The Underground Map is creating street histories for the areas of London and surrounding counties lying within the M25.
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.
The aim of the project is to find the location every street in London, whether past or present. You are able to see each street on a present day map and also spot its location on older maps.
There's a control which looks like a 'pile of paper' at the top right of the map above. You can use it to see how an area has changed on a series of historic maps.
Thorpe Close, W10
Thorpe Close is a redevelopment of the former Thorpe Mews, laid waste by the building of the Westway. Thorpe Mews disappeared in 1965 as the local area was being demolished. The mews was revived as Thorpe Close once the Westway was built.
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Hanwell
Hanwell is the westernmost London postcode (W7). The earliest surviving reference is 959 BCE when it was recorded as ’Hanewelle’.
The original borders of the parish stretched from the River Brent at Greenford down to the River Thames.
Hanwell grew between the wars and the 140 acre London County Council Hanwell cottage estate was built between 1918 and 1939.
Hanwell railway station, opened in 1838, is situated on the Elizabeth Line between West Ealing and Southall.
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Barnet Gate Lane, EN5
Barnet Gate Lane runs from Barnet Road before its name changes to Mays Lane when it reaches Totteridge. Barnet Gate Lane is named after Barnet Gate. There was never a tollgate here as is often the case with places named ‘Somewhere Gate’ – just a barrier that prevented cattle from straying onto Barnet Common.
It was first called Grendel’s Gate, after the monster slain by Beowulf, and it has been suggested that the use of such a portentous name may have indicated a place of some significance in Saxon times.
It was certainly more important than it is now, for manor courts were held here in the Middle Ages and Hendon Wood Lane was a busy thoroughfare that may have been a Roman road. Roman coins, now lost, were found at Barnet Gate some years ago.
Barnet Gate mill (also known as Arkley Mill) was built in 1806 and survives today in the back garden of a private house, east of Brickfield Lane. The mill is visible slightly above and to the left of the centre of the satellite map below.
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Hayes and Harlington
Hayes and Harlington is a railway station in the London Borough of Hillingdon. The station is on Isambard Kingdom Brunel's former Great Western Main Line running out of London Paddington to the Thames Valley, Bristol, South Wales and the West Country.
The line was opened on 4 June 1838, initially running to a temporary Maidenhead station to allow completion of the famous brick arch bridge over the River Thames just west of the station. The station at Hayes opened in 1868.
From 1 March 1883, the station (then named Hayes) was served by District Railway services running between Mansion House and Windsor. The service was discontinued as uneconomic after 30 September 1885.
Hayes is the location of the junction for the Heathrow Airport branch and is a station on Crossrail.
The film 'Trains at Hayes Station' showing trains passing through the station with stereophonic sound was filmed from the roof of the defunct Aeolian pianola factory just north of the station. The factory had been purchased by HMV ...
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Hercules Road, SE1
Hercules Road runs north from Lambeth Road near Lambeth Palace, on the site of Penlington Place. The road is named after Hercules Hall, which was built by and was the home of Philip Astley (1742-1814), riding instructor, horse-trainer, and acknowledged as the inventor of the modern circus.
Performing nearby in an open field behind the present site of St John’s Church, Waterloo, Astley realised the advantages of riding in a circle, and thus invented the circus ring. He was a principal among the many performers who made Lambeth a popular entertainment resort at that time.
Historically, Hercules Road is most well known for a former resident, the poet and visionary artist William Blake (1757-1827), who lived in a large house, 13 Hercules Buildings, and his address was Mr Blake Engraver, Hercules Buildings, Westminster Bridge. There is a series of mosaics inspired by Blake in a tunnel nearby. The site is marked with a plaque.
Hercules Road was a location for the film ’Passport to Pimlico’.
The Pineapple public house is located at 53-55 Hercules Road.
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Barkingside
Barkingside is a district in northern Ilford. Barkingside is mainly known for the children’s charity Barnardo’s - founded there in 1866. One of the oldest buildings in Barkingside is the Barnardo’s chapel.
The Holy Trinity Church dates from 1840.
Barkingside station originally opened in 1903 as part of a Great Eastern Railway branch line - the ’Fairlop Loop’ - from Woodford to Ilford via Hainault. The railway service was partially designed to stimulate suburban growth. The Great Eastern Railway became in 1923 part of the London & North Eastern Railway.
As part of the 1935–1940 ’New Works Programme’, the majority of the loop was to be transferred to form part of the Central line. Electrified Central line passenger services finally started in 1948.
Barkingside is ethnically diverse district but particularly notable for a high concentration of London’s Jewish population.
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Kew Green
Kew Green is a large open space owned by the Crown Estate and extending to about thirty acres. The northern, eastern and southwestern sides of the Green are largely residential with some pubs, restaurants, and the Herbarium Library. To the north of the Green is Kew Bridge and the South Circular Road leading from the bridge runs across the Green, dividing it into a large western part and a smaller eastern part.
At the south end is St Anne’s Church and at the west end of the Green is Elizabeth Gate, one of the two main entrances into Kew Gardens.
A large triangular space, Kew Green is mentioned in a Parliamentary Survey of Richmond taken in 1649. Kew Green became notable as a venue for cricket in the 1730s and a parcel of land at the edge of the Green was enclosed by George IV in the 1820s.
Near the northeast corner of Kew Green is Kew Pond, originally thought to have been fed from a creek of the tidal Thames. During high tides, sluice gates are opened to allow river water to fill the pond via an underground channel.
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Harrow-on-the-Hill
Harrow-on-the-Hill station is a London Underground station served by National Rail and London Underground trains. The station is located in the town centre of Harrow, about half a mile north of the locality from which it takes its name.
The station was opened as ’Harrow’ on 2 August 1880, as the Metropolitan Railway extended from its previous terminus at Willesden Green. Its name was changed to ’Harrow-on-the-Hill’ in 1894. The station is located at the foot of Harrow hill which was at the time of opening a small hamlet called Greenhill. It has since become the main centre of Harrow.
Had the governors of Harrow School not made objections during the planning stage, it is possible that the Metropolitan Railway might have followed a different route taking it closer to the town centre on the hill.
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Elia Street, N1
Elia Street was named for local poet, Charles Lamb. Charles Lamb achieved fame in the 1820s when he published a series of essays in the London Magazine under the name of ’Elia’ - the last name of an Italian man that he had worked with when Lamb was a clerk at the South Sea Company.
It was at first called Alfred Street. James Rhodes laid out Sudeley Street, Alfred Street and Vincent Terrace by 1837 and Gordon Street (later Quick Street) in 1838. A few houses in Elia Street, which ran to the New River beside the Scotch church, had already been completed by 1838. Rhodes used at least three builders, William Beckingham, John Wilson, and Thomas Allen, and probably also built the short terrace facing the river between Elia Street and Vincent Terrace.
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Tadworth
Tadworth is a suburban village in Surrey situated in the south-east area of the Epsom Downs. On a local farm - South Tadworth Farm - is an Iron Age ’Banjo’ enclosure, dating from 400–100 BC.
Tadworth appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as ’Tadeorde and Tadorne’. Its assets were: 2 hides, 5 ploughs and woodland worth 4 hogs.
For centuries after that, a manorial system was in place: namely North Tadworth Manor, South Tadworth Manor and the Rectory Manors of Banstead.
In 1874 a school board was formed for Banstead, Tadworth, and Kingswood, and in 1875 Tadworth and Kingswood School was opened by the board - now Kingswood Primary School.
In 1911 topographer and historian H. E. Malden describes Tadworth as "a hamlet on the Reigate road, included now in the ecclesiastical district of Kingswood".
On 1 July 1900, the railway station opened as ’Tadworth & Walton-on-the Hill’. It is the penultimate station on the Tattenham Corner Line.
The British Transport Police’s training ...
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Rayners Lane
Rayners Lane takes its name from a road in the area which runs from Marsh Road in Pinner to Eastcote Lane in South Harrow. Rayners Lane - the road - had been used for transporting grain to the mill on Pinner Green during the Middle Ages. Previously called Bourne Lane, during the first half of the nineteenth century the area was in the hands of the farming Rayner family and the road was renamed after them.
The Metropolitan Railway opened a branch to Uxbridge in 1904 and Rayners Lane station opened as Rayners Lane Halt on 26 May 1906.
Until then mostly rural, a 1930s development originally named Harrow Garden Village was planned. This was one of Metroland’s flagship projects. The area was suddenly built up as a result between 1929 and 1938 by Harrow’s biggest interwar housebuilder T.F. Nash, who created a shopping parade on Alexandra Avenue. Nash constructed a temporary narrow gauge railway sidings at High Worple to bring in materials for the project.
A now-listed, but now closed, Art Deco cinema was opened in 1935 featuring a curved projection on the front, ...
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St Albans Place, N1
St Albans Place was home to a famous Islington strong man. During the 18th century, there was a pub here called the ’Duke’s Head’ on the south east corner of the street. It was known from 1600 onwards and presumably this dates the street to the rural origins of Islington.
The pub was kept at that time by Thomas Topham (1710-1749), a famous strongman who had been a publican at Coldbath Fields at the age of 24. He was originally a carpenter and stood 5 feet 10 inches according to contemporary records.
In nearby Bath Street, during 1741, he lifted three barrels of water - weighing 1183 pounds - by his neck in front of a huge crowd of thousands which included Admiral Vernon, the naval victor of Portobello and Carthagena. Portobello Road is named after Vernon.
Topham could also twist pewter plates into the shape of three-cornered hats. In the British Museum can be found a dish made of the hardest pewter that had been rolled up by Topham.
His story didn’t end well. After stabbing h...
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Cricklewood Broadway (1933)
Smiths of Cricklewood were notable clockmakers. The photo can be accurately dated due to the performance of "The One Girl" listed on the poster.
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Hornsey Road, N7
Hornsey Road is main road running through the Islington and Highbury area In very early times, Hornsey Road was called Tallington Lane or Tallingdon Lane. It was part of the old road to Whetstone by way of Crouch End.
Its variable name came from the settlement of Tollington which was already located around the junction of Heame Lane and Tollington Lane (later Seven Sisters Road and Hornsey Road) by 1000 - a moated farmhouse lay on the south side of the junction. Although Tollington remained in use as a placename to the end of the 17th century, it was superseded by Holloway and the hamlet had ceased to have a separate identity by the 18th century.
The junction of Hornsey Road and Holloway Roads was known as Ring Cross by 1494.
By 1586, there was a freehold house with a garden, orchard and moat called Lower Place alongside the roadHornsey Roadin the Kinloch Place area. By 1721, this had become an inn.
By the eighteenth century, Hornsey Road has become called Duval’s Lane. About 1802 it was said...
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Lodge Farm
Lodge Farm was owned by Merton Priory until the dissolution of the monastery in 1538. Sir Richard Garth was Lord of the Manor in the 1600s.
This farm was originally called Spital Farm - it is not known when its name changed to Lodge Farm. It was a mixture of arable, grass, orchards and market gardening.
From the late 1700s to the early 1900s, the farm was owned by members of the Hoare banking family but they only lived at The Lodge (a large house) next door until the mid nineteenth century. The farm itself was by then run by their bailiff but in the latter half of the 1800s, the land was divided and leased to various farmers.
In 1910, The Lodge is described as being of timber with a pantile roof. It had a sitting room, kitchen, two bedrooms, a wash room, an outside toilet and a garden. Various cow stalls were described and three farm yards mentioned. There were also stables.
There was a public footpath through the farm estate which went from Central Road (formerly Morden Lane) to Bishopsford Road (formerly Su...
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Shoulder of Mutton Alley, E14
Shoulder of Mutton Alley might derive its name from an inn - or something more earthy. Shoulder of Mutton Alley might have received its name from a food market - there was certainly one here of the same name.
But there was, in older times, another use of the word ‘mutton’ - a slang term for prostitutes. This was prime dockland territory, after all.
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Batts Farm
Batts Farm is first mentioned in the will of Peter Batt in the late eighteenth century. The farm consisted of arable meadow, pasture land, coppice ground and 70 acres known as Batts Land. There was also a barn, stable yard and a house. Part of the land extended on the west to Green Wrythe Lane and to the River Wandle on the east.
Peter Batt left the farm to his sisters Mary Batt and Elizabeth Bassett. In 1798, Mary Batt leased it to a Henry Hoare for a term of 21 years. There was a proviso in the lease that "he did not cut all the trees".
Henry Hoare sold the farm in 1828 - it then consisted of various farm buildings and two new brick-built cottages. These cottages were mostly used by agricultural labourers employed by the farm.
By 1841, the Charles Pimm ran Batts Farm, living there with his son William and daughter Anne. The farmhouse was probably rebuilt in the late 1850s. When Charles died in 1869, William took over and farmed there until he died in 1892. By then, the farm mostly grew grain and vegetables. There was some li...
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Theobald Street, looking north
This image probably dates from the 1950s. Immediately to the right of the photo we see ’The Crown’, a pub situated at the Shenley Road/Theoald Street junction until the 2010s - replaced by a supermarket in the same building.
The war memorial was deemed too much of an obstruction to traffic and so was moved to the junction of Shenley Road and Elstree Way later.
The building behind the war memorial is the original building of ’The Crown’, demolished in 2020 despite listed building protection.
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Sloane Street, SW1X
Sloane Street runs north to south, from Knightsbridge to Sloane Square, taking its name from Sir Hans Sloane, who purchased the surrounding area in 1712. By 1760, the Swan (or New Swan) inn occupied a group of buildings facing the lane later enlarged into Sloane Street, with a tap house (later the Clock House inn) facing Brompton Road.
The Swan inn dated back at least to 1699, but was largely rebuilt in 1755–6 when a new lease was granted to Joseph Barnham, innkeeper. There was a yard with stables and coach-houses stretching to the west roughly up to the present Hooper’s Court.
Development started in the immediate environs of the inn. Here twelve houses known initially as Gloucester Row were erected under building leases of 1764 from Joseph Barnham to Joseph Clark and William Meymott, both carpenters. Clark built four houses next to the Swan, all leased in 1764. Meymott, a substantial builder based in Southwark and Bermondsey, built the following eight, leased in 1764–7. These were all small and orthodox Georgian terrace houses.
Joseph Clark (described as ‘Joseph Clark the elder’...
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Gracechurch Street, EC3V
Gracechurch Street is in the heart of Roman Londinium - it runs directly over the site of the basilica and forum. The word ’Gracechurch’ is derived from ’Gres-cherch’ or ’Gras-cherche’. The ’Gracechurch’ version was not used until after the destruction of all of the buildings in the street during the Great Fire of London in 1666. During its history, the street was for a period named Gracious Street.
It was a late Anglo-Saxon street and seems to have been built around the same time as London Bridge (10th/11th century) to which it provided access.
The church is was named after - St Benet Gracechurch stood at the junction with Lombard Street. It was destroyed in the Great Fire.
In medieval times a corn market was held beside the church. Leadenhall Market dating from the 14th century is still the street’s most noted attraction.
Originally at its southern end, it was called New Fish Street. North of Cornhill, Gracechurch continued as Bishopsgate Street.
The street was on the royal processional route. When the ...
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The Underground Map is creating street histories for the areas of London and surrounding counties lying within the M25.
