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.

Kenway Road (1970)
Credit: British History Online

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...

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...

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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 ...
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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.
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SEPTEMBER

2022

The Adelphi
The Adelphi is a small district surrounding the streets of Adelphi Terrace, Robert Street and John Adam Street The Adelphi district gets its name from the Adelphi Buildings, a collection of 24 neoclassical terrace houses located between The Strand and the River Thames in the parish of St Martin in the Fields. The buildings were constructed between 1768-72 by the Adam brothers (John, Robert, James, and William Adam) and also included a headquarters building for the "Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce," now known as the Royal Society of Arts. The Greek-derived name of the buildings honors the Adam brothers’ architectural design. The ruins of Durham House were removed to make way for the Adelphi Buildings. The nearby Adelphi Theatre takes its name from the Adelphi Buildings. Robert Adam was inspired by his visit to Diocletian’s Palace in Dalmatia, and some of that inspiration is reflected in the design of the Adelphi Buildings.

The Adelphi district is not strictly defined by boundaries, but generally, it is considered to be situated betwee...
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SEPTEMBER

2022

Ainsty Street, SE16
York Street until 1873, Ainsty Street was one of a group of Rotherhithe Streets commemorating royal names Built in the early 19th century, York Street - before it was Ainsty Street - was named for George III’s second son, the Duke of York.

It was typical of many other streets of workers’ terraces.

Destroyed in the Blitz, Ainsty Street originally ran to what is now Albatross Way. It was redeveloped when the Ainsty Estate was built.
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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

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
P Cash Woburn Place, WC1H Added: 19 Feb 2023 08:03 GMT	Occupants of 19-29 Woburn Place The Industrial Tribunals (later changed to Employment Tribunals) moved (from its former location on Ebury Bridge Road to 19-29 Woburn Place sometime in the late 1980s (I believe). 19-29 Woburn Place had nine floors in total (one in the basement and two in its mansard roof and most of the building was occupied by the Tribunals The ’Head Office’ of the tribunals, occupied space on the 7th, 6th and 2nd floors, whilst one of the largest of the regional offices (London North but later called London Central) occupied space in the basement, ground and first floor. The expansive ground floor entrance had white marble flooring and a security desk. Behind (on evey floor) lay a square (& uncluttered) lobby space, which was flanked on either side by lifts. On the rear side was an elegant staircase, with white marble steps, brass inlays and a shiny brass handrail which spiralled around an open well. Both staircase, stairwell and lifts ran the full height of the building. On all floors from 1st upwards, staff toilets were tucked on either side of the staircase (behind the lifts). Basement Floor - Tribunal hearing rooms, dormant files store and secure basement space for Head Office. Public toilets. Geound Floor - The ’post’ roon sat next to the entrance in the northern side, the rest of which was occupied by the private offices of the full time Tribunal judiciary. Thw largest office belonged to the Regional Chair and was situated on the far corner (overlooking Tavistock Square) The secretary to the Regional Chair occupied a small office next door. The south side of this floor was occupied by the large open plan General Office for the administration, a staff kitchen & rest room and the private offices of the Regional Secretary (office manager) and their deputy. First Dloor - Tribunal hearing rooms; separate public waiting rooms for Applicants & Respondents; two small rooms used by Counsel (on a ’whoever arrives first’ bases) and a small private rest room for use by tribunal lay members. Second Floor - Tribunal Hearing Rooms; Tribunal Head Office - HR & Estate Depts & other tennants. Third Floor - other tennants Fourth Floor - other tennants Fifth Floor - Other Tennants except for a large non-smoking room for staff, (which overlooked Tavistock Sqaure). It was seldom used, as a result of lacking any facities aside from a meagre collection of unwanted’ tatty seating. Next to it, (overlooking Tavistock Place) was a staff canteen. Sixth Floor - Other tennants mostly except for a few offices on the northern side occupied by tribunal Head Office - IT Dept. Seventh Floor - Other tenants in the northern side. The southern (front) side held the private offices of several senior managers (Secretariat, IT & Finance), private office of the Chief Accuntant; an office for two private secretaries and a stationary cupboard. On the rear side was a small kitchen; the private office of the Chief Executive and the private office of the President of the Tribunals for England & Wales. (From 1995 onwards, this became a conference room as the President was based elsewhere. The far end of this side contained an open plan office for Head Office staff - Secretariat, Finance & HR (staff training team) depts. Eighth Floor - other tennants. The Employment Tribunals (Regional & Head Offices) relocated to Vitory House, Kingsway in April 2005. Reply

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We now have 557 completed street histories and 46943 partial histories
Find streets or residential blocks within the M25 by clicking STREETS

JANUARY

2020

Grosvenor Buildings, E14
Grosvenor Buildings were a late nineteenth century development. Grosvenor Buildings replaced back-to-back slums in 1885.

Two-hundred old and insanitary buildings - including a farmhouse on Robin Hood Lane - were demolished by the Metropolitan Board of Works to make way for the 500 flats, which had one to four rooms. Each flat was fitted with an inside toilet and piped running water.

In 1964 the Robin Hood Gardens housing estate was built on this site.
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JANUARY

2020

La Trompette
Poplar Baths is a former public bath house dating from 1933. The original Poplar Baths opened in 1852, being built to provide public wash facilities as a result of the Baths and Washhouses Act 1846. A public laundry was located at the rear of the building on Arthur Street.

The Baths were rebuilt in 1933 to a design by Harley Heckford and the larger pool was covered over to convert the building into a theatre. Called the East India Hall, it had seating capacity for 1400 people and incorporated a dance hall, cinema, exhibition room and sports hall for boxing and wrestling programmes.

The main bath hall sustained bomb damage during the Second World War and was forced to close. The baths reopened in 1947 and continued to be used as a swimming facility, before the facility’s eventual closure and conversion to an industrial training centre in 1988.

A campaign to restore the baths won the support of Tower Hamlets Council in 2010 and works created a new leisure centre incorporating a swimming pool, gy...
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JANUARY

2020

St Olave Hart Street
St Olave’s Church is a Church of England church located on the corner of Hart Street and Seething Lane. The church is one of only a handful of medieval City churches that escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666.

The church is first recorded in the 13th century as ’St Olave-towards-the-Tower’, dedicated to the patron saint of Norway, King Olaf II. Olaf fought alongside the Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred the Unready against the Danes in the Battle of London Bridge in 1014. St Olave’s was methodologically built on the site of the battle. The Norwegian connection was reinforced during the Second World War when King Haakon VII worshipped there while in exile.

Saint Olave’s was rebuilt in the 13th century and then again in the 15th century. The present building dates from around 1450.

Saint Olave’s survived the Great Fire of London with the help of Sir William Penn, the father of the William Penn who founded Pennsylvania, and men from the nearby Naval yards. He had ordered the men to blow up the houses surrounding the chur...
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JANUARY

2020

Byward Street, EC3R
Byward Street was laid out between 1895 and 1906. Byward Street was built because of the construction of the District Line underneath required the demolition of the older Black Swan Court which itself had been built the successor to a Roman thoroughfare.

It provided access to the Crown Gate of the Byward Tower. A byword was a password spoken to and by beefeaters.

A number of retail outlets and restaurants now line Byward Street.
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JANUARY

2020

Steen Way, SE22
Steen Way is named after the 17th century artist, Jan Steen. Steen Way is in fitting with the other ’Dutch’ names though Jan Steen (whose surname in Dutch is actually pronounced like ’stain’) has little connection with Dulwich’s twin town of Deventer.

Jan Steen was born in Leiden in 1626, a town where his well-to-do, Catholic family were brewers who ran a tavern for two generations. Steen’s father even leased him a brewery of his own in Delft from the years 1654 until 1657. Like his even more famous contemporary Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Steen attended the Latin school and became a student in Leiden. He received his artistic education from Nicolaes Knupfer (1603–1660), a German painter living in Utrecht.

In 1648 he moved to The Hague. Steen painted ’A Burgomaster of Delft and his daughter’.

Steen lived in Warmond, just north of Leiden, from 1656 till 1660 and in Haarlem from 1660 till 1670 and in both periods he was especially productive. In 1670, after the death of his wife, Steen m...
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JANUARY

2020

Bartlett’s Buildings, EC4A
Bartlett’s Buildings was the name of a street situated off of Holborn Circus The street, also known as Bartlett’s Court, was recorded by 1615 as a street where lawyers had offices. An alley called Bartlett’s Passage ran from the west side of Bartlett’s Buildings to Fetter Lane.

Jane Austen’s ’Sense and Sensibility’ (1811) mentioned the street as the lodgings for the two Miss Steeles lodge when visiting their cousin.

The street was totally destroyed during a Second World War air raid in 1941.

New Fetter Lane was built post war in its place.

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JANUARY

2020

Golden Lane Estate, EC1Y
The Golden Lane Housing Estate is a 1950s council housing complex in the City of London. It was built in an area devastated by bombing during the Second World War. Only around 500 residents remained in the City by 1950.

The site had been occupied since the mid 19th century by small Victorian industries and businesses, especially metal working.

As part of the comprehensive rebuilding strategy of the City of London, the idea was the provisional of general-needs council housing for the many people who worked in the City. The Estate, when built, fell within the boundary of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury, and so many tenancies were also offered to those on the Finsbury waiting list.

A competition for designs was announced in 1951 and was covered in the architectural and popular press. Geoffry Powell won the competition to build the estate in 1952. The three partners-to-be of Chamberlin, Powell and Bon were all lecturers in architecture at Kingston School of Art, and had entered into an agreement that if any of them won the ...
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JANUARY

2020

Attleborough Court, SE23
Attleborough Court is one of three blocks of flats on the Sydenham Hill Estate. Each block was named after particular Abbots of Bermondsey Abbey, lord of the manor of Dulwich between 1127 and 1538. Attleborough Court was named after John Attleborough, Bromleigh Court after John Bromleigh and Dunton Court after Richard Dunton.
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JANUARY

2020

Plumstead
The eastern end of the site of the former Royal Arsenal forms Plumstead’s northern boundary. It means ’place where the plum trees grew’ and was first recorded around 970 as ’Plumstede’.

For most of its history, the village was of little consequence.

Plumstead station opened in 1859. The Herbert estate was laid out north of Shooters Hill. To the south of the railway, Burrage Road was laid out and the first terraces of ’Burrage Town’ were built on Sandy Hill Road.

Plumstead expanded rapidly in the 1880s with housing developed for Arsenal workers, two-up two-down terraced housing was common in the area close to the river.

The downsizing of Woolwich Arsenal after the First World War brought a decline to Plumstead.

After the Second World War council projects transformed the western side of Plumstead. The largest of these was the Glyndon estate, with almost 2,000 dwellings, which was begun in 1959 and completed in 1981.
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JANUARY

2020

Campden Street, W8
Campden Street stretches between Campden Hill Road and Kensington Church Street. Campden Street was built by William Ward on land jointly bought with John Punter in 1822. Ward constructed houses here in a relatively relaxed way over the next 30 years. In about 1850 he sub-contracted the work of building the remaining houses to Henry Gilbert, who was both a builder and a pub owner, and to William Wheeler, a local builder. Ward died shortly afterwards.

The street is on a slight slope. The north side, at the western end, has a uniform terrace of three-storey houses stuccoed up to first floor which abut immediately onto the road. The eastern section of the north side has more varied architecture, mainly houses with attractive ground floor bay windows in differing styles.

The houses on the south side of the street are slightly smaller, mainly brick, with stucco up to the first floor. On the same side is Byam Shaw House, a particularly attractive and unusual block of flats.

The eastern section of the street has some small spe...
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JANUARY

2020

Amen Corner, EC4M
Originally called Amen Lane, this short path forms the approach road to Amen Court. John Stow records it as ’a short lane which runneth west some short distance, and is there closed up with a gate into a great house’. This great house was he College of Physicians. Founded in 1518 by Thomas Linacre, the College moved from his own house in Knightrider Street to the site of Amen Corner in about 1540.
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JANUARY

2020

Anchor Yard, EC1Y
Anchor Yard is named after a former inn here of this name. During they 18th century the popular Anchor Tavern graced this part of Old Street. In those days the Yard was much larger than it is today, probably with an opening wide enough to accept a dray cart. Here would have stood the empty wooden hogsheads awaiting collection on delivery day, and on summery evenings there would very likely have been multitudes swilling jugs of ale while looking on at a friendly skittle or bowling match.

For nigh on 200 years the Yard has been without its tavern; the Anchor was demolished at the beginning of the 19th century.
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JANUARY

2020

Russia Lane, E2
Russia Lane was formerly called Rushy Lane. By 1703, a cottage was mentioned as being found on the lane.

The cottage may have originated as a wastehold property and was in existence by 1648. By 1741 it was an inn - the Blue Anchor - which gave an alternative name to the lane.
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JANUARY

2020

Aldenham Street, NW1
Aldenham Street – Richard Platt, 16th century brewer and local landowner, gave land for the endowment of Aldenham School, Hertfordshire. Richard Platt was a native of Aldenham and like many gentlemen of his time, he saw the importance of the new styles of learning then spreading from the continent.

The area had been acquired as pasture land in 1575, and Platt gave the land to the Brewers’ Company in trust for Aldenham School.

Platt was concerned at the state of education in England after the church schools had largely been dissolved by Henry VIII. It was becoming the philanthropic custom for wealthy merchants to give free Grammar Schools in their home towns with London estates of land.

Platt bequeathed three local fields near St Pancras church and, in reverse, some land at Aldenham, including Medburn Farm, to be controlled for the school by the Brewers’ Company.

In 1811 the Brewers’Company obtained an Act of Parliament for ’improving the estate’. Building development began at the southern end on each side of Brewer Street (now Midland Road) and as ...
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JANUARY

2020

Bonnington Square, SW8
Bonnington Square was built in the 1870s to house railway workers. Bonnington Square should have been a traditional London square with houses facing a central communal garden. However, the original developers decided to build over what would have been the garden. The sqaure is not a through route and thus has a quiet and intimate character.

The Italian Gothic style terraced houses were built in of 1881.

During the 1960s, the by the run down properties were let at peppercorn rents to groups collectively known as the Bonnington Housing Cooperative. In the early 1990s the Bonnington Square Garden Association began planting street trees, vines and creating small community gardens in the surrounding area which have since matured to great effect.

In the late 1970s, Bonnington Square was compulsorily purchased by the Greater London Council on behalf of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), which intended to demolish it in order to build a new school.

In the late 1970s, Bonnington Square was...
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JANUARY

2020

Tiller Road, E14
Tiller Road was part of Glengall Grove before 1963. Glengall Road ran from Westferry Road to Manchester Road, crossing the Millwall Docks.

Shortly prior to the Second World War, it was renamed Glengall Grove. When road access through Millwall Docks was stopped in 1963, the western half of the road was renamed Tiller Road.

A tiller, in the nautical sense, is the lever attached to the rudder and used for steering.

Alexander House, a block of flats on the road, was built in the late 1920s. It was named after Frederick William Alexander OBE (1859-1937), Medical Officer of Health for Poplar and Bromley between 1893 and 1926.
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JANUARY

2020

Askew Road, W12
Askew Road is named after a local landowning family, the Askews, who also owned substantial land in Gloucestershire. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the local area was farmland - mainly orchards and market gardens which supplied fresh produce to the city of London. There was a track — Gaggle Goose Green — connecting two main routes into London, the Uxbridge Road and Goldhawk Road. The area halfway along the track was known as Starch Green.

As urbanisation continued, a growing demand for building materials encouraged many farmers to turn to brickmaking since the clay hereabouts was of good quality. The process created many lakes and ponds. Between 1870 and 1890 over 17 million bricks were produced with the 50 acre Stamford Brook brickfield employing 250 people.

In the latter half of the century, new tram and train services made the area attractive to clerks and other City workers and affordable housing started to cover the fields. Askew Road became a commercial centre at this time with a particular specialisation in laundries.

During the Second ...
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JANUARY

2020

Plaistow
Plaistow is a district in the London Borough of Newham and forms the majority of the London E13 postcode district. Plaistow Road is a former Roman road.

Plaistow, as a name, is believed to come from Sir Hugh de Plaitz who, in 1065, married Philippa de Montfitchet, whose family owned the district. She is reputed to have named it the Manor of Plaiz. A stow was a place of assembly.

Daniel Defoe’s 1724 work, ’Tour of the Eastern Counties’ mentions Plaistow as a town in which there had been much new building as well as repairs to existing houses.

The London, Tilbury and Southend Railway line from Bow to Barking was constructed through the middle of the Parish of West Ham in 1858. The new line opened with stations at Bromley, Plaistow and East Ham.

James Thorne, in his 1876 ’Handbook to the Environs of London’ recounts the changes to the village of Plaistow, with the gentry and merchants having gone and the occupations of the residents changed from agricultural and pastoral to manufacturing.

In 1886...
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JANUARY

2020

Railway Tavern
The Railway Tavern was generally known as Charlie Brown’s. The pub lay beside a railway bridge on the corner of Garford Street and close to the gates of the West India Dock.

It was built around 1840 and was greatly extended in 1919.

Charlie Brown, the landlord between 1893 until 1932, hosted in his pub a museum of curiosities gathered from all over the world, brought by seaman sailing to and from the docks. The majority of items in the collection were from the Far East and Pacific. Charlie Brown would pay for any interesting items not already in his collection.

Charlie was a flamboyant character who, alongside being a publican, kept a stable of horses and would ride along the West and East India Dock Roads in riding gear.

Charlie died in 1932 at the age of 72 and his funeral was a renowned East End occasion.

On his death, Charlie Brown’s daughter Ethel took over the Railway Tavern until 1936.

His son - also called Charlie Brown - took over the Bl...
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JANUARY

2020

Hog Lane, WC2H
Hog Lane was a lane that went from St Giles’ leper hospital (set up in the 12th century) to the monument to Eleanor at Charing Cross. Also known as Crown Street, like many London streets, Hog Lane became a busy thoroughfare. The name possible derived from the location of a pound at St. Giles, where animals were held as they were driven into London, as a stop before the final journey to the City markets. The road dates from around 1675.

Hog Lane was to eventually form the foundations the part of what we now know as Charing Cross Road north of Cambridge Circus.
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JANUARY

2020

Wembley Central
Wembley Central is an interchange station on the West Coast Main Line with the London Overground and the Bakerloo Line of the London Underground. The through line opened on 20 July 1837 as part of the London and Birmingham Railway. Wembley Central opened as ’Sudbury’ in 1842 before becoming ’Sudbury & Wembley’ in 1882 and ’Wembley for Sudbury’ in 1910.

On 16 April 1917, the Bakerloo line service commenced and on 5 July 1948 the station was renamed ’Wembley Central’.
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JANUARY

2020

Hampden Street, W2
Hampden Street is a now demolished street. Full of small terraces, Hampden Street ran west from Harrow Road and boasted a pub, the ’Great Western’. The pub was well-named as the street was dominated by the presence of the Great Western Railway at one end of it.

A footbridge from the railway end allowed access to Westbourne Park Villas on the other side of the tracks.
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JANUARY

2020

Tower of London
The Tower of London is a historic castle located on the north bank of the River Thames and lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The Tower of London was founded towards the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest. The White Tower, which gives the entire castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078

As a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. There were several phases of expansion. The general layout established by the late 13th century remains, despite later activity on the site.
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JANUARY

2020

Romford
Romford is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Havering and one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Romford was originally a market town in Essex. The town developed on the main road to London with Romford Market was established in 1247.

The railway station open in 1839 which was key to the development of the Star Brewery. The Eastern Counties Railway services operated between Mile End and Romford, with extensions to Brentwood and to Shoreditch in 1840. A second station was opened in 1892 by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway, giving Romford a rail connection to Tilbury Docks. The two stations were combined in 1934.

There was a shift from agriculture to light industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and then to retail and commerce.

In the 20th century, Romford significantly expanded, becoming a municipal borough in 1937 and part of Greater London since 1965 when the area was transferred from Essex.

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JANUARY

2020

North Wembley
North Wembley is an area of the London Borough of Brent, location of the Sudbury Court Estate. North Wembley did not exist as a district before the arrival of the railway.

North Wembley station was first opened by the London and North Western Railway on 15 June 1912 as part of the ’New Line’ between Euston and Watford Junction. Bakerloo line services began on 16 April 1917. Originally to be called East Lane, after the road passing over the railway at this location, it was named North Wembley instead. North Wembley station was built to the same general design as the other new stations on the same line and the layout at North Wembley station makes it almost identical to Kenton two stops to the north.

Sudbury Court Estate was built between circa 1927 to 1935, one of the best surviving ’mock tudor’ housing locally. The estate was built by Captain Edward George Spencer-Churchill who also built the Northwick Park estate further north.

Along East Lane in North Wembley is a small range of shops. The district is one of the most diverse areas in the London.
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JANUARY

2020

Frith Street, W1D
Frith Street is named after Richard Frith, a local builder. Frith Street was laid out in the late 1670s but is marked on Rocque’s map mistakenly as "Thrift Street".

After the late 18th century, the street became the home to many artistic and literary people including the artist John Constable, painter John Alexander Gresse, politician John Horne Tooke and John Bell, the sculptor. William Hazlitt wrote his last essays while he was lodging at no. 6.

A young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stayed at no. 20 with his father and sister in 1764–65. From 1924 to 1926 John Logie Baird lived at no. 22 where in 1926 he demonstrated television to members of the Royal Institution.

Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club moved to 47 Frith Street.

In 1989, the Frith Street Gallery was founded here though in 2007 the gallery moved to Golden Square.
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JANUARY

2020

Fortis Green, N2
Fortis Green (Road) is one of the ancient east-west routes of this area of Middlesex. Routes in the area largely ran north out of London, dominated by the Great North Road.

Oakleigh Road in Whetstone was an early east-west road with Woodhouse Road - running along the northern boundary of Finchley Common, joining it.

Just west of Colney Hatch, Summers Lane was built in 1754 - a more southerly route across the common from the Great North Road.

On a map of 1754, Cherry Tree Woods (then Dirt House Woods) to the south had been cleared and the land enclosed with at least two large houses.

The only other easterly road was called Park Gate in 1754, Muswell Hill Road in 1814, and Fortis Green Road by 1920 This ran from the Newgate Lane stretch of the Great North Road by High Redings into Hornsey.

More houses were built along the road from the beginning of the 19th century. By the middle part of that century there were about 60 houses, mostly belonging to labourers, which had been erected on the green b...
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JANUARY

2020

Pulford Street, SW1V
Pulford Street was a street between its construction in 1848 and demolition after the Second World War. Pulford Street survived for near exactly 100 years. It served the Equitable Gas Company’s Pimlico works which had opened in the 1830s and closed in the late 1920s. The houses on Pulford Street had been dilapidated and run down.

In 1932 the Pulford Street Site Committee was set up to raise funds for a new housing estate to be built.

The Tachbrook estate was built by the Westminster Housing Trust, a consortium of Westminster residents who raised £32,000 to buy the land. The estate opened in two stages. The northern half was opened in the 1930s and the southern half was opened in the late 1940s with the last phase, Harvey House, being formally opened by Princess Margaret on 22 October 1953.

Pulford Street disappeared under the new housing.
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JANUARY

2020

Grahame Park
Grahame Park was built on the site of the old Hendon Aerodrome. The estate is named in honour of Claude Grahame-White, the aviation pioneer who established the Hendon Aerodrome and aviation school on the site. Most roads, blocks and walkways have names linked to the aviation history of the site.

The building of the estate was a joint project between the Greater London Council and Barnet Council. The estate was designed in a ’Brutalist. style and the first residents moved in during October 1971. Barnet Council is refurbishing much of the estate with a 2032 completion date.

The Royal Air Force Museum is situated immediately to the south-east of the estate.
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JANUARY

2020

Leicester Square, WC2H
Leicester Square is a central tourist attraction of London. Leicester Square is named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, who purchased four acres in St. Martin’s Field in 1630; by 1635, he had built himself a large house, Leicester House, at the northern end. The area in front of the house was then enclosed, depriving inhabitants of St Martin in the Fields parish of their right to use the previously common land. The parishioners appealed to King Charles I, and he appointed three members of the Privy Council to arbitrate. Lord Leicester was ordered to keep part of his land (thereafter known as Leicester Field and later as Leicester Square) open for the parishioners.

The area was developed in the 1670s. It was initially fashionable and Leicester House was once residence of Frederick, Prince of Wales but by the late 18th century, the Square was no longer a smart address and began to serve as a venue for popular entertainments. Leicester House became home of a museum of natural curiosities called the Holophusikon in the ...
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JANUARY

2020

Maudsley Hospital
The Maudsley Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in the Denmark Hill area. In 1907, a leading psychiatrist, Henry Maudsley, offered London County Council £30,000 to help found a new mental hospital that would be exclusively for early/acute cases rather than chronic cases. It was to have an out-patients’ clinic and provide for teaching and research.

The Council agreed to contribute half the building costs and then covered the running costs which were almost twice as high per bed as the large asylums.

Construction of the hospital was completed in 1915. Before it could open, the building was requisitioned to treat war veterans.

After the war it was returned to the control of London County Council and it finally opened as the Maudsley Hospital in February 1923.

The Maudsley is now the largest mental health training institution in the UK.
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JANUARY

2020

Green Lane, N2
Green Lane is a lost road of Finchley. Also known as Philips Lane in its history, it joined the central portion of East End Road to Long Lane.

Between 1808 and 1835 the lane was the location of a house rented as Finchley’s workhouse and was called Workhouse Lane as a consequence. A bridge over the railway, built in the 1860s, was removed in the 1960s.

The building of the North Circular Road in the 1920s paralleled Green Lane to its west.

Briar Close was partly laid along its course and a remnant, unnamed section exists beyond the railway.
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JANUARY

2020

Denmark Hill
Denmark Hill is an area named after a street (and hill) in Camberwell. Nearby streets whose names refer to different aspects of the same topographical feature include Dog Kennel Hill, Champion Hill and Red Post Hill. It marks the edge of the Thames valley plain in this area — from here to the river the land is flat.

The original name for the summit was Dulwich Hill. The name of the area was changed to Denmark Hill in honour of the husband of Queen Anne, Prince George of Denmark, who lived there.

The area is home of the Maudsley Hospital and King’s College Hospital, and also of Ruskin Park, named after John Ruskin, who once lived nearby. The preface to Ruskin’s ’Unto This Last’ is dated ’Denmark Hill, 10th May, 1862’.

The Salvation Army’s William Booth Memorial Training College on Champion Park which was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott was completed in 1932; it towers over South London. It has a similar monumental impressiveness to Gilbert Scott’s other...
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JANUARY

2020

The Plough
From the sixteenth century onwards, the Plough stood beside the Harrow Road. On the Harrow Road at the turn of the nineteenth century, there were "a few small houses, some in Kensington, some in Willesden parish, formed the picturesque hamlet of Kensal or Kellsall Greene". This part of the Harrow Road was little more than a country lane. It was reported to have been the scene of some of Dick Turpin’s exploits.

In the year 1820, the author Faulkner wrote: “At Kensal Green is a very ancient public house, known by the name of the ’Plough’, which has been built upwards of three hundred years ; the timber and joists being of oak, are still in good preservation.”

This wayside inn may go back as far as Faulkner suggests, for the Parish Registers show that “ Marget, a bastard childe, was borne in the Ploughe, and was baptised the 30th day of August, 1539-” A family named Ilford are said to have been landlords of the ’Plough’ for several generations.

The Plough was the oldest named building in North Kensing...
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JANUARY

2020

Vine Hill, EC1R
Vine Hill now displays no evidence on the vines that once flourished in the grounds on which it stands. Vine Hill is a cul-de-sac with a steep flight of steps leads up to busy Rosebery Avenue.

Nearly 500 years ago, the gardens of the Bishops of Ely covered the land between here and their town house east of Hatton Garden.

In the late 16th century, Sir Christopher Hatton - with the help of Queen Elizabeth - had seized most of the estate. The estate then passed down through three generations to Baron Hatton of Kirby in 1640. Financial difficulties caused him to dispose of it and by 1660 Hatton Garden and a series of smaller roads had replaced both house and grounds.

The Hatton vineyard was swept away in about 1710 when this area was developed.
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