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London Streets lost to the Blitz - £6.99 |
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A unique list of every inhabited place in the London Postal Area in 1939 and how to find any that are no longer there.
The Blitz was the catalyst for a huge number of changes to London's streets; bomb damage replacement, temporary housing, new builds, slum clearance - plus redevelopments and road improvements. If you are looking for somewhere that existed before WW2 that is no longer there, here is an easier and much cheaper way to find it than squinting at old maps. All street names changed after 1929 and all new ones created from 1939 until 1966 are listed, including roads and estates of prefabs, many of which are not shown on maps of the time. Please see the extract below for a list of the contents and some example entries. |
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.mobi file ISBN 978-0-9927530-8-5 |
In the introduction to my book of London Street Name Changes I wrote 'Many thousands of London streets and sometimes whole areas have been burned, bombed or redeveloped out of existence. Such names have not been recorded anywhere that I have been able to find.' This new book is a start in remedying that situation. No one has attempted anything like this before. You will be able to find any street that was part of the London Postal Area in 1939, what happened to it and where it used to be. If there is a modern block of flats in the middle of the Victorian or pre-war terrace where you live, you might find that it was once a bomb site, covered in prefabs. Nearly 18,000 prefabs are listed in this book under their respective locations, together with what replaced them.
If you do not have an eBook reader but need this book for your family or local history research there are free programs that you can use to read eBooks on your computer, iPad and most tablets. This is far from ideal for a novel, but works very well for searching a book like this. | |
London Post Offices & Streets was first produced in 1937. It lists every street or place in the London Postal Area of interest to the Post Office, i.e. with a letter box - effectively anywhere someone might have lived. It does not include railway stations, cinemas, theatres, public houses, museums, clubs, monuments, churches, parks or other tourist destinations. I have taken the 1938 edition, updated it to 1939 and then compared it with editions from 1946, 1950, 1954, 1958, 1962 and 1966 to find every name that newly 'appeared' and every name that 'disappeared' from the books. These are the dates you can see in the extract, with an explanation of what happened. You can see all the names in the 1938 edition here. |
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Contents
Notes on this Edition ~~~ There has been no change to the name, size, shape or position of 14,047 entries in this list. This does not mean that they were undamaged or have not been redeveloped. It does mean they are still where they were. They look like the following examples. ~~~ A
Abbeville Road, Barrington Road N8
Abbeville Road, Cavendish Road SW4
Abbey Farm Cottages, Twyford Abbey Road NW10
Abbey Garden, Great College Street SW1
Abbey Gardens, Abbey Road NW8
Abbey Gardens Mews, Abbey Road NW8
Abbey Grove, Bostall Manorway SE2
Abbey Lane, Stratford High Street E15 ~~~ The other 13,483 fall into many categories. Here is a representative sample. They are easier to understand if you have a modern map in front of you. ~~~
Abbey Lane, West End Lane NW6
Abbey Lodge, Park Road NW8
Abbey Mews, Belsize Road NW6
Abbey Orchard Street, Great Smith Street SW1
Abbot Street, Kingsland High Street E8
Abbots Court, Thackeray Street W8
Abbot's Gardens, East End Road N2
Abbots Lane, Tooley Street SE1
Abbots Park, Tulse Hill SW2
Abbot's Place, Priory Road NW6
Abbot's Road, Wakefield Street E6
Abbotsbury Close, Abbotsbury Road W14
Abbotsbury Road, Melbury Road W14
Abercorn Close, Abercorn Place NW8
Abercorn Mews North, Abercorn Place NW8
Adolphus Street, Payne Street SE8
Admaston Road, Plumstead Common Road SE18
Agate Street, Scott Street E16
Albion Buildings EC1
Albion Court, Bigland Street E1
Alders Court, Great Arthur Street EC1
Bagley’s Lane, New King’s Road SW6
Bagshot Street, Albany Road SE17
Baildon Street, Douglas Way SE8
Bailey Place, Newlands Park SE26
Clapham Common North Side SW4
Clapham Common South Side SW4
Clapham Common West Side SW4
Dabin Crescent, Maidenstone Hill SE10
Dacca Street, Sayes Court Street SE8
Dacre Park, Lee Terrace SE13
Dacre Place, Dacre Park SE13
Dacres Road, Perry Vale SE23
Dagnall Street, Culvert Road SW11
Dairy Lane, Rideout Street SE18
Dakin Street, Maroon Street E14
Dalby Street, Prince of Wales Road NW5
Dale Road, Malmesbury Road E16
Dale Road, Grafton Road NW5
Dalrymple Road, Howson Road SE4
Grosvenor Square, Grosvenor Street W1
Grosvenor Terrace, Camberwell Road SE5
Grove Road, Mile End Road E3
Grove Street, Evelyn Street SE8
Grove Villas, East India Dock Road E14
Grovedale Road, Boothby Road N19
Grovelands Road, Craven Park Road N15
Groveside Road, Hoppett Road E4
Groveway, Brixton Road SW9
Grummant Road, Peckham Road SE15
Grundy Street, Upper North Street E14
Guest Street, Roscoe Street EC1
Gurnell Grove, Ruislip Road East W13
Gurney Road, Leytonstone Road E15
Gurney Street, New Kent Road SE17
Gwendwr Road, Gunterstone Road W14
Hannah Way, Forest View Road E12
Harrington Road, Portland Road SE25
Hassendean Road, Charlton Road SE3
Hassett Road, Barnabas Road E9
Hawkley Gardens, Lancaster Avenue SE27
Hawkshaw Close, Tierney Road SW2
Highams Park Estate, Tamworth Avenue IG8
Hilly Fields Bungalows SE4
Hilly Fields Crescent, Tressillian Road SE4
Jenkins Street, York Road SE1
John Adam Street, Adam Street WC2
John Islip Street, Vauxhall Bridge Road SW1 Keesey Street, Albany Road SE17
Kensington Church Street, Notting Hill Gate W8
Lewisham High Street, Lewisham Road SE13
Lincoln's Inn Fields, Newman's Row WC2
New Basinghall Street, London Wall EC2
New Bond Street, Oxford Street W1
New Cross Road, Deptford High Street SE14
Old Church Street, Fulham Road SW3
Old Compton Street, Wardour Street W1
Old Court Place, Kensington High Street W8
Old Manor Lane, Rotherhithe Old Road SE16
Old Market Square, Baroness Road E2
Old Park Lane, Piccadilly W1
Wapping High Street, Thomas More Street E1
XX Place, Globe Road E1
Yalford Street, Fieldgate Street E1
Yattan Street, Uamvar Street E14
Yeovil Place, Yeovil Street SW8
Yeovil Street, Acre Street SW8
Zampa Road, Ilderton Road SE16
Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park NW1 ~~~ |
The purpose of the book is to record street name changes. There is something to say about almost half the entries. Where known, I have included war damage plus a few irresistible asides and other blitz-related facts, such as 60 monuments to war-time people and events. If no change is recorded, then every building may have been redeveloped since 1939, but the road should still be where it was. It takes about half-an-hour to read the introduction. To read the entire list is a month's work. If you have the time you can discover a great number of obscure facts about London's recent history. Do you know the location of the last 'shanty town' in London? Or that there was once a bohemian community of houseboats in Chelsea? Do you know that the entrances to London's 8 deep level air-raid shelters are all still there, hidden in plain sight? Over 18,000 prefabs were erected in the London Postal Area. Where were they? Are any still standing? What went on next door to Brompton Oratory throughout the war? Which 5 badly damaged roads were used to train soldiers in street-fighting techniques for the invasion of Europe? Carry this eBook around with you and wherever you are in the London Postal Area you will be able to impress anyone who will listen with your knowledge of local history. If you want to look at earlier London street names, see Elmes' Topographical Dictionary of London from 1831, Lockie's Topography of London from 1810 or Stow's Remarks on London from 1722. Errata Errors, additions and redevelopments discovered since the publication of this book are shown below. They are corrected or included as soon as they are found. Previous purchasers can ask for a free, updated version at any time. 21.05.17. - St. James's Row, St. James's Walk EC1 04.07.17. - Carpenter's Yard, Houndsditch EC3 19.08.19. - Lukin Street, Commercial Road E1 01.12.19. - A few more small groups of prefabs found and a couple of spelling mistakes corrected 08.04.20. - I have added a list of all 95 Local Councils that comprised the London Civil Defence Area, together with the average number of high explosive bombs that fell per 10,000 acres in each. 28.08.20. - About a dozen more memorial statues and plaques, including several erected with a new, uniform style at bombed Underground Stations. 01.04.2021. - I have discovered that I cannot spell Nissen Hut correctly. I blame the way my father pronounced it. |
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