Necropolis Station
The London Necropolis Railway was opened in 1854 as a reaction to severe overcrowding in London’s existing graveyards and cemeteries.

Waterloo station was originally the terminus for London’s daily funeral express to Brookwood Cemetery. Funerary trains bearing coffins (at 2/6 each – singles, naturally) left from the ’Necropolis Station’ just outside the main station. The Necropolis Station was totally destroyed during World War II. It aimed to use the recently-developed technology of the railway to move as many burials as possible to the newly-built Brookwood Cemetery in Brookwood, Surrey. This location was within easy travelling distance of London, but distant enough that the dead could not pose any risk to public hygiene. Although it had its own branch line into Brookwood Cemetery, most of the route of the London Necropolis Railway ran on the existing London and South Western Railway (LSWR). Consequently, a site was selected in Waterloo, near the LSWR’s recently-opened London terminus at Waterloo Bridge station (now London Waterloo). The building was specifically designed for the use of mourners. It had many private waiting rooms, which could also be used to hold funeral services, and a hydraulic lift to raise coffins to platform level. Existing railway arches were used for the storage of bodies. In 1899 the location of the terminus was blocking the expansion of Waterloo station. After much negotiation, the LSWR reached agreement with the London Necropolis Company, the owners of the cemetery and the railway: in return for the existing site, the LSWR re-equipped the London Necropolis Railway and supplied it with a new station on Westminster Bridge Road. This new building was designed to contrast with other funeral directors’ premises by being as attractive as possible. In 1902 the railway moved into the new building, and the earlier station was demolished. On 16 April 1941 the station was heavily damaged in an air raid. Much of the building was destroyed and the tracks to the station were rendered unusable. Although some funeral trains continued to run from nearby Waterloo station, the London terminus was never used again. Following the end of the war the London Necropolis Company decided that reopening the London Necropolis Railway was not financially worthwhile, and the surviving part of the station building was sold as office space. This remnant remains intact, and relatively unaltered since its opening.

TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden
The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.

Building Westminster Bridge (1744) Westminster Bridge was constructed between 1738 and 1750. Richard Wilson’s view of the bridge under construction can be dated to around September 1744. It was at this time that the timber framework supporting the arch immediately to the left of the central span was dismantled – an operation clearly visible in Wilson’s picture. The painting also shows the first stages of construction of the two arches to the right of the central arch, work which had begun that summer. The balustrade surmounting the central arch, although visible in Wilson’s picture, was not completed until the summer of 1745, suggesting that the artist had access to detailed plans or even the designer’s model for the bridge. Wilson’s view is taken from the Westminster side of the river, from Parliament Stairs, looking east towards the city of London and the dome of St Paul’s cathedral, visible on the horizon between the incomplete section of the bridge and the Lambeth shore.

Richard Wilson/Tate Britain

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A simulated flight into LCY courtesy of Google Earth Studio.

Hungerford Stairs
The Hungerford Stairs were the entrance point to Hungerford Market from the River Thames. They are now the site of Charing Cross railway Station.

Hungerford Market occupied a strip 126 feet wide, extending 465 feet northward towards the Strand. The market had been built in 1680 and rebuilt in 1831 and was named after the Hungerford family of Farleigh Castle, near Bath in Somerset. The site had become the property of the Hungerford family in 1425, when it was acquired from Sir Robert Chalons and his wife Blanche by Sir Walter Hungerford (later Baron Hungerford), Speaker of the House of Commons and Steward of the Household of King Henry V. It finally passed down the family to Sir Edward Hungerford (1632–1711), created a Knight of the Order of the Bath at the coronation of Charles II. Before its rebuilding, Hungerford Market was called “a disgrace to the metropolis” (Mogg’s New Picture of London and Visitor’s Guide to it Sights, 1844). Mogg further says: “The present elegant and convenient structure was erected from designs by Mr. Fowler in 1831 and 1833.” The market consisted of three divisions. The upper one formed a quadrangle, flanked by colonnades with dwellings and shops. The centre – a great hall – was formed of four rows of granite columns, with arches springing from them to support the roof. Hungerford Market specialised in food: meat, poultry, fruit, vegetables, butter and eggs. By 1830 the replacement of Old London Bridge meant that fishing boats could then come further upstream to deliver their catch. So the owners of the market hoped to break the monopoly of Billingsgate Market by providing a more convenient supply of fish for the West End. Hence a lower quadrangle was accessible by a spacious flight of steps and contained a fish-market. Down another set of steps – Hungerford Stairs – was a wharf, about 200 feet long with steps down to the water, where landings could be made. The formation of floating piers at the quay facilitated the arrival and departure of numerous steam boats that left during the summer months every quarter of an hour, for the City, Westminster, and Vauxhall, and at other times for Greenwich and Woolwich. When the site of the market was sold to the South Eastern Railway, the railway company demolished both it and the stairs, building Charing Cross railway station over the top.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

’Regent Street, Christmas Shopping’ (2016) http://alanreed.com

Alan Reed

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Hungerford Stairs
The Hungerford Stairs were the entrance point to Hungerford Market from the River Thames. They are now the site of Charing Cross railway Station.

Hungerford Market occupied a strip 126 feet wide, extending 465 feet northward towards the Strand. The market had been built in 1680 and rebuilt in 1831 and was named after the Hungerford family of Farleigh Castle, near Bath in Somerset. The site had become the property of the Hungerford family in 1425, when it was acquired from Sir Robert Chalons and his wife Blanche by Sir Walter Hungerford (later Baron Hungerford), Speaker of the House of Commons and Steward of the Household of King Henry V. It finally passed down the family to Sir Edward Hungerford (1632–1711), created a Knight of the Order of the Bath at the coronation of Charles II. Before its rebuilding, Hungerford Market was called “a disgrace to the metropolis” (Mogg’s New Picture of London and Visitor’s Guide to it Sights, 1844). Mogg further says: “The present elegant and convenient structure was erected from designs by Mr. Fowler in 1831 and 1833.” The market consisted of three divisions. The upper one formed a quadrangle, flanked by colonnades with dwellings and shops. The centre – a great hall – was formed of four rows of granite columns, with arches springing from them to support the roof. Hungerford Market specialised in food: meat, poultry, fruit, vegetables, butter and eggs. By 1830 the replacement of Old London Bridge meant that fishing boats could then come further upstream to deliver their catch. So the owners of the market hoped to break the monopoly of Billingsgate Market by providing a more convenient supply of fish for the West End. Hence a lower quadrangle was accessible by a spacious flight of steps and contained a fish-market. Down another set of steps – Hungerford Stairs – was a wharf, about 200 feet long with steps down to the water, where landings could be made. The formation of floating piers at the quay facilitated the arrival and departure of numerous steam boats that left during the summer months every quarter of an hour, for the City, Westminster, and Vauxhall, and at other times for Greenwich and Woolwich. When the site of the market was sold to the South Eastern Railway, the railway company demolished both it and the stairs, building Charing Cross railway station over the top.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

Hampstead Grove rooftop looking towards the City http://alanlancaster.co.uk

Alan Lancaster

Video: Co-ordinate near to Gardner Close, Wanstead
Jago Hazzard went to the far reaches of the Central Line

Cedars
A local West Hampstead builder, Thomas Potter, constructed Cedars in 1878.

It was put up next to West End Green but under a decade later, new buildings were going up throughout West Hampstead. This corner, owner by Potter, became known as the Cedars Estate. 28 houses and a Methodist church were built on the estate fronting Mill Lane in 1886-7 and seven blocks of flats in West End Lane in 1894. Holmdale Mansions were built in Holmdale Road in 1904 and Cavendish Mansions at the east end of Mill Lane about the same time, when the Cedars, which had become a school, was demolished.

TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden
The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.

’Sun and Rain over Regent Street’ (1988)

Bill Jacklin

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Leytonstone
Leytonstone is an area of east London and part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest .

The name Leytonstone, originally known as Leyton-Atte-Stone in early documents, may have originated from the large stone standing at the junction of Hollybush Hill and New Wanstead. In the 18th century, an obelisk was mounted on top of this stone, and there have been claims that it could be the remains of a Roman milestone. Leytonstone station was opened on 22 August 1856 by the Eastern Counties Railway. It later became part of the Great Eastern Railway system in 1862 and then, in 1923, part of the London & North Eastern Railway before being transferred to London Transport in 1947. During the “New Works Programme 1935 – 1940,” Leytonstone station underwent major changes as it became the junction of the existing Epping branch, which was newly electrified, and the new tube tunnel running under Eastern Avenue towards Newbury Park. As part of this work, the station was completely reconstructed, and the level crossing at Church Lane was replaced with an underbridge. Due to wartime priorities during the Second World War, the work at the station was halted in May 1940. Further delays occurred when the station buildings were hit by a German bomb in January 1944. During the war, the new tunnels were repurposed as an aircraft component factory, and the section closest to Leytonstone served as a public air-raid shelter. The Central Line first served Leytonstone station on 5 May 1947 when it became the temporary terminus of the line. Passengers would change to a steam shuttle onwards to Epping. However, this arrangement ceased on 14 December 1947 when the Central Line’s Underground services were extended to Woodford and Newbury Park, providing direct service to Leytonstone and beyond.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

’Good Morning, Muswell Hill’ (2014) Nessie Ramm on London: “This is the true wonderful fabric of London, not at all a solid mass but woven with many holes in which to breathe, rest a while, cultivate something or simply catch the moment” http://nessieramm.co.uk

Nessie Ramm

Video: Flying into LCY
A simulated flight into LCY courtesy of Google Earth Studio.

Wedlake Street Baths
In a time when most had somewhere to live but few had somewhere to wash at home, public baths were the place to go…

Baths and a laundry to serve Queen’s Park had been built in 1898, where the boundary with Kensington ran slightly south of the canal along Wedlake Street to Kensal Road. They were built next to Halfpenny (Ha’penny) Steps which allowed access across the canal from the Harrow Road to the baths for people from the Queen’s Park Estate. Wedlake Street Baths housed both a swimming pool and public baths. Families would go there for their weekly bath. There was a distinct system in place to use the facilities – you would get a numbered ticket and sat until your number was called. While you were in the bath, you could shout out to the attendent if you wanted more hot or cold water. The steel changing cubicles, a local remembered, were all made of steel – even the door. ’It felt like you were in stir!’, remembered one. Earlier times, people would leave their clothes unattended in the cubicle with the half door and a curtain on the top. Then it turned modern and they got the clothes basket and a number to pin on their costumes. Wedlake Baths were closed in 1980.

TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden
The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.

Tube Rain (2015) John Duffin is a print maker and painter well-known for his striking prints focusing on great architecture, depictions of modern life in urban environments and city streets at different times of day.

John Duffin

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Flitcroft
Flitcroft was a 50 acre estate at Fortune Green and West End, named after its owner in the 18th century.

At the core of Flitcroft was 28 acres of land left by Rachel Farby in 1626 to a certain William Clark. In 1756, it was bought by an agent for the architect Henry Flitcroft (or Fleetcroft). Flitcroft farmhouse lay just north of West End Green but the estate was effectively managed by Flitcroft from his house at Frognal Grove, Hampstead. By 1866, the estate has passed to Mary Ann Porter. The 20 acres north of Fortune Green was sold to the parish for a cemetery in 1874. The rest of the estate was given over to the builders in the 1880s. Although the name Parsifal Road was approved in 1883, no houses went up there until the 1890s but Hackney or New College, a brick building with majolica dressings designed by W. P. Manning, was built at the eastern end in 1887. The National Standard Land Mortgage and Investment Co. constructed Ingham and Burrard roads between Fortune Green Road and Finchley Road in 1885 and 64 small terraced houses were constructed there between 1886 and 1892 by Rathbone, Gray, Pulling, Brown, and other builders, while much of the frontage on Fortune Green Road and Finchley Road was covered with houses and shops. A Congregational church was built at the junction of Burrard Road and Finchley Roads in 1894. Between 1890 and 1897, about 13 larger detached or semi-detached houses were built in Parsifal Road. A land company was probably also involved in building lower middle-class terraces on the rest of the Flitcroft estate south of the cemetery and west of Fortune Green, where fear of the cemetery outweighed the advantage of adjacent open space. W. H. Suttle, of Agamemnon Road, was the main builder of 155 houses in Agamemnon, Ajax, Ulysses, and Achilles Roads between 1886 and 1896.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

“A Sunset with a View of Nine Elms” (c.1755)

Samuel Scott/Tate Britain

Video: Co-ordinate near to Gardner Close, Wanstead
Jago Hazzard went to the far reaches of the Central Line

Temple Bar
Temple Bar is the point in London where Fleet Street, City of London, becomes the Strand, Westminster, and where the City of London traditionally erected a barrier to regulate trade into the city.

In the Middle Ages, the authority of the City of London Corporation reached beyond the city’s ancient walls in several places (the Liberties of London). To regulate trade into the city, barriers were erected on the major roads wherever the true boundary was a substantial distance from the old gatehouse. Temple Bar was the most famous of these, since traffic between London (England’s prime commercial centre) and Westminster (the political centre) passed through it. Its name comes from the Temple Church, which has given its name to a wider area south of Fleet Street, the Temple, once belonging to the Knights Templar but now home to two of the legal profession’s Inns of Court. Commissioned by King Charles II, and designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the fine arch of Portland stone was constructed between 1669 and 1672. Rusticated, it is a two-storey structure consisting of one wide central arch for the road traffic, flanked on both sides by narrower arches for pedestrians. On the upper part, four statues celebrate the Stuart monarchy: on the west side Charles II is shown with his father Charles I whose parents James I and Anne of Denmark are depicted on the east side. During the 18th century, the heads of traitors were mounted on pikes and exhibited on the roof. The other seven principal gateways to London (Ludgate, Newgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Bishopsgate and Aldgate) had all been demolished by 1800, but Temple Bar remained despite its impediment to the ever-growing traffic. The upper storey room was leased to the neighbouring banking house of Child & Co for records storage. It was discovered that the keystones had dropped in 1874. In 1878 the City of London Corporation, eager to widen the road but unwilling to destroy so historic a monument, dismantled it piece-by-piece over an 11-day period and stored its 2,700 stones carefully. In 1880, at the instigation of his wife, Valerie Susan Meux, the brewer Henry Meux bought the stones and re-erected the arch as a gateway at his house, Theobalds Park, between Enfield and Cheshunt in Hertfordshire. There it remained, incongruously sitting in a clearing in a wood, from 1878 until 2003. In 1984, it had been purchased by the Temple Bar Trust from the Meux Trust for £1. It was carefully dismantled and returned on 500 pallets to the City of London, where it was painstakingly re-erected as an entrance to the Paternoster Square redevelopment just north of St Paul’s Cathedral. It opened to the public on 10 November 2004. As the most important entrance to London from Westminster, it has long been the custom that the monarch stop at Temple Bar before entering the City of London, so that the Lord Mayor may offer him or her the City’s pearl-encrusted Sword of State as a token of loyalty. The historic ceremony has often featured in art and literature.

TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden
The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.

Fox Hill, Upper Norwood by Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) Camille Pissarro was born in St Thomas (then a Danish possession) in the West Indies but lived and worked mainly in the Paris area. He was an Impressionist and mainly painted landscapes. He visited London in 1870-71 and painted London views.

National Gallery, London

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Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom.

Sometimes known as the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, it was founded in 1694, nationalised in 1946, and gained operational independence to set monetary policy in 1997. After the ’Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, there were calls for a national public bank to stabilise the nation’s resources. Many schemes were proposed but the successful one was from William Paterson. This envisaged a loan of £1,200,000 to the Government but in return the subscribers would be incorporated as the ’Governor and Company of the Bank of England’. The Royal Charter was sealed on 27 July 1694, and the Bank started its official role which it continues today. In 1734, the Bank acquired premises in Threadneedle Street. Over the next hundred years it added adjacent properties until the present island site was secured, and Sir John Soane’s massive curtain wall was erected round it. The Bank’s notes became an accepted currency – people seldom doubted that the promise to pay (which referred to gold coin of the realm) would be honoured. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Bank underwent a large rebuilding project. The Sir John Soane’s buildings within the curtain wall were replaced by a single structure designed by Sir Herbert Baker.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

Reflections on the Thames, Westminster, London (1880) John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836–1893) was an English Victorian-era artist best known for his nocturnal scenes of urban landscapes. Today, he is considered one of the great painters of the Victorian era.

John Atkinson Grimshaw

Video: Flying into LCY
A simulated flight into LCY courtesy of Google Earth Studio.

Bullbaiters Farm
Bullbaiters Farm near Boreham Wood was originally called Bullbeggar’s Farm – Bullbeggar meaning ’hobgoblin’ or ’scarecrow’.

Above the central door was the Byng family crest – onwers of the farm, who were based in Wrotham Park, South Mimms. In the 1861 census, the occupant of Bullbaiters Farm was 60 year old William King, who farmed 190 acres and employed 3 men and 2 boys. In addition to his family two farm labourers also lived in the farm. Thrift Farm, nearby, was occupied by a farm labourer according to the census – so it may have been used as a farm cottage. Quite often, especially involving what had been smaller tenanted farms, the fields would be combined into a larger farm and the ’redundant’ farm house used as farm cottages.

TUM Book Club: Old Covent Garden
The magic of the old Covent Garden Market is evoked through Clive Boursnell’s photographs, taken over the course of numerous visits to Covent Garden in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Clive Boursnell, then a young photographer, shot thousands of photographs of the old Covent Garden, documenting the end of an era before the markets moved out of central London. Boursnell captured these last days of the market over a period of six years, from 1968 until the market’s closure, in a series of beautiful portraits of the feisty life of a city institution.

“London Bridge from the Old Swan” by the Irish painter Hubert Pugh (1780) Shooting the tidal rapids at old London Bridge was dangerous; many passengers preferred to get off at the Old Swan, and walk. Immediately across the river in the painting is St Saviour’s Church, now Southwark Cathedral.

Hubert Pugh (Bank of England Museum)

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Getting around London with Oyster