More Greenwich Maps

It seems everyone loves old maps - but not all ancient plans of London include Greenwich - for the simple reason that we were always part of the suburbs, rather than the metropolis until very recently.

For those of you who enjoyed the splendours of the Greenwood Map of 1827, I've found a couple more. As usual it was because I was looking for something else, completely different - but isn't that the best way to stumble upon stuff?

I was looking for a map of the town centre before 1829 and I couldn't be sure which version of the Greenwood Map was online, so I checked elsewhere.

My search led me to the 1818 Cary's Map of London. which shows Greenwich before the market. Annoyingly the town centre falls in a virtual fold so you can't view it all at once and it runs out just south of St Alfeges, but it's still a fascinating view. It's not wildly detailed, but that may just be because there wasn't much there...

Last time I wrote about the various maps of Greenwich, Marmoset pointed out a brilliant one, 1862-71. It's particularly good, because it shows the whole of the town centre, though if you live east of the workhouse (what we now call the old district hospital site - boy, we've come a long way...) then you can whistle. Sadly that happens pretty much all the time with East Greenwich and Charlton.

For more sombre reasons Charles Booth's Poverty Map of London of 1898 to 89 also makes incredible pouring. Find out just how poor YOUR street was at the turn of the last century. I'd be curious to see how the colours dchanged at the cusp of this century...

The weird thing about maps is that although the very old ones are incredible, it really doesn't really matter how old they are - even ones from just a couple of years ago can be enjoyed for all the minor (and sometimes major) changes to be spotted.

This one, Greenwich 1940 - is particularly cool as it was made just before the real Blitz damage was done. No A102M and, even more interestingly, no big gaps in streets - yet...

Much grimmer is the LCC map made just after the war listing all the bomb damage in the area. There used to be a copy of this on the wall in Waterstones as you went up the stairs, but it seems to have gone now.

Of course if you're really into that kind of thing, Latt told me about a googlemap of V2 rocket hits.

But without doubt, the Mecca for Greenwich map-lovers is the magnificent Ideal Homes site, which is just fantastic. Bookmark it, visit it, love it, folks.

I never managed to find what I was looking for - but hey - it's the journey, not the destination, isn't it...

The Peninsula Before...

When I first got hold of this map (sorry about the rubbish scan...) I had to stop for a moment and work out what was missing. We're so used to seeing the A102M carving its way up through the peninsula that I found myself mentally superimposing it onto this old streetplan (from about 1902.)It's easy to forget that the motorway didn't crash its way onto the Greenwich Marshes until the 1970s.

What we're looking at here, though, is the old main road to the tunnel - Tunnel Avenue - that sleepy little back road that now just consists of 1930s and modern houses south of Blackwall Lane; factories to the north, but which would have originally had a vibrant community of shops and services (not to mention two gasholders) and probably would have been as congested as the motorway gets today, with a combination of horse-and-cart ensembles and motor vehicles.

I always find it amazing that you don't need to look at ancient maps to see real differences in Greenwich's history. Just look at all those fields, for example - many of them would have been allotments - there's an Ordnance Survey map from about the same time that shows them specifically. There's a whole bunch of roads (which would have been newly-built then) that were swept away to make the flyover. And the collection of buildings where the Heart of East Greenwich will be, have already been demolished, built over and demolished again since this map was made.

But there's some that remains the same. The little Angerstein Railway, for example, which I always get a little thrill to see trundling its way through tracks I forget are there and which, frankly, I find staggering still exists. I'm not sure what's happening to it in this map - it appears to turn into a dotted line - perhaps it's because it's the bit that's shared with the passenger track.

But all that's for another day...

1790 Roadmap

Stonemuse has been shopping on Ebay and has kindly sent me a picture of his latest acquisition - a road map from 1790. I know very little about it, other than it appears to have been published by J. Cary, July 1, 1790.

I think what this says most to me is just how hit-and-miss travel was in those days. This is the main Dover Road - and yet the traveller is given information on a need-to-know basis only.

Interestingly, we are given the names of individual landowners - Mr Angerstein - Mr Page - Mr Todd - Mr Snodgrass - and the odd landmark - Sevendroog Tower, for example, which wouldn't have been particularly old when the map was made. There's also a list of respectable inns - in Essex - I'm not sure what their relevance is.

It certainly leads to some questions - Is The Sun Public House an early incarnation of that landmark of traffic-report misery, The Sun In The Sands? And where's The Spread Eagle? I thought it was a bit of a must-stay on continental journeys...

It seems a bit odd to look at a map this way round - we're used to looking at charts where North is at the top. Try turning it round like this to get a more recognisable image:

I don't know about you but I have wonderful images of travellers dancing before my eyes. Cooped up in rickety coaches, wrapped in heavy cloaks, tight breeches, Spitalfields silk dresses and fur muffs, their trunks and cases and hatboxes piled high upon the roof, full of excitement of what they would discover on the Continent. The ancient wonders of Rome, perhaps, or the mighty learning of Paris. The lasciviousness and danger of Naples; the fabulous art works of Germany.

And all this mingled with a terrifying frisson at the thought of Highwaymen on Blackheath...