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Old London street maps - and how things change

London Locals helping visitors and locals alike
DiamondEcho
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Old London street maps - and how things change

#51507

Postby DiamondEcho » May 5th, 2017, 8:04 pm

Here an old OS map of West London from c1870, fascinating! What street names have changed, what streets have been bulldozed etc.
http://maps.nls.uk/view/102345961

You can search for maps of other areas of town, later editions, and so on. I thought I knew my patch well, but learnt several radically new things from this one map alone, not least that the street my home is on originally had a totally different name.

PinkDalek
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Re: Old London street maps - and how things change

#51712

Postby PinkDalek » May 6th, 2017, 6:16 pm

DiamondEcho wrote:Here an old OS map of West London from c1870, fascinating! What street names have changed, what streets have been bulldozed etc.
http://maps.nls.uk/view/102345961

You can search for maps of other areas of town, later editions, and so on. I thought I knew my patch well, but learnt several radically new things from this one map alone, not least that the street my home is on originally had a totally different name.


Yes, fascinating and somewhat time-consuming. The zoom and print function is handy.

For those how missed NomoneyNohoney's mention of The National Library of Scotland's amazing online repository (and your reply), here it is at Curiosity Corner:

viewtopic.php?f=72&t=4996&p=51495

Satsuma
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Re: Old London street maps - and how things change

#52384

Postby Satsuma » May 9th, 2017, 10:15 pm

I can also recommend Booth's Poverty Maps of London. I bought these for my OH after we watched the Victorian Slum tv prog last year

The set comes as two sheet maps and you can spend ages poring over them to see what has changed where.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Booths-Maps-o ... Swax5Yv2wS (random link from search terms, but looks identical to what I bought)

Sats

madhatter
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Re: Old London street maps - and how things change

#81607

Postby madhatter » September 17th, 2017, 12:15 pm

There are Apps available for both Android and iOS mobile devices which allow you to take an image of such a map and show your position on it in much the same way as you can with google maps. With the provisos that :
a) The maps were accurate and linear in the first place, as even the first series OS maps are.
b) It is possible to accurately identify at least two points on the old map with the same spot on Google (for Android) or Apple maps for iOS.

I have done it with both, and there are some quirks for setting up each, but it can be done accurately enough to allow the user to see where old field boundaries are still aligned with (for example) garden fences, where names of vanished farms, manors and orchards etc have been incorporated into newer road and building names.

For example, there is a straight road named Crescent Road, which turned out to be the site of Crescent Farm. Orchard road now runs along the edge of what was an orchard in 1870.

Of course the accuracy is dependent not only on the map but the location accuracy of the mobile device, so it won't work as well on a street lined with tall buildings.


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