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MAP YEAR:18001810182018301860190019502024 
NOTE: Markers are not shown on requested maps
 
November
3
2024
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.

APRIL
30
2022

 

Rook Street, E14
Rook Street - at first called Mary Street - ran between Poplar High Street and East India Road. Rook Street ran where the Will Crooks Estate stands today.

Before the building of the East India Dock Road in 1806 the only roads running north from the High Street were North Street (leading to Bow Common) and Bow Lane/Robin Hood Lane, which merged to form a single road leading to Bromley.

The Wade estate lay to the north of Poplar High Street and had been in the hands of the Wade family since the early 1700s. A century later was held by a widow - Mary Wade.

The area between the new East India Dock Road and Poplar High Street was first developed in the early nineteenth century. Building lots along them were sold around 1810. By 1815 the area contained ’a great number of very small and dilapidated Tenements’. The leases expired in 1818 and more systematic development followed the division of the land among Mary Wade’s daughters in 1823. A modified street layout was created and building took place during the remainder of ...
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APRIL
29
2022

 

Savoy Circus, W3
Savoy Circus was officially Western Circus when it opened in 1921. The Western Avenue through the area was built in 1921. At its junction with East Acton Lane, a roundabout was laid out.

Western Circus became known as Savoy Circus when the Savoy cinema opened at the junction in 1931. The roundabout here caused severe congestion which caused its replacement by traffic lights.
»read full article


APRIL
28
2022

 

Wyleu Street, SE23
Wyleu Street arrived during the 1880s. In September 1882, the Kentish Mercury reported: "A new estate, known as the Woolmore Estate, situated between the Brockley Jack, Brockley Road, and the Freeholds, Forest Hill, is being laid out for building purposes, the roads on which have already been marked out, and will be known as Stoneden Park (sic), Court Rai Road (sic), Padbury Street, Holmesley Road, Tatnell Street, Riseldine Street, Gabriel Street, Kilgour Street, Honor Oak Park, Wyleu Street, and Maclean Street."
»read full article


APRIL
27
2022

 

Lavie Mews, W10
Lavie Mews, W10 was a mews connecting Portobello Road and Murchison Road. Lavie Mews was a tiny mews with bends in it, serving a warehouse.

It disappeared as part of the Wornington Estate redevelopments in the early 1970s.
»read full article


APRIL
26
2022

 

Ealing Broadway to Ealing Common walk
A walk full of literature and culture - all in Ealing! Ealing Station, where this walk begins, was located in the small village of Haven Green when it opened on 1 December 1838 as a station on the Great Western Railway line.  Trains ran to Paddington from here and three decades later, the District Line opened its station here.

We walk straight out of the front entrance to the station, which has undergone a complete transformation to accompany the arrival of the Elizabeth Line.

Directly opposite the station, down some stairs and into an alleyway called Haven Place, was the location for the now legendary Ealing Club

Started by Alexis Corner and Cyril Davis in early 1962, the Ealing Club kickstarted the British R&B boom.

Regular players at the Saturday night blues sessions included Ginger Baker,  Long John Baldry,  Graham Bond, Jack Bruce, Malcolm Cecil, Eric Clapton, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Paul Jones, Rod Stewart, Dick Taylor,  and Charlie Watts.

Manfred Mann pla...
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APRIL
26
2022

 

Whitehouse Avenue, WD6
Whitehouse Avenue was originally to be called Cornwall Avenue. Whitehouse Farm was situated on Furzehill Road, dated to the 18th century and originally spread over 200 acres. It was owned by the Church of England.

After the railway became established in the area, the population grew and as new industries were introduced more houses and roads were required, Drayton Road being the first in Boreham Wood. Developers began buying plots of land, mainly off of Shenley Road and Whitehouse Farm began to shrink. Road building off the north side of Shenley Road reached by 1918 as far to the east as Clarendon Road.

Between the wars, the founding of the film studios and work starting on the Laings estate off Elstree Way, resulted in large areas of farmland being lost. Postwar, the London County Council needed land to house London’s ‘population overspill’ and made a compulsory purchase of Laing’s land off Elstree Way, as well as farmland to the east of Theobald Street.

Whitehouse Avenue was start...
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APRIL
25
2022

 

Pratt Street, NW1
Pratt Street was named for Charles Pratt, 1st Earl of Camden. Charles Pratt was the Lord Chancellor between 1766 and 1770 and had been Attorney General.

The development of Camden Town started with the ’Kentish Town Act’ of 1788. This allowed Charles Pratt and his heirs to lay out streets on his property. There were building leases for 1400 houses.

Pratt Street named after the Earl, was started in 1791.

In the 1950s, Pratt Street was known as ’Greek Town’ due to the number of Greek Cypriots who lived here. This community disappeared as a new centre of Cypriot life began in Green Lanes, Haringay.
»read full article


APRIL
24
2022

 

Houghton Street, WC2A
Houghton Street is a street which has been ’demoted’ over time. In the early eighteenth century John Strype described Clare Street, Houghton Street and Holles Street as "well built and inhabited", but he also noted pockets of poverty in small courts north of the market.

The area went rapidly downhill in the years after, turning into a ’rookery’, until the rebuilding of the whole area to create Aldwych and Kingsway in 1904-5.

Having been founded in 1895, the LSE was looking to establish a campus which didn’t happen until after the First World War. The foundation stone of the London School of Economics ’Old Building’, on Houghton Street, was eventually laid by King George V in 1920 and the building was opened in 1922.

The LSE’s neighbours had been small businesses and shops such as Meakin’s the grocer at 18 Houghton Street, Lynn and Harding publishers at no. 17 and the Three Tuns public house at the corner of Houghton Street and Clement’s Inn Passage.
...
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APRIL
23
2022

 

Fournier Street, E1
Fournier Street is a street running east-west from Brick Lane to Commercial Street alongside Christ Church. The last street to be laid out on the Wood-Mitchell estate (which also included Princelet, Hanbury and Wilkes Streets), building began with the south side in 1726 as Christ Church was being built. Early depictions of the street reveal that its western end, the junction with Red Lion Street, was rather obstructed, which no doubt contributed to its desirability as a residential thoroughfare, especially since the properties on the south side are considered to be the finest on the estate. It was then called Church Street.

The building leases on several houses featured a restrictive covenant respecting its use for noxious trades, however silk-weaving and worsted-dying were not included and many of the properties became occupied (usually in part) by firms connected with the silk industry, some as early as 1743.

The rectory of Christ Church at No.1 Church Street (now 2 Fournier Street) was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and John James and was built in 1726-9. Th...
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APRIL
22
2022

 

Ladbroke Terrace, W11
Ladbroke Terrace was one of the first streets to be created on the Ladbroke estate. Building started in the 1820s at the Holland Park Avenue end, on the eastern side with four villas between the Avenue and what was to become Ladbroke Road. Others followed within ten years.

The normal development pattern seems to have been followed with James Weller Ladbroke first giving building leases, and then once the houses were constructed giving 99-year leases of the buildings at a relatively low ground rent to the developer, who could then sell the leaseholds or sublet the houses to recoup his outlay.
»read full article


APRIL
21
2022

 

Market Estate, N7
The Market Estate is situated to the north of Caledonian Park, named after the Metropolitan Cattle Market which operated on the site until the 1960s. The Market Estate is a public housing estate consisting of 271 flats and maisonettes.

Three of the six blocks that make up the estate are named after breeds of animal that were traded in the market: Tamworth (pigs), Kerry (cows) and Southdown (sheep). The remaining three blocks are called the Clock tower blocks after the market’s clock tower (which still stands) in Caledonian Park. This clock was used as a prototype for the mechanism of Big Ben.

The estate was built by the Greater London Council who had purchased the site from the Corporation of London. It was completed in 1967 to a design by architects Farber & Bartholomew. The estate became run down, neglected and plagued by anti-social behaviour.

Walkways connecting the blocks were mainly removed in the 1990s when gardens were created for most ground floor flats.

Following the death of a young boy on the estate, Christopher Pullen, residents set up the Market Estate ...
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APRIL
20
2022

 

St George’s Hill
St George’s Hill is an upmarket area of Weybridge. St George’s Hill is a private gated community having golf and tennis clubs, as well as approximately 420 houses.

The summit is 78 metres above mean sea level. In April 1649, common land on the hill had been occupied by a movement known as The Diggers, who began to farm there. They are often regarded as one of the world’s first small-scale experiments in socialism. The Diggers left the hill following a court case five months later.

With its broad summit, the hill results in views of Surrey varying from one observation point to another. This spurred on the idea for the development with views along the estate roads.

St George’s Hill first served as a home and leisure location to celebrities and successful entrepreneurs after its division into lots in the 1910s and 1920s when Walter George Tarrant built its first homes.

Land ownership is divided between homes with gardens, belonging to house owners and ...
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APRIL
19
2022

 

Sun in the Sands
The Sun in the Sands is a pub between Blackheath and Shooter’s Hill. The pub lends its name to the adjacent junction, where the A2 between central London and Kent meets the A102, which provides access to the Blackwall Tunnel.

The upland heath ridge to its east was a meeting point since the Middle Ages. It was a stopover of King Henry VIII when riding from Greenwich to Shooter’s Hill with his first Queen.

The present pub dates from around 1745 - its name comes from the sight of the setting sun amidst dust, kicked up by sheep herded by drovers from Kent headed to London. It was at first an isolated inn on heathland, frequented by highwaymen in one period known as The Trojans.

The junction was built in stages to bypass the old Roman Road between Blackheath and Dartford.
»read full article


APRIL
18
2022

 

Epsom
Epsom in Surrey lies 22 kilometres south of central London. Epsom was first recorded as Ebesham in the 10th century with its name probably deriving from that of a Saxon landowner. The street pattern is thought to have become established in the Middle Ages.

Like many other nearby settlements, Epsom is located on the spring line - where the permeable chalk of the North Downs meets impermeable London Clay.

By the early 18th century, the spring on Epsom Common was believed to have healing qualities. The mineral waters were found to be rich in magnesium sulphate (Epsom salts). Charles II was among those who regularly took the waters. The popularity of the spa declined rapidly in the 1720s.

Organised horse racing on Epsom Downs has taken place since the early 17th century. The popularity of Epsom grew as The Oaks and The Derby were established in the late 18th centruy. The first grandstand at the racecourse was constructed in 1829.

The opening of the railway station in 1847, along with th...
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APRIL
17
2022

 

Caledonian Road, N1
Caledonian Road runs north from King’s Cross. Caledonian Road was constructed in pursuance of an act of Parliament, obtained by the Battle Bridge and Holloway Road Company. The company then built the Caledonian Road in 1826 as a toll road to link the New Road at King’s Cross with the Holloway Road (part of the Great North Road), providing a new link to the West End from the north.

The first residential buildings on the road were Thornhill Terrace built in 1832 - other terraces were built in the 1840s.

Originally known as Chalk Road, its name was changed after the Royal Caledonian Asylum (for the children of poverty-stricken exiled Scots) was built here in 1828. Pentonville Prison was built in 1842 immediately to the south of the asylum.

The asylum building was demolished and its site is now occupied by local authority housing - the Caledonian Estate built 1900–7.

Between 1837 to 1849, cottages in gardens were built between Brewery Road and the site of the railw...
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APRIL
16
2022

 

Blendon
Blendon is a neighbourhood within the London Borough of Bexley, located between Bexleyheath and Sidcup. Blendon is probably named after the Bladindon family who owned land in the area.

Blendon Hall, built in 1763, was sold to a local housing developer in 1929. It was demolished to make way for suburban housing.
»read full article


APRIL
15
2022

 

The Temple
The Temple is one of the main legal districts in London and a notable centre for English law. The Temple consists of the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple, which are two of the four Inns of Court. The associated area is roughly bounded by the River Thames to the south, Surrey Street to the west, Strand/Fleet Street to the north and Carmelite Street/Whitefriars Street to the east.

The Temple contains barristers’ chambers and solicitors’ offices and notable legal institutions such as the Employment Appeal Tribunal.

The name is recorded in the 12th century as Novum Templum meaning ’New Temple’. It is named after holdings once belonging to the Knights Templar. After the Knights order was suppressed in 1312, the area was divided into Inner Temple and Outer Temple (denoting what was within the City of London and what was without).

King Edward II bestowed it on his favourite, Hugh le Despencer. On Hugh’s death in 1326 the Inner Temple passed first to the mayor of London and then in 1333 to William de L...
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APRIL
14
2022

 

Bromley & Sheppard’s Colleges, BR1
Bromley and Sheppard’s Colleges today provide accommodation for retired clergy and their dependents. Founded in the 17th century, with later additions and extensions, the property includes three listed buildings.

Bromley College was founded in 1666 in the Will of John Warner, Bishop of Rochester, to provide housing for twenty poore widowes of orthodoxe and loyall clergiemen. Numerous others have since contributed further funds.

The first almshouses were built in 1670–72 around a quadrangle. A second quadrangle was instigated by Zachary Pearce, and completed in 1805. After 1821 land to the east was purchased and improvements were made to the grounds. It is the oldest building in Bromley.

Bromley College provides 40 self-contained dwellings, and Sheppard’s College a further seven.
»read full article


APRIL
13
2022

 

Parsons Green, SW6
Parsons Green is both a road and the name of the green bounded by it. Parsons Green is bounded on its three sides by the New King’s Road, the A308 and Parsons Green Lane. It is named after the rectors of the parish of Fulham whose residence once adjoined this land - subsequently, the name was adopted for the district.

From the late 17th century, the area surrounding the green became the site for fine houses and grounds built by merchants and the gentry within easy distance of London. A number of Georgian houses have survived, some of them replacing earlier Tudor and Elizabethan buildings.

An annual fundraiser called ’Fair on the Green’ is held on the green.

Fulham F.C. had their ground in Parsons Green for two years from 1889.
»read full article


APRIL
12
2022

 

Aylesbury
In 1868 the Aylesbury & Buckingham Railway - later part of the Metropolitan Railway - reached Aylesbury. The Metropolitan Railway opened from Chalfont Road in 1892 to a separate station named Aylesbury (Brook Street) adjacent to the GWR station. It closed in 1894 when services were diverted to the GWR station.

The Metropolitan Railway ran through trains from Baker Street to Verney Junction via Aylesbury and which operated until 1936. From 1948 to 1961 Aylesbury was the terminus of the Metropolitan’s main line, on which trains had to change between electric and steam locomotives at Rickmansworth. Following electrification from Rickmansworth to Amersham, Aylesbury stopped being served by London Underground trains.

The Great Central Railway reached Aylesbury in 1899 from Annesley Junction just north of Nottingham on its London extension line to London Marylebone. Until 1966 Aylesbury was an intermediate station on the former Great Central Main Line between London Marylebone and Sheffield Victoria and on to Manchester London Road via the Woodhead Tunnel....
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APRIL
11
2022

 

Stoke Mandeville
Stoke Mandeville was a station on the Metropolitan Line. Stoke Mandeville station was opened on 1 September 1892, by the Metropolitan Railway, when its main line was extended from Chalfont Road to Aylesbury Town. The Great Central Railway served the station from 1899, connecting the station to Leicester, Nottingham, and Sheffield.

London Transport services ceased in 1961.
»read full article


APRIL
10
2022

 

Wendover
Wendover was a station on the Metropolitan Line. Wendover station was opened on 1 September 1892 by the Metropolitan Railway when the railway extended to Aylesbury. London Underground services finished in 1961 when the main line took over - now Chiltern Railways.
»read full article


APRIL
9
2022

 

Great Missenden
Great Missenden once had its own Metropolitan Line station. Great Missenden is a large village in the valley of the River Misbourne in the Chiltern Hills lying between Amersham and Wendover. It is a few kilometres to the south of the prime minister’s country residence at Chequers and the village is now best known as home to the late Roald Dahl.

In 2019 the local postcode of HP16 was noted as the most affluent place in England.

Great Missenden station was opened on 1 September 1892 by the Metropolitan Railway when the railway was extended from Chalfont Road (now Chalfont and Latimer) to Aylesbury Town. The Great Central Railway also served the station from 1899 onwards, linking the station with Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield.

After the Metropolitan Railway became Metropolitan line of the London Underground, the line was fully electrified in the early 1960s only as far as Amersham. This meant that Great Missenden would now only be served by main line services. Responsibility for the railway...
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APRIL
8
2022

 

Kennington Tollgate
The Kennington toll gate stood at the intersection of Kennington Park and Camberwell New Road/Brixton Road. The Kennington Turnpike was one of a number of ’turnpike’ roads that sprang up. Roads were improved and then charges levied, following the General Turnpike Act of 1773. Turnpike trusts were created as a result. However, the act that created this turnpike was passed in 1751.

The Kennington Turnpike lay on the main route for coaches and omnibuses to and from the south. The toll gate stood on the junction where the two old Roman roads out of London diverged.

The toll was abolished on 18 November 1865.
»read full article


APRIL
7
2022

 

Grove Farm
Grove Farm changed usage between a farm and a house before being overwhelmed by suburbia. Around 1754, there were about 16 houses with small gardens in Golders Green, most of them built on the side of the road. In 1814 Golders Green was reported as containing ’many ornamental villas and cottages, surrounded with plantations’. In 1828 detached houses spread on both sides of the road as far as Brent bridge. Grove Farm - or Grove House - was one of these.

The villas in their wooded grounds, which gave Golders Green its special character, disappeared rapidly with the growth of suburban housing after the extension of the Underground.

The name of the building was preserved in the road name The Grove which was built over the top of the original house.
»read full article


APRIL
6
2022

 

Arundel Gardens, W11
Arundel Gardens was built towards the end of the development of the Ladbroke Estate, in the early 1860s. By the 1850s the Ladbroke family, who owned this land was beginning to sell off freehold parcels of undeveloped land, one of which consisted of the land between the south side of Arundel Gardens and the north side of Ladbroke Gardens.

This was acquired in 1852 by Richard Roy, a solicitor who had already been involved in building speculation in Cheltenham. He appears to have done nothing with the Arundel Gardens part of his land until 1862-3, when building leases were granted for the houses on the south side (numbers 1-47). Around the same time, leases were granted to three other builders to build houses on the north side (Edwin Ware for Nos. 2-14). The survey done by the Ordnance Survey in 1863 shows that the south side was complete by then, but only a few houses had been built on the north side, at the Kensington Park Road end. Building clearly proceeded apace, however, as an 1865 plan, done when the street was given its current name and numbers (it was originally cal...
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APRIL
5
2022

 

Corringway, NW11
Corringway included a unique Hampstead Garden Suburb feature - a large block of garages (now demolished) The rigidity of Edwardian society is shown by the way the chauffeurs’ flats were built directly over the garages. The houses on each side of Corringway were specifically intended for members of the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust’s staff.
»read full article


APRIL
4
2022

 

Silverdale Road, WD23
Silverdale Road lies between Aldenham Road and Grange Road. The road dates from the Edwardian era.
»read full article


APRIL
3
2022

 

Sumatra Road, NW6
Sumatra Road, NW6 dates from the 1870s. New roads were constructed in the late 1870s. 346 houses were built between 1882 and 1894 in Sumatra Road, Solent Road, Holmdale Road, Glenbrook Road, Pandora Road, and Narcissus Road, mostly by JI Chapman of Solent Road, GW Cossens of Mill Lane, Jabez Reynolds of Holmdale Road and James Gibb of Dennington Park Road.

The area suffered during the Second World War, although not so badly as to necessitate large-scale rebuilding. One bomb site included nos. 76-86 Sumatra Road and nos. 9-17 Solent Road. There were replaced by an open space and clinic.
»read full article


APRIL
2
2022

 

Wentworth Street, E1
Wentworth Street runs east-west from the junction of Brick Lane, Osborn Street and Old Montague Street to Middlesex Street. The street forms part of the boundary between Spitalfields and St Mary’s Whitechapel.

The earliest depiction of Wentworth Street appears c.1560, bounded by hedges. However the area immediately east of Petticoat Lane (Middlesex Street) was built up by the 1640s with substantial houses divided by yards and gardens. The southern side of Wentworth Street had properties whereas the northern side formed the boundary of the Tenter Ground, an open space used for stretching and drying silk (there were several ’tenter grounds’ in the immediate area). The northern side east of Brick Lane formed the southern boundary of the Fossan Estate.

The street was so named after Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Cleveland who owned much land in the area in the 1630s and 1640s, although early maps call it ’Wentford Street’ and ’Winford Street’, probably both unintentional errors.

The entire length of Wentworth Street from Petticoa...
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APRIL
1
2022

 

Holborn Viaduct, EC1A
Holborn Viaduct is a road bridge in London and the name of the street which crosses it. It links Holborn, via Holborn Circus, with Newgate Street, in the City of London financial district, passing over Farringdon Street and the subterranean River Fleet. The viaduct spans the steep-sided Holborn Hill and the River Fleet valley at a length of 430 metres and 24 metres wide. City surveyor William Haywood was the architect and the engineer was Rowland Mason Ordish.

It was built between 1863 and 1869, as a part of the Holborn Valley Improvements, which included a public works scheme which improved access into the City from the West End, with better traffic flow and distribution around the new Holborn Circus, the creation of Queen Victoria Street, the rebuilding of Blackfriars Bridge, the opening of the Embankment section into the City, the continuation of Farringdon Street as Farringdon Road and associated railway routes with Farringdon station and Ludgate Hill station. It was opened by Queen Victoria at the same time as the inauguration of the other thoroughf...
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