co op shoe shop then some cottages, Misses Byers sweet shop with the big tree in front amongst the cottages, Hunts Butchers shop and then Drayton Road.
»read full article

AUGUST

2016

Brent Lodge was built on land which had been part of ’Warren’s Gift’, a charitable estate, sometime between 1817 and 1824. It was a substantial property whose grounds were considerably reduced.

Nearby at Elm Park, west of Nether Street, where building had started in 1882, land was offered in 1900 for good-class villas which were said to be in great demand. By 1908 housing was continuous up to Brent Lodge, which was offered with 26 acres for immediate building.

The Finchley Co-Partnership Society was then formed to lay out a garden village like Hampstead Garden Suburb for the ’less wealthy middle classes’. In 1910 it decided to preserve Brent Lodge and to develop the 24 acres estate on a co-operative system.

The house was demolished in 1962 despite efforts by the comedian Spike Milligan.
»read full article

AUGUST

2016

Vauxhall Gardens
Vauxhall Gardens was a pleasure garden, one of the leading venues for public entertainment from the mid 17th century to the mid 19th century. Originally known as New Spring Gardens, the site was believed to have opened before the Restoration of 1660 with the first mention being made by Samuel Pepys in 1662.

The Gardens consisted of several acres of trees and shrubs with attractive walks. Initially, entrance was free with food and drink being sold to support the venture.

The site became Vauxhall Gardens in 1785 and admission was charged to gain its many attractions. The Gardens drew all manner of men and supported enormous crowds, with its paths being noted for romantic assignations. Tightrope walkers, hot air balloon ascents, concerts and fireworks provided amusement. The rococo Turkish tent became one of the Gardens' structures, the interior of the Rotunda became one of Vauxhall's most viewed attractions, and the chinoiserie style was a feature of several buildings.

Enormous crowds could be accommodated. In 1749 a rehearsal of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks attra...
»more

AUGUST

2016

Myddelton Park, N20
Myddelton Park was built by John Miles before 1882 when he erected All Saints’ Church and vicarage nearby. Extended south along the line of an existing footpath in 1903, Friern Barnet Lane and Oakleigh Road were linked only after this by Myddelton Park.
»read full article

AUGUST

2016

Newmarket Farm existed until 1855. 47 acres of Newmarket Farm were sold to St Marylebone Burial Board. The cemetery, designed by Barnett and Birch, opened in 1855. The Crematorium was not built until 1937.

To the east of Newmarket Farm, a field provided a cricket ground.

Opposite the cemetery from 1864 was the Convent of the Good Shepherd. In 1873 it became either a reformatory for former female prisoners
or a Magdalene asylum for fallen women. Following a fire in the 1970s most of the buildings were demolished and replaced by Bishop Douglass
School and the Thomas More estate.
»read full article

AUGUST

2016

Boscobel Street, NW8
Boscobel Street is named after a nearby pub called the Royal Oak. Boscobel House, Staffordshire and its Royal Oak tree became famous as hiding places of King Charles II after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651.

Charles’s adventure is commemorated by over 500 pubs named the Royal Oak.

The nearby Royal Oak was situated at 2 Princes Road. This pub was present from c.1830 and was demolished in 1898 to make way for the Marylebone Goods Yard, which is now the site of the Lisson Estate.

Boscobel Street was originally named Princes Street but inherited a new moniker in a mass London-wide street renaming where duplicate names were replaced.
»read full article

AUGUST

2016

Portobello Green features a shopping arcade under the Westway along Thorpe Close, an open-air market under the canopy, and community gardens. From the 1860s to the 1960s this area was occupied by 5 houses along Portobello Road from the railway embankment, numbers 277 to 287, and two round the corner on the south side of Cambridge Gardens before the entrance to Thorpe Mews. 281 Portobello Road (now the address of the Portobello Green arcade) was AJ Symons confectioner and tobacconist in the 1920s.

Anne McSweeney, who lived across the road in the early 1960s, recalls before the Westway, ‘at the junction with Cambridge Gardens was a bakers shop, where I would be dispatched to get a Farmhouse or Short Tin loaf, and there was a small newsagent shop in Portobello Road on the Cambridge Gardens side just before the railway bridge. It was called Little’s and I was told that it was run by a boxer called Tommy Little. Keep walking down the lane on the same side opposite where all the stalls are, there was a pie and mash shop where I would take a large pudding basin and they would put the pies and mash in it.’»more

AUGUST

2016

Holland Street, SE1
Today’s Holland Street was originally part of a street called Gravel Lane. George Cunningham in his survey of London’s streets, buildings and monuments gave an explanation for the name Holland Street, saying that is was the “location of the old moated Manor House of Paris Garden, subsequently notorious under the name of Holland’s Leaguer, from Holland, a procuress (an early name for a “woman who procures prostitutes”), who occupied it in Charles I’s time. The old Manor House was a favourite resort of James I and his Court, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham and the nobility generally.”

Holland was Sarah, also known as Elizabeth Holland who in 1631 had been charged as an “incontinent women” and imprisoned in Newgate. The Manor House was very suitable for her needs as she said it was “near the theatres and baiting rings, with their wild beasts and gladiators”.

In 1630, as Madame Holland, had opened her first-class brothel establishment Hollands Leaguer, on the site now covered by Hopton Street an...
»more

MAP YEAR:	1750	1800	1810	1820	1830	1860	1900	1950	2023	Show map without markers
ZOOM:	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17 18	14 15 16 17	14 15 16 17 18
	TIP: Use the zoom controls (top left) to zoom in and out of a particular map

PREVIOUSLY ON THE UNDERGROUND MAP...