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.

Fountain commemorating the Lamb’s Conduit (2006)

This is situated at the junction of Lamb’s Conduit Street and Guilford Street
Credit: Wiki Commons/R Sones

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...

Lamb’s Conduit Street, WC1N

Lamb’s Conduit Street takes its name from Lambs Conduit - a dam across a tributary of the River Fleet. Lamb’s Conduit Street was named in honour of William Lambe, who generously donated £1500 to rebuild the Holborn Conduit in 1564. The Conduit - a large cistern - was supplied with water from a dam across a tributary of the River Fleet.

Lambe - who hailed from Kent - noticed a spring in Holborn "where there was spring water as clear as crystal".

The water was carried through a network of lead pipes from these northern fields for more than two thousand yards.

The water was distributed to the Snow Hill area. Lambe also provided 120 pails to help poor women earn a living by selling the water. The tributary flowed from west to east along the north side of Long Yard, followed the curved path of Roger Street, and joined the Fleet near Mount Pleasant. This made it the boundary between the Ancient Parishes of Holborn to the south and St Pancras to the north.

However, the New River, which opened in 1613, led to a decline in the ...

»more

SEPTEMBER

2022

Ladbroke Grove, W11
Ladbroke Grove is the main street in London W11 The story of the first, southern part of Ladbroke Grove dates back to the 1820s.

The Ladbroke family owned a large portion of the area, including holdings in Kensington. In 1821, James Weller, the family’s nephew, inherited the estate and was required to change his name to James Weller Ladbroke according to his uncle’s will. He initiated a project to develop the area with Victorian townhouses for the gentry.

Over fifty years, from 1821 to the mid-1870s, a unique layout was created in the area through the efforts of half a dozen architects and numerous speculators. Ladbroke was initially restricted by his uncle’s will to grant leases of up to twenty-one years, but a private Act of Parliament in 1821 allowed him to grant ninety-nine-year leases. Ladbroke’s surveyor, Allason, was then granted leases in 1824 and 1827.

Allason’s first task was to prepare a plan for the layout of the estate, which presented a unique ...
»more

SEPTEMBER

2022

Kenway Road, SW5
Kenway Road was, after 1803, called North Row Kenway Road was originally part of a country track linking the Manor House at Earl’s Court with Kensington village, via what are now Wright’s Lane and Marloes Road. It may be an abbreviation of ’the Way to Kensington’.

In 1797, one Thomas Smith bought a local piece of land called ’Pound Field. At Earl’s Court Smith began building in 1803 along established thoroughfares - today’s Kenway Road and Hogarth Place.

In 1856, Charles William Wallgrave (of King’s Road, Chelsea) invested in a plot of land at Earl’s Court. Four years later he decided to build Wallgrave Road but wrote to the local Parish Vestry to say that the drains at Earl’s Court appeared to be blocked, since all the sewage from the cottages in Kenway Road was overflowing onto his ground. The vestry replied that this was not surprising, since there were no sewers at Earl’s Court. Nor did they intend to do anything ab...
»more

SEPTEMBER

2022

George Lane, E18
George Lane is the main road of South Woodford South Woodford’s original name was Church End. This continued as the electoral ward for the part of South Woodford north of the Central Line railway.

There were five inns in Woodford in 1753: The George, The White Hart, The Ship and Castle, New Wells, and Old Wells. The George at Church End, already existed as Horns Inn in 1657. It faces High Road at the junction with George Lane - the road is named after the inn.

In the early 19th century, the upper and lower roads of Woodford, together with Snakes Lane and George Lane were the only thoroughfares through the parish.

George Lane originally crossed the railway with a level crossing immediately to the north of the station. This was closed and the road split into two when the line was electrified.

The first cinema in the district was the South Woodford Cinema, opening in 1913 at 170 George Lane.

George Lane station became a Central Line underground station ...
»more

SEPTEMBER

2022

Agincourt Road, NW3
Agincourt Road dates from 1881 Thomas E. Gibb, a developer from Kentish Town, purchased a large area of land and proposed to build 120 small houses for middle-class residents (at ’the lower end of middle-class respectability’), as well as a sewer. He laid out several roads, including Cressy Road, Agincourt Road, and Lisburne Road - Agincourt and Cressey were both notable battles.

However, the closure and reopening of a local smallpox hospital caused land values to decrease, and little housing was built initially.

In 1886, the Church Commissioners recognised the social change and allowed Gibb to build 215 houses on the remaining land. This led to the construction of Constantine Road in 1887, which provided a direct route from Gospel Oak and Kentish Town to South End Green and the heath. Building then began, and after Gibb’s death in 1894, his successors built an additional 153 houses in Constantine Road, Cressy Road, and Mackeson Road.
»read full article

LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Albert Mews, SW7 Added: 26 Mar 2023 14:50 GMT	Albert Mews It is not a gargoyle over the entrance arch to Albert Mews, it is a likeness of Prince Albert himself. Reply
Christine D Elliott Blockhouse Street, SE15 Added: 20 Mar 2023 15:52 GMT	The Blute Family My grandparents, Frederick William Blute & Alice Elizabeth Blute nee: Warnham lived at 89 Blockhouse Street Deptford from around 1917.They had six children. 1. Alice Maragret Blute (my mother) 2. Frederick William Blute 3. Charles Adrian Blute 4. Violet Lillian Blute 5. Donald Blute 6. Stanley Vincent Blute (Lived 15 months). I lived there with my family from 1954 (Birth) until 1965 when we were re-housed for regeneration to the area. I attended Ilderton Road School. Very happy memories of that time. Reply
Pearl Foster Dukes Place, EC3A Added: 20 Mar 2023 12:22 GMT	Dukes Place, EC3A Until his death in 1767, Daniel Nunes de Lara worked from his home in Dukes Street as a Pastry Cook. It was not until much later the street was renamed Dukes Place. Daniel and his family attended the nearby Bevis Marks synagogue for Sephardic Jews. The Ashkenazi Great Synagogue was established in Duke Street, which meant Daniel’s business perfectly situated for his occupation as it allowed him to cater for both congregations. Reply
Dr Paul Flewers Hawthorne Close, N1 Added: 9 Mar 2023 18:12 GMT	Some Brief Notes on Hawthorne Close / Hawthorne Street My great-grandparents lived in the last house on the south side of Hawthorne Street, no 13, and my grandmother Alice Knopp and her brothers and sisters grew up there. Alice Knopp married Charles Flewers, from nearby Hayling Road, and moved to Richmond, Surrey, where I was born. Leonard Knopp married Esther Gutenberg and lived there until the street was demolished in the mid-1960s, moving on to Tottenham. Uncle Len worked in the fur trade, then ran a pet shop in, I think, the Kingsland Road. From the back garden, one could see the almshouses in the Balls Pond Road. There was an ink factory at the end of the street, which I recall as rather malodorous. Reply
KJH Andover Road, N7 Added: 7 Mar 2023 17:14 GMT	Andover Road, N7 (1939 - 1957) My aunt, Doris nee Curtis (aka Jo) and her husband John Hawkins (aka Jack) ran a small general stores at 92 Andover Road (N7). I have found details in the 1939 register but don’t know how long before that it was opened.He died in 1957. In the 1939 register he is noted as being an ARP warden for Islington warden Reply
The Queens Head Added: 2 Mar 2023 13:50 GMT	The Queens Head Queens Head demolished and a NISA supermarket and flats built in its place. Reply
Mike Elia Street, N1 Added: 28 Feb 2023 18:09 GMT	6 Elia Street When I was young I lived in 6 Elia Street. At the end of the garden there was a garage owned by Initial Laundries which ran from an access in Quick Street all the way up to the back of our garden. The fire exit to the garage was a window leading into our garden. 6 Elia Street was owned by Initial Laundry. Reply
Fumblina Whitfield Street, W1T Added: 21 Feb 2023 11:39 GMT	Error on 1800 map numbering for John Street The 1800 map of Whitfield Street (17 zoom) has an error in the numbering shown on the map. The houses are numbered up the right hand side of John Street and Upper John Street to #47 and then are numbered down the left hand side until #81 BUT then continue from 52-61 instead of 82-91. Reply

V:0

Click here to explore another London street
We now have 557 completed street histories and 46943 partial histories
Find streets or residential blocks within the M25 by clicking STREETS

JULY

2017

Smithfield
Smithfield is a locality in the ward of Farringdon Without situated at the City of London’s northwest corner. A number of City institutions are located in the area, such as St Bartholomew’s Hospital, the Charterhouse, and Livery Halls including those of the Butchers’ and Haberdashers’ Companies. Smithfield’s meat market dates from the 10th century, and is now London’s only remaining wholesale market in continuous operation since medieval times. The area also contains London’s oldest surviving church, St Bartholomew-the-Great, founded in 1123 AD.

Smithfield has borne witness to many executions of heretics and political rebels over the centuries, including Scottish patriot Sir William Wallace, and Wat Tyler, leader of the Peasants’ Revolt, among many other religious reformers and dissenters.

Smithfield Market, a Grade II listed-covered market building, was designed by Victorian architect Sir Horace Jones in the second half of the 19th century, and is the dominant architectural feature of the area. Some of its original market premises fell into disuse ...
»more

JULY

2017

Henchman Street, W12
Henchman Street is a crescent in the Old Oak Estate. Constructed in the early 1920s, it is named after a Bishop of London, Humphrey Henchman (1592–1675).

Henchman was Bishop from 1663 to 1675.

He was born in Northamptonshire, the son of Thomas Henchman, a skinner, and educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge where he achieved BA in 1613 and MA in 1616. He became a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge in 1617.

Ejected as a canon of Salisbury Cathedral, where he had been since 1623, during the First English Civil War, he joined the royalist forces, and had his estates confiscated. He was one of those who helped the future Charles II to escape the country after the Battle of Worcester of 1651. On the Restoration of 1660, he was made Bishop of Salisbury and in 1663 translated to be Bishop of London, where he saw both the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London.

He was also made Privy Councillor and Almoner to the King.

In March, 1665 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
»read full article

JULY

2017

Erconwald Street, W12
Erconwald Street is the main road running through the Old Oak Estate. The 54 acres required for the Old Oak Estate was purchased by the London County Council (L.C.C) in 1905 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 8 acres being re-sold to the Great Western Railway for its Ealing-Shepherds Bush branch.

The estate was constructed in two phases, west of the railway and East Acton Station in 1912-13 and the eastern half in 1920-3. The western half of Erconald Street dates from the first period of construction.
»read full article

JULY

2017

Wulfstan Street, W12
Wulfstan Street, like all streets in the Wormholt and Old Oak Estate, was named after a Bishop of London. The Wormholt and Old Oak Estates were constructed between 1912-1928 and represented part of a movement towards higher standards in public housing.

The 54 acres required for the Old Oak Estate was purchased by the London County Council (L.C.C) in 1905 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 8 acres being re-sold to the Great Western Railway for its Ealing-Shepherds Bush branch. The estate was constructed in two phases, west of the railway and East Acton Station in 1912-13 and the eastern half in 1920-3 with fourteen houses added in 1927.

Since they were built, internal standards have continued to rise, but their external quality is now rarely equalled in either private or public housing. Because of their high standard of streetscapes, in May 1980, Hammersmith and Fulham Council decided to designate the estates as a Conservation Area.

»read full article

JULY

2017

Braybrook Street, W12
Braybrook Street runs along the west side of Wormwood Scrubs. The street was named after a Bishop of London, Robert Braybrooke. Other Bishops of London who gave their names to nearby streets were Mellitus, Earconwald, Osmund, Wulfstan, Gilbert Foliot, Richard FitzNeal, John Stokesley and Humphrey Henchman.

The street is known as the location of the Massacre of Braybrook Street where three police officers were murdered by Harry Roberts and John Duddy in August 1966.

The officers had stopped to question the three occupants of a car. Roberts shot dead Temporary Detective Constable David Wombwell and Detective Sergeant Christopher Head, whilst John Duddy, another occupant in the vehicle, shot dead Police Constable Geoffrey Fox.

The three suspects went on the run, initiating a large manhunt. All three were eventually arrested and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. Duddy died in prison in 1981. John Witney, the driver of the suspects’ vehicle, was also convicted of the murders; he was released f...
»more

JULY

2017

Horsenden Lane North, UB6
Horsenden Lane North lies north of the Grand Union Canal. It is known that 2500 years ago Iron Age people settled on what today is called Horsenden Hill as large amounts of pottery have been discovered. It was probably during Saxon times that the hill acquired its name originally ’Horsingdon’ - the last syllable ’don’ meaning hill fortress.

There was probably some settlement at Horsenden from the late 12th century, as there was at least one family who took their name from the place. By 1754 the main areas of settlement were around the crossing of Ruislip Road and Oldfield Lane, and in the north of the parish at Greenford Green, with a few houses round the church and at Brabsden Green, by Horsenden Wood.

Brabsden Green hamlet was inhabited by the 1750s, and the last house was demolished in 1972 to be reclaimed by vegetation - one of the very few examples of de-urbanisation in the London area in recent centuries. A little further south, alongside the lane, there are the remains of a grander house (built i...
»more

JULY

2017

Horsenden Lane (1910)
This photo, taken in 1910, depicts a scene which has changed remarkably little. It looks north along the final section of Horsenden Lane South before the canal turns it into Horsenden Lane North. Horsenden Farm can be seen in the distance.

The map we have used to illustrate is the 1900 map which does not show these houses - they were new builds when photographed.
»read full article

JULY

2017

Shepherd Market
Shepherd Market was described by Arthur Bingham Walkley in 1925 as one of the oddest incongruities in London. It is a small square in the Mayfair area of central London, developed in 1735-46 by Edward Shepherd from an open area called Brook Field, through which flowed the Tyburn and used for the annual May fair from which Mayfair gets its name. The fifteen-day fair took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today and was established by King James II in the 1680s, mainly for the purpose of cattle trading. Over the years the fair grew in popularity and size, attracting both rich and poor. Whilst Queen Anne tried to put an end to the fair, her successor George I was more approving. The gentrification of the area in the eighteenth century killed the festival off, with the building of many grand houses. A local architect and developer (Edward Shepherd), was commissioned to develop the site. It was completed in the mid 18th century, with paved alleys, a duck pond, and a two-storey market, topped with a theatre.

Shepherd Market was associated with prostitutes in the eighteenth cen...
»more

JULY

2017

St Andrew
The Church of St Andrew, Holborn stands within the Ward of Farringdon Without. Roman pottery was found on the site during 2001/02 excavations in the crypt. However, the first written record of the church itself is dated as 951 in a charter of Westminster Abbey, referring to it as the "old wooden church", on top of the hill above the river Fleet.

The Charter’s authenticity has been called into question because the date is not within the reign of the King Edgar of England who is granting it. It may be that this is simply a scribal error and that the date should be ’959’ (DCCCCLIX). A ’Master Gladwin’, i.e. a priest, held it after the Norman Conquest and he assigned it to St Paul’s Cathedral, but with the proviso that the advowson be granted at 12 pence a year to the Cluniac Order’s, St Saviour’s foundation of what was to become Bermondsey Abbey. This assignment dates between 1086 and 1089. In about 1200 a deed was witnessed by James, the Parson, Roger, his chaplain, Andrew, the Deacon and also Alexander his clerk. In 1280 one Simon d...
»more

JULY

2017

Holborn Circus, EC1N
Holborn Circus is a junction of five highways in the City of London, on the boundary between Holborn, Hatton Garden and Smithfield. It was designed by the engineer William Haywood and opened in 1867. The term circus describes the way the frontages of the buildings surrounding the junction curve.

On one side lies the church of St Andrew, Holborn, an ancient guild church that survived the Great Fire of London. However, the parochial authority decided, nevertheless, to commission Christopher Wren to rebuild it. Although the nave was destroyed in the Blitz, the reconstruction was faithful to Wren’s original. Many other buildings surrounding Holborn Circus were severely damaged during the Blitz. After the end of the Second World War, many were demolished.

Holborn Circus was described in Charles Dickens’ Dictionary of London (1879) as "perhaps... the finest piece of street architecture in the City".

Read the Holborn Circus entry on the Wikipedia...
»read full article

JULY

2017

St Etheldreda’s Church
St Etheldreda’s Church is in Ely Place, off Charterhouse Street in Holborn, London. The Roman Catholic church is dedicated to Ã†thelthryth, or Etheldreda, the Anglo-Saxon saint who founded the monastery at Ely in 673. It was the chapel of the London residence of the Bishops of Ely.

It is one of the oldest Roman Catholic churches in England, and one of two surviving buildings in London dating from Edward I’s reign. The chapel was purchased by the Roman Catholic church in 1874 and opened in 1878.

»read full article

JULY

2017

Weybridge
Weybridge is a town by the River Wey in the Elmbridge district of Surrey. It is bounded to the north by the River Thames at the mouth of the Wey, from which it gets its name. It is an outlying suburban town within the Greater London Urban Area, situated 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Woking and 16 miles (25 km) southwest of central London. Real estate prices are well above the national average: as of 2008, six of the ten most expensive streets in South East England (defined as the official government region, which excludes Greater London) were in Weybridge.

Weybridge, based on its parish bounds, forms three wards of the United Kingdom or can be divided into the Thames Street and town centre area, the Queens Road area on top of Monument Hill, most of Brooklands and St George’s Hill. Within the post town, rather than Weybridge’s other boundaries is Oatlands or Oatlands Village.

Until the late 18th century Weybridge was as a very small village with a river crossing, seed milling to make flour and nurseries would continue to prov...
»more

JULY

2017

Blackbird Hill (1906)
Blackbird Hill was pictured here in 1906 and was then part of Neasden. Blackbird Hill was named after Blackbird Farm. We don’t know when there was first a farm here. 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.

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.

By the time of John Rocque’s map of 1745, there were farm buildings and orchards on both sides of Old Church Lane. These would come to be known as the upper and lower yards of Blackbird (or Blackbird Hill) Farm. Whereas the original farm, or smallholding, was probably growing a mixture of crops, mainly to support the farmer’s own family, by the mid-18th century the map shows most of the fields as pasture land. This was probably for raising lives...
»more

JULY

2017

Sipson
Sipson is a village in the historic county of Middlesex, England, but since 1965 has been administered as part of the London Borough of Hillingdon. The village’s name comes from the Anglo-Saxon Sibbwines tūn: "Sibbwine’s farmstead". Sipson village adjoins the Bath Road (the modern A4), which linked London to Bath.

The village of Sipson was first mentioned in 1214. By 1337 there were 14 houses at Sipson, surrounded by cultivated land.

The first definite picture of the parish is supplied by Rocque’s map of 1754, where the settlement pattern is clearly shown. At Longford, Harmondsworth, and Sipson there were small, compact groups of houses. Harmondsworth Lane, running east to Sipson, and continuing to Harlington as Sipson Lane, was a track across the open fields. The main settlement at Sipson lay south of Harmondsworth Lane, and was grouped on both sides of Sipson Road; a few houses were situated at Sipson Green where the road joined the Bath Road. From the Bath Road at King’s Arbour to its southernmost point dwellings, collectively known as Heathrow, lined the side of Heathrow Road....
»more

JULY

2017

Abercorn Place, NW8
Abercorn Place is on the Harrow School Estate and is named after James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn, a governor of the school. Building was begun in the 1830s.

Today, the houses present a fascinating mixture from that date to the present day. Nos 13 and 15 have pretty, early 19th-century facades, overlaid with pebble-dash. Charles Robert Leslie RA lived at No. 2, and T.H. Huxley was at No. 26 from 1861 to 1872.

Number 6 predates the street and is a detached villa built around 1820 - it is shown on Crutchley’s map of London of 1829. It is a handsome Neoclassical villa which remains little altered. From 1879 to 1888 it was the home of Edward John Gregory RA (1850-1909), a noted late Victorian painter and sometime President of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours.
»read full article

JULY

2017

Blackbird Hill, NW9
The route of Blackbird Hill has been in existence since the Domesday Book. In 1597 many roads converged on Kingsbury Green. One, originally called Ox Street or London Lane and later Kingsbury Road, ran eastward to the Hyde; Buck Lane, earlier known as Stonepits or Postle Lane, ran northward from Kingsbury Green to join Hay Lane, a road mentioned in the 13th century. Another early road in northern Kingsbury was Tunworth or Stag Lane, which ran from Redhill to Roe Green. Church Lane, in 1563 called Northland Lane, ran southward from Kingsbury Green to the church and Green Lane joined the green to Townsend Lane, known as North Dean Lane in 1394 and 1503. On the west Gibbs or Piggs Lane joined Kingsbury Green to Slough Lane or Sloe Street, as it was called in 1428. The southward extension of Slough Lane, Salmon Street, was called Dorman Stone Lane in the 15th and 16th centuries. There was an east-west road joining Hill and Freren farms to Hendon. The portion between Church Lane and Salmon Street, called Freren Lane in 1379, had disappeared by the early 18th c...
»more

JULY

2017

West Cross Route, W11
The West Cross Route is a 1.21 km-long dual carriageway running north-south between the northern elevated roundabout junction with the western end of Westway (A40) and the southern Holland Park Roundabout. The WCR was formerly the M41 motorway. Its status was downgraded to an A-road in 2000 when responsibility for trunk roads in Greater London was transferred from the Highways Agency to the Greater London Authority.

The WCR was originally the designation for the western section of Ringway 1, the innermost circuit of the London Ringways network, a complex and comprehensive plan for a network of high-speed roads circling central London designed to manage and control the flow of traffic within the capital.

The WCR and the other roads planned in the 1960s for central London had developed from early schemes prior to the Second World War through Sir Patrick Abercrombie’s County of London Plan, 1943 and Greater London Plan, 1944 to a 1960s Greater London Council (GLC) scheme that would have involved the construction of many miles of motorway-standard roads across the city and demolition on a massive scale. Due to the huge construction costs and widespread publ...
»more

JULY

2017

Charterhouse Street, EC1A
Charterhouse Street is a street on the northern boundary of the City of London. It connects Charterhouse Square and Holborn Circus, crossing Farringdon Road and running along a number of historical sites, including Smithfield Market and the historical headquarters of the Port of London Authority.

Before 1869, the one connection between the Smithfield area and the Charterhouse was an ancient street called Charterhouse Lane. In the seventeenth century this street consisted of a narrow alley which started from the east side of the open space at the bottom of St John Street, then widened a little and swung northwards on a straight line to the gate that protected Charterhouse Yard. The opening-out of the western section when the new Smithfield Market was built in the 1860s destroyed the old lane’s integrity. Less than half its former length remained, renamed as part of the otherwise entirely new Charterhouse Street

Charterhouse Street is perhaps most famous for its gastropubs, such as the Fox and Anchor, that attract local City workers ...
»more

JULY

2017

Lancefield Coachworks
Lancefield Coachworks was a builder of bespoke bodies for expensive car chassis always introducing sporting elements into designs. Lancefield operated as coachbuilders from 1921 to 1948 then switched their business to aircraft components which had been their wartime activity. They were based in London at Wrenfield Place, Herries Street, Queen’s Park, W10.

It was set up by the Gaisford brothers - Harry, Edwin and Bob - and George Warboys. The Gaisford Brothers had learned the coachbuilding trade at the Grosvenor Carriage Company, as had head designer Jock Betteridge.

Initially known as Gaisford & Warboys they worked from Lancefield Street in Queen’s Park then on moving to nearby Beethoven Street changed their business’s name to Lancefield Coachworks later incorporating a company of that same name.

Early commissions were primarily on Rolls-Royce and Bentley chassis. More than 150 bodies for Rolls chassis were built prior to the outbreak of World War II.

During the Second World War, Lancefield manufactured parts for the De Havilland Mosquito.
»read full article

JULY

2017

Ashen Grove, SW19
Ashen Grove was the name of a wood which gave its name to a farm. Ashen Grove Farm in Wimbledon Park had been built in 1633 when the Ashen Grove woodland was cleared.

The road dates from 1909-1910.
»read full article

JULY

2017

Kingsgate Street, WC1R
Kingsgate Street ran from High Holborn to Theobald’s Road. It was named after the King’s Gate barrier at its southern end, where King Charles’s coach famously overturned in 1669.

In the eighteenth century Kingsgate Street to Seven Dials (south of Oxford Street) was a traditional route for criminals whipped at the cart’s tail.The Kingsgate Baptist Chapel on Catton Street stood on the corner with Kingsgate Street.

The reforming publisher and journalist Henry Hetherington had a printing business here from about 1815 until 1834.

The street was obliterated in 1902–1906 by the London County Council’s Kingsway improvement scheme.
»read full article

JULY

2017

New Wimbledon Theatre
The New Wimbledon Theatre is a Grade II listed Edwardian theatre built by the theatre lover and entrepreneur, J B Mulholland. Built on the site of a large house with spacious grounds, the theatre was designed by Cecil Aubrey Massey and Roy Young (possibly following a 1908 design by Frank H Jones). It seems to have been the only British theatre to have included a Victorian-style Turkish bath in the basement. The theatre opened on 26 December 1910 with the pantomime Jack and Jill.

The theatre was very popular between the wars, with Gracie Fields, Sybil Thorndike, Ivor Novello, Markova and Noël Coward all performing there. Lionel Bart’s Oliver! received its world premiere at the theatre in 1960 before transferring to the West End’s New Theatre. The theatre also hosted the world premiere of Half A Sixpence starring Tommy Steele in 1963 prior to the West End.

With several refurbishments, most notably in 1991 and 1998, the theatre retains its baroque and Adamesque internal features. The golden statue atop the dome is Laetitia, the Roman Goddess of Gaiety (although many refer ...
»more

JULY

2017

York Way, N1
York Way has been a thoroughfare since the twelfth century. York Way long formed the boundary between the parishes of St. Pancras and Islington. For its entire length York Way now forms the boundary between the London Boroughs of Islington and Camden. It only became York Way in the mid twentieth century but it is one of the most ancient roads in the north of London.

York Way was named ’Mayde Lane’ (1467) and ’Maiden Lane’ (1735) (commemorated in the Maiden Lane Estate, Maiden Lane Bridge - over the Regent’s Canal and the former Maiden Lane railway station). It became York Road in the 19th century, and the current name was adopted in 1938.

The historian Camden says, "It was opened to the public in the year 1300, and was then the principal road for all travellers proceeding to Highgate and the north." It was formerly called ’Longwich Lane’, and was generally kept in such a dirty, disreputable state as to be almost impassable in winter, and was so often complained of that the Bishop of London wa...
»more

JULY

2017

Shepherd’s Bush Market
Shepherd’s Bush Market is a station on both the Hammersmith & City and Circle lines. The Metropolitan Railway (MR) opened the original station on 13 June 1864 as Shepherd’s Bush on its new extension to Hammersmith. From 1 October 1877 until 31 December 1906 the MR also ran direct services along this line to Richmond via Hammersmith (Grove Road).

The original Shepherd’s Bush station closed in 1914 to be replaced by two new stations which opened on 1 April 1914: the new Shepherd’s Bush station resited a short distance north across the Uxbridge Road, and Goldhawk Road about half a kilometre to the south. Those stations remain in those locations but nothing exists of the former station buildings in the marketplace.

In 1900 the Central London Railway (CLR) opened its Shepherd’s Bush station, now the Central line station, at the other end of Shepherd’s Bush Green. For 108 years there were two Tube stations of the same name a third of a mile apart.

In 2008 the new London Overground Shepherd’s Bush railway station was o...
»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: To create your own sharable map, right click on the map

PREVIOUSLY ON THE UNDERGROUND MAP...