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

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
Chris hutchison Broadhurst Gardens, NW6 Added: 15 Oct 2023 03:04 GMT	35 broadhurst gardens. 35 Broadhurst gardens was owned by famous opera singer Mr Herman “Simmy”Simberg. He had transformed it into a film and recording complex. There was a film and animation studio on the ground floor. The recording facilities were on the next two floors. I arrived in London from Australia in 1966 and worked in the studio as the tea boy and trainee recording engineer from Christmas 1966 for one year. The facility was leased by an American advertising company called Moreno Films. Mr Simbergs company Vox Humana used the studio for their own projects as well. I worked for both of them. I was so lucky. The manager was another wonderful gentleman called Jack Price who went on to create numerous songs for many famous singers of the day and also assisted the careers of Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff. “Simmy” let me live in the bedsit,upper right hand window. Jack was also busy with projects with The Troggs,Bill Wyman,Peter Frampton. We did some great sessions with Manfred Mann and Alan Price. The Cream did some demos but that was before my time. We did lots of voice over work. Warren Mitchell and Ronnie Corbett were favourites. I went back in 1978 and “Simmy “ had removed all of the studio and it was now his home. His lounge room was still our studio in my minds eye!! Reply

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We now have 628 completed street histories and 46872 partial histories

OCTOBER

2017

Tyburn
Tyburn was a village of Middlesex close to the current location of Marble Arch and the southern end of Edgware Road. It took its name from the Tyburn Brook, a tributary of the River Westbourne. The name Tyburn, from Teo Bourne meaning ’boundary stream’, is quite widely occurring. The Tyburn consisted of two arms, one of which, crossed Oxford Street, near Stratford Place; while the other - later called the Westbourne - followed nearly the course of the present Westbourne Terrace and the Serpentine. The Westbourne had rows of elms growing on its banks which became a place of execution. The former Elms Lane in Bayswater, preserved the memory of these fatal elms, which can be regarded as the original ’Tyburn Trees.’

Tyburn Brook should not be confused with the better known River Tyburn, which is the next tributary of the River Thames to the east of the Westbourne.

The village was one of two manors of the parish of Marylebone, which was itself named after the stream, St Marylebone being a contraction of St Mary’s church by the bourne. Tyburn was recorded in the Dom...
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OCTOBER

2017

Montagu House
Montagu House at 22 Portman Square was a historic London house. Occupying a site at the northwest corner of the square, in the angle between Gloucester Place and Upper Berkeley Street, it was built for Mrs Elizabeth Montagu, a wealthy widow and patroness of the arts, to the design of the neoclassicist architect James Stuart.

Construction began in 1777 and the house was completed in 1781, whereupon it became Mrs Montagu’s London residence until her death on 25 August 1800. The house was destroyed by an incendiary bomb in the Blitz of London and the site is now occupied by the Radisson SAS Portman Hotel.
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OCTOBER

2017

Half Moon Court, EC1A
Halfmoon Court is the southern most of five passages leading eastward from Kinghorn Street. As once known as Half Moon Passage, its route used to continue round a curious dog-leg bend before emerging through a narrow covered passage into Aldersgate Street, but the path was truncated earlier this century and is now only half its original length. Many of the neighbouring byways, tiny openings dotted here and there, have gone the same way as in other parts of London – sunken from view, forgotten and erased from the scene. There used to be an array of short connecting passages around here, some can still be found but most have either been sealed off or building developments have obliterated their very existence.

Here was the Half Moon Tavern. It stood on the corner of Aldersgate Street, a place favoured in the 16th century by artists, writers, critics, or anyone feeling the need to engage in literary conversation. In 1866 one of these faithful clients wrote in a local paper that the Half Moon ‘is filled with carved woodwork of the most elaborate kind and the w...
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OCTOBER

2017

Abingdon Villas, W8
Abingdon Villas runs between Earls Court Road and Marloes Road. The eastern section of the street consists of red-brick five-storey mansion blocks and the south side of three-storey white stucco houses.

The western end has a mixture of three-storey houses, some of which are partially stuccoed and others only stuccoed up to first floor level. Most of the houses have off-street parking.

Nos. 80-82 Abingdon Villas was built by Francis Attfield in 1851 as part of his development of houses on the adjoining Earls Court Road.

The sites for Nos. 65-85 (odd) Abingdon Villas backed onto the Cope Place sites and they were built at about the same time in 1852-4. A variety of builders were involved: Nos. 65-67, Edward Good, a carpenter from Kensington; Nos. 69-71, Jackson Frow, a carpenter from Caledonian Road; Nos. 73-75, Thomas Methias, a carpenter; Nos. 77-85, Joseph Liddiatt, a builder from St Marylebone.

In 1851 Barnabas Jennings and William Stevenson, who were involved in other parts of the Abin...
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OCTOBER

2017

St Barnabas’ Church
St Barnabas’ Church is a church in Kensington.

Read the St Barnabas’ Church, Kensington entry on the Wikipedia...
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OCTOBER

2017

Connaught Place, W2
Connaught Place is a street near to Marble Arch. Tyburnia was a name used in the early 19th century for the area - the first part of the Paddington Estate to be built up. It was adopted presumably because ’Tyburn’ was already well known, as a reference to the gallows at Tyburn tree. In the 1870s the name was confined to a fashionable area, bounded on the west by Westbourne and Gloucester terraces, north of Lancaster Gate.

The first building agreement was made in 1807 between the trustees for the beneficial lessees of the Paddington Estate and John Lewis, surgeon, of St. George’s, Hanover Square. Lewis took a lease for 98 years from 1806 of land with a frontage of c. 400 ft. along the Uxbridge road and one of 360 ft. along Edgware Road to the corner of Upper Seymour Street West, a proposed continuation of Marylebone’s Upper Seymour Street. A range of substantial dwellings of the first class facing Hyde Park was to be built by 1812, with second- or third-rate houses along the south side of Upper Seymour’ Stree...
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OCTOBER

2017

Speakers’ Corner
Speakers’ Corner is in the northeast corner of Hyde Park. Speakers’ Corner is found close to the site of Tyburn gallows, where public hangings took place between 1196 and 1783. Legend has it the origins of Speakers’ Corner lie in the tradition of granting last words to those condemned to die.

Speakers here may talk on any subject, as long as the police consider their speeches lawful. Contrary to popular belief, there is no immunity from the law, nor are any subjects proscribed, but in practice the police tend to be tolerant and therefore intervene only when they receive a complaint. On some occasions in the past, they have intervened on grounds of profanity. Historically there were a number of other areas designated as Speakers’ Corners in other parks in London (e.g., Lincoln’s Inn Fields Finsbury Park, Clapham Common, Kennington Park, and Victoria Park).

Though Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner is considered the paved area closest to Marble Arch, legally the public speaking area extends beyond the Reform T...
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OCTOBER

2017

Somerset House, Park Lane
Somerset House was an 18th-century town house on the east side of Park Lane, where it meets Oxford Street, in the Mayfair area of London. It was also known as 40 Park Lane, although a renumbering means that the site is now called 140 Park Lane. The house was built between 1769 and 1770 for John Bateman, 2nd Viscount Bateman and was designed by the master carpenter John Phillips, who was the "undertaker" for the whole north-west corner of the Grosvenor estate.

The new house was built with one side facing Park Lane, the main entrance being from a courtyard which continued the line of Hereford Street. It had four storeys above ground, with bay windows extending through the floors. One bay faced Park Lane, and two more faced the garden, which ran down to North Row. Although all surviving pictures of the house show it cased in stucco, at the outset the facades may have been bare brick, with the windows dressed in Portland stone. On the ground floor, the entrance hall was paved in Portland stone and leading from it were the dining room, the drawing room and a dressing room. The staircase rose from the hall, with stone steps and iron railings, to the second floor, which had three principal rooms, including Lady Batem...
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OCTOBER

2017

Marble Arch
Marble Arch is a 19th-century white marble faced triumphal arch. The structure was designed by John Nash in 1827 to be the state entrance to the cour d’honneur of Buckingham Palace; it stood near the site of what is today the three-bayed, central projection of the palace containing the well known balcony. In 1851 it was relocated and following the widening of Park Lane in the early 1960s is now sited, incongruently isolated, on a large traffic island at the junction of Oxford Street, Park Lane and Edgware Road.

Historically, only members of the Royal Family and the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery are permitted to pass through the arch; this happens only in ceremonial processions.

Nash’s three arch design is based on that of the Arch of Constantine in Rome and the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in Paris. The triumphal arch is faced with Carrara marble with embellishments of marble extracted from quarries near Seravezza.

John Flaxman was chosen to make the commemorative sculpture. After his death i...
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OCTOBER

2017

Pepler Mews, SE5
Pepler Mews is a cul-de-sac off of Cobourg Road. Built in the late nineteenth century, it ran behind a now-vanished road known as Pepler Road. At the end of the Mews by 1900, was the Alpha Works, a collar manufacturers. A laundry was the only other building in the road.

In the twentieth century, Pepler Mews became residential.
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OCTOBER

2017

Kensington Square, W8
Kensington Square is a garden square in London, W8. It was founded in 1685; hence it is the oldest such square in Kensington. In London, St. James’s Square, Soho Square and Golden Square are a few years older, but in contrast with these Kensington Square still retains its residential character. 1-45 Kensington Square are listed Grade II for their architectural merit.
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OCTOBER

2017

Theobald Street, SE1
Theobald Street is (now) a short street lying off of the New Kent Road. The street was on the map by 1830, marked as Theobalds Street. It run north to a now-gone street known as George Street.

Its notable architectural feature used to be the St Andrew’s Southwark church which was on the corner of Theobald Street and the New Kent Road, The parish of St Andrew, Newington had been formed from Holy Trinity in 1877.

The church, consisted of a chancel with vestry and organ chamber, a nave with north and south aisles, a tower in the west bay of the south aisle and a shallow porch against the tower. It was built of stock bricks with red brick dressings and slate roofs. It was designed in late 13th-century style.

It was damaged in World War 2 and demolished in 1956. The church hall remained but was demolished c 1980, following a fire.

Theobald Street, Southwark is now largely industrial.
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OCTOBER

2017

Four Wents was a green which existed as a cross roads until 1873. Four roads met here originally. Two are still main roads - Whitehall Road and Friday Hill. They were joined by Pimp Hall Lane, now a track going to the recycling centre but then the road from Hale End, and Kings Road.

The road layout changed when the railway was built in 1873.
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OCTOBER

2017

Queenhithe, EC4V
Queenhithe is a small and ancient ward of the City of London, situated by the River Thames and a minor street. The name of ‘Queenhithe’ today refers essentially to three concepts: (1) The ancient dock by that name. (2) Just to the north of the dock, a street called Queenhithe. (3) The third use of the word is in the Ward of Queenhithe which, obviously, takes its name from the dock.

Queenhithe was a thriving Saxon and medieval dock and is the only inlet now surviving along the City waterfront today. In Saxon times a second dock was also cut into the river bank at Billingsgate which remained until Victorian times when the dock was filled in and a new building called Billingsgate Market was erected on the reclaimed land.

By the 9th century Vikings were occupying the land inside the Roman Wall. In AD 886 the land inside the Roman Wall was reoccupied by King Alfred the Great. Alfred drove the Danes out of the City and is assumed to have established the street pattern to the south of Cheapside. A few years later, in AD 899, a harbour was established at ‘Ethelred�...
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OCTOBER

2017

Mermaid Tavern
The Mermaid Tavern was a notable tavern during the Elizabethan era. Mermaid Tavern was located in Cheapside, to the east of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It had entrances from both Friday Street and Bread Street. The tavern’s sign, not surprisingly, bore a mermaid.

It was the site of the so-called "Fraternity of Sireniacal Gentlemen", a drinking club that met on the first Friday of every month that included some of the Elizabethan era’s leading literary figures, among them Ben Jonson, John Donne, John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont, Thomas Coryat, John Selden, Robert Bruce Cotton, Richard Carew, Richard Martin, and William Strachey.

A popular tradition has grown up that the group included William Shakespeare, although most scholars think that was improbable.

The tavern, the location of which today corresponds to the corner of Bread and Cannon Streets, burned down in the Great Fire of London.
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OCTOBER

2017

Street cricket (1953)
Street cricket has been played across London since the rules of the game were formulated. Montford Place is a street near to the Oval cricket ground in Kennington and children in the area have long been fonder of the game than in other areas of London. This photo was taken in 1953.

In street cricket, there is no real rule book. Tennis balls are often used because it is lighter. A dustbin, empty crates, broom sticks or canes serve as stumps at the batsman's end while a piece of brick or a pipe serves as the stumps at the bowler's end. When they are no stumps, the players assume the stumps to be at an imaginary height (usually above the waist level of the batsman). This leads to many arguments as to whether the ball would have hit the stumps or not had the stumps been there for real.

The size of the road or traffic does not hinder the progress of a game; children often wait for the traffic to clear before playing consecutive deliveries.

A very important rule that is almost always used in street cricket is one pitch catch...
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OCTOBER

2017

Acton Central
Acton Central railway station is on the North London Line, now part of the London Overground system, between South Acton and Willesden Junction. The station was opened as Acton on 1 August 1853 by the North and South Western Junction Railway (N&SWJR), but was renamed Acton Central on 1 November 1925.

Between 1875 and 1902 it was connected with St Pancras via the Dudding Hill Line, which branches off the North London Line between Acton Central and Willesden Junction. Harlesden (Midland) railway station was the next stop on the line north. The Dudding Hill Line is still open today, but only carries freight.

Acton Central station was named for closure by the 1963 Beeching Report, also known as the Beeching Axe.

The station is where trains change power supply from overhead line equipment (AC) to Third rail (DC), or vice versa, depending on direction of travel.
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OCTOBER

2017

Woodsford Square, W14
Woodsford Square is a 1970s development consisting of a series of interconnecting squares hidden away on the eastern side of Addison Road. The buildings are mainly 4-storey town houses, with some of the corner houses having interesting protruding first floor extensions (painted white) on stilts.

There are a series of communal private gardens with lawns and trees and the whole development is rather hidden and private.

At the north end is Holland Park Tennis Club.
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OCTOBER

2017

Holland Villas Road, W14
Holland Villas Road is a wide tree-lined avenue which runs between Upper Addison Gardens and the junction of Addison Crescent and Holland Road. It is considered one of the most desirable addresses in Holland Park.

The buildings consist mainly of large brick detached villas – some are absolutely enormous. Most have front gardens with small driveways and high security gates. Some even have their own swimming pools. At the north end is a modern block of flats called Fitzclarence House. There is also Addisland Court, an 8-storey 1930’s-style block of flats.

The houses in Holland Villas Road are large detached houses of two or three storeys with basements. The builder was James Hall who built the houses over several years from 1857. Hall built about 120 houses in the estate in the 1850s. He also built extensively in the Chepstow Villas and Pembridge Place area. They are similar in size to his houses in Addison Road, but of a more modern design. The central portico entrance door is narrower to make room for large canted bay windows on either side. In place of Georgian balustrades topping the faca...
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OCTOBER

2017

Dallas Road, NW4
Dallas Road is a road running parallel to the Midland railway and M1. By 1906, Sir Audley Dallas Neeld was building on the land that had been Renters Farm, starting with a new road from Station Road to Queens Road, later called Vivian Avenue.

The eventual estate used many names associated with the family: Dallas, Audley, Elliot, Graham, Rundell, Vivian, and Algernon and Neeld.

The M1 was built alongside Dallas Road’s already busy railway setting.
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OCTOBER

2017

Edgware Road
Edgware Road station was a station on the world’s first underground railway. The main Edgware Road station now serves the Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines. It opened a few months later than other stops on the rest of the Metropolitan Railway between Paddington and Farringdon, opening on 1 October 1863.

A second Edgware Road station was opened on 15 June 1907 by the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (BS&WR, now the Bakerloo line) when it extended its line from the temporary northern terminus at Marylebone. In common with other early stations of the lines owned by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, that station was designed by architect Leslie Green with an ox-blood red glazed terracotta façade.
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