Survey of London volumes

Map of London with areas covered by Survey highlighted in pink

The Survey of London comprises two series - the main or parish series and the monograph series. The main series deals with buildings and building developments within particular districts or parishes, many of which have needed more than one volume to cover in their entirety. These volumes are listed on the Survey of London map and access to the online versions of all but the most recent publications on Woolwich, Battersea and South-East Marylebone is available from the Survey of London's pages on British History Online.

In advance of a full online version of these recent volumes, the draft chapter texts have been made freely available via our website. The separate series of monographs deals with individual sites and buildings of particular note. All are online apart from the most recent on The Charterhouse.

Image credit: Areas and buildings covered by the Survey of London, revised in 2021.

Main Series

Volume 1. Bromley-By-Bow: Edited by C. R. Ashbee. Describes the parish of Bromley, including the church of St Mary, the manor houses, and the Old Palace of Bromley. The introduction gives a detailed account of the circumstances in which the Survey was founded. Published in 1900. Read Volume 1 on British History Online.
Volume 2. Chelsea, Part I: By Walter H. Godfrey. This first of two volumes on Chelsea details significant buildings in Paradise Row and in Cheyne Walk. Published in 1909. Read Volume 2 on British History Online.
Volume 3. St Giles-in-The-Fields, Part I: Lincoln's Inn Fields: Edited by W. Edward Riley and Laurence Gomme. Surveys the buildings of Lincoln's Inn Fields, including the building of the Royal College of Surgeons and Sir John Soane's Museum. Published in 1912. Read Volume 3 on British History Online.
Volume 4. Chelsea, Part II: By Walter H Godfrey. The second volume covering Chelsea covers those parts of the parish not included in Part I, with the exception of the Royal Hospital and Chelsea Old Church. It includes accounts of Crosby Hall, Old Battersea Bridge, and buildings in Cheyne Walk, Cheyne Row, Church Street and the King's Road. Published in 1913. Read Volume 4 on British History Online.
Volume 5. St Giles-in-The-Fields, Part II: Edited by W. Edward Riley and Laurence Gomme. Surveys the notable buildings of the parish, including the church of St Giles-in-the-Fields, the hospital of St Giles, and Freemasons' Hall. Lincoln's Inn Fields is covered in Volume 3. Published in 1914. Read Volume 5 on British History Online.
Volume 6. Hammersmith: Edited by James Bird and Philip Norman. Covers the historic parish of Hammersmith, including the parish church of St Paul and Ravenscourt Park. Published in 1915. Read Volume 6 on British History Online.
Volume 7. Chelsea, Part III: the Old Church: Edited by Walter H. Godfrey. Provides a detailed account of Chelsea Old Church, the parish church of Chelsea until 1819. Published in 1921. Read Volume 7 on British History Online.
Volume 8. Shoreditch: Edited by James Bird. Covers the parish of St Leonard, Shoreditch, including the church of St Leonard, the priory of St John the Baptist Holywell, and the Geffrye Museum. Published in 1922. Read Volume 8 on British History Online.
Volume 9. The Parish of St Helen, Bishopsgate, Part I: By Minnie Reddan and Alfred W. Clapham. A survey of the parish church of St Helen, Bishopsgate. Published in 1924. Read Volume 9 on British History Online.
Volume 10. St Margaret, Westminster, Part I: Queen Anne's Gate Area: Edited by Montagu H. Cox. This, the first of three volumes on the parish of St Margaret Westminster, covers in detail the area between Parliament Square and St James' Park, and in particular Queen Anne's Gate, Old Queen Street and Great George Street. Published in 1926. Read Volume 10 on British History Online.
Volume 11. Chelsea, Part IV: the Royal Hospital: Edited by Walter H. Godfrey. A history and architectural account of the Royal Hospital at Chelsea, including King James' Theological College, formerly on the same site. Published in 1927. Read Volume 11 on British History Online.
Volume 12. The Parish of All Hallows Barking, Part I: the Church of All Hallows: By Lilian J. Redstone. An account of the parish church of All Hallows Barking (also known as All Hallows-by-the-Tower). The rest of the parish is surveyed in Volume 15. Read Volume 12 on British History Online.
Volume 13. St Margaret, Westminster, Part II: Whitehall I: Edited by Montagu H. Cox and Philip Norman. This volume details some of the buildings on the east side of Whitehall and Parliament Street, particularly the Banqueting House, Cadogan House and Montague House. Published in 1930. Read Volume 13 on British History Online.
Volume 14. St Margaret, Westminster, Part III: Whitehall II: Edited by Montagu H. Cox and G. Topham Forrest. This volume details some of the buildings on the west side of Whitehall and Parliament Street, particularly the Treasury and Privy Council Offices, and Downing Street. Published in 1931. Read Volume 14 on British History Online.
Volume 15. All Hallows, Barking-By-The-Tower, Part II: Edited by G. H. Gater and Walter H. Godfrey. The second part of the survey of the parish includes the Custom House and the several quays on the Thames, as well as buildings on Great Tower Street, and Muscovy Court and Catherine Court in the northern part of the parish. Published in 1934. Read Volume 15 on British History Online.
Volume 16. St Martin-in-The-Fields, Part I: Charing Cross: Edited by G. H. Gater and E. P. Wheeler. Describes the part of the parish at the north end of Whitehall, including the Admiralty, the Horse Guards, and old Scotland Yard. Published in 1935. Read Volume 16 on British History Online.
Volume 17. The Parish of St Pancras, Part I: the Village of Highgate: Edited by Percy Lovell and William McB. Marcham. The first of four volumes describing the parish of St Pancras. It covers the village of Highgate, including Kenwood. Published in 1936. Read Volume 17 on British History Online.
Volume 18. St Martin-in-The-Fields, Part II: the Strand: Edited by G. H. Gater and E. P. Wheeler. Describes the part of the parish between the Strand and the river, including Charing Cross Station, Hungerford Market, Northumberland House, and the chapel and hospital of St Mary Rounceval. Published in 1937. Read Volume 18 on British History Online.
Volume 19. The Parish of St Pancras, Part II: Old St Pancras and Kentish Town: Edited by Percy Lovell and William McB. Marcham. Part II details Old St Pancras and Kentish Town, and includes accounts of St Pancras Old Church and the Royal Chapel of St Katharine. Published in 1938. Read Volume 19 on British History Online.
Volume 20. St Martin-in-The-Fields, Part III: Trafalgar Square and Neighbourhood: Edited by G. H. Gater and F. R. Hiorns. Describes the environs of Trafalgar Square, including Trafalgar Square itself, the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Old County Hall and the Haymarket. Published in 1940. Read Volume 20 on British History Online.
Volume 21. The Parish of St Pancras, Part III: Tottenham Court Road and Neighbourhood: Edited by J. R. Howard Roberts and Walter H. Godfrey. Describes the areas to the east, west and north of Tottenham Court Road, including University College London and Euston station prior to its redevelopment. Published in 1949. Read Volume 21 on British History Online.
Volume 22. Bankside (The Parishes of St Saviour and Christchurch Southwark): Edited by Howard Roberts and Walter H. Godfrey. An account of these two parishes on the south bank of the Thames, from London Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge. It includes descriptions of Guy's Hospital, the Bankside playhouses and Borough High Street. Published in 1950. Read Volume 22 on British History Online.
Volume 23. Lambeth: South Bank and Vauxhall: Edited by Howard Roberts and Walter H. Godfrey. Published to coincide with the Festival of Britain Exhibition of 1951, this volume covers the northern, riverside portion of Lambeth, between Waterloo and Vauxhall Bridges. As well as giving the history of the Festival site itself, the book focuses on the venerable buildings and monuments then scattered among the mostly nineteenth-century houses, dwellings and factories. Chief of these is the Archbishop of Canterbury's residence, Lambeth Palace, which is described and illustrated in detail. Other buildings covered include the Church of St John, Waterloo Road, and some of the eighteenth-century terrace-houses in Kennington Road and Lambeth Road. Published in 1951. Read Volume 23 on British History Online.
Volume 24. The Parish of St Pancras, IV: King's Cross Neighbourhood: Edited by Walter H. Godfrey and W. McB. Marcham. Describes the area around King's Cross as far north as Camden Town, and includes descriptions of the new St Pancras church and the Foundling Hospital. Published in 1952. Read Volume 24 on British History Online.
Volume 25. St George's Fields (The Parishes of St George the Martyr Southwark and St Mary Newington): Edited by Ida Darlington. A description of these two Surrey parishes, lying south of the Bankside area described in Volume 22. It includes accounts of the Old Kent Road, the Imperial War Museum building (formerly Bethlem Hospital) and of St George's Cathedral. Published in 1955. Read Volume 25 on British History Online.
Volume 26. Lambeth: Southern Area: Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. Volume 26 completes the Survey's study of Lambeth parish, taking in Kennington, Vauxhall, Stockwell and Brixton, and the outlying districts of Denmark Hill, Herne Hill, Tulse Hill and West Norwood. Much of this area is classic suburbia of the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - late-Georgian terraces in Kennington; detached and semi-detached villas in Brixton, Denmark Hill and Herne Hill. There are two interesting planned estates: Stockwell Park, a Regency 'rus in urbe', and Angell Town, with its heavier, early Victorian manner. As well as houses, the volume also describes many public buildings, churches and chapels, including three Greek-Revival 'Waterloo' churches in Brixton (St Matthew's), Kennington (St Mark's) and Norwood (St Luke's). Published in 1956. Read Volume 26 on British History Online.
Volume 27. Spitalfields and Mile End New Town: Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. Spitalfields is well known for the handsome silk-weavers' houses in and around Spital Square, Fournier Street and Elder Street, with their distinctive weavers' garret workshops. The greater part of this volume is devoted to a detailed account of these houses. The area's principle monument (Nicholas Hawksmoor's masterpiece, Christ Church, Spitalfields (1714–29)) is also studied in detail, and its complex building history explained, making use of the then recently discovered archives of the Commissioners for Building Fifty New Churches. In addition, the volume takes in the adjoining suburb of Mile End New Town, an area of eighteenth-century origin, largely rebuilt in the late nineteenth century, and at the time of writing undergoing extensive redevelopment for public housing. Spitalfields Market, and the well-known brewery of Truman, Hanbury, Buxton and Company, are also described. Published in 1957. Read Volume 27 on British History Online.
Volume 28. Brooke House, Hackney: By W. A. Eden, Marie P. G. Draper, W. F. Grimes and Audrey Williams. An account of Brooke House in the parish of Hackney. Built in the fifteenth century, it was held by, amongst others, Thomas Cromwell. Used as an asylum between 1759 and 1940, it was demolished as a result of bomb damage in 1954–5. Published in 1960. Read Volume 28 on British History Online.
Volumes 29 and 30. St James Westminster, Part I: Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. These volumes cover the part of the parish of St James which lies south of Piccadilly, between Haymarket and Green Park. St James's was post-Restoration London's Court suburb, laid out during the reign of Charles II. The story of its development is fully explored, with accounts of Wren's parish church, the aristocratic houses in St James's Square, the theatres on the west side of Haymarket, the gentlemen's clubs of Pall Mall, and some of the West End's most prestigious private palaces, including Spencer House and Bridgwater House. Published in 1960. Read Volumes 29 and 30 on British History Online.
Volumes 31 and 32. St James Westminster, Part II: Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. These volumes complete the Survey's study of St James, describing the northern part of the parish, between Piccadilly and Oxford Street. This is a varied area, lying astride Regent Street, embracing tightly-packed streets in Soho and more orderly developments in the Savile Row area. The principal monument here is Burlington House, which is dealt with in some detail; there are also accounts of the streets of Lord Burlington's adjacent estate. East of Regent Street, the coverage includes Golden Square, the later history of the Piccadilly Circus area, and the formation of Shaftesbury Avenue. The history of James Wyatt's Pantheon, of 1772, is also given. (Note: Regent Street itself is not included, though there is a short account of the rebuilding of the Regent Street Quadrant in 1905–28.) Published in 1963. Read Volumes 31 and 32 on British History Online.
Volumes 33 and 34. St Anne Soho: Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. These volumes describe Soho, the most famous of London's cosmopolitan quarters. The area covered is defined largely by Wardour Street, Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road, and includes Soho Square, Leicester Square, and part of Cambridge Circus. Many of the streets here were first built up in the late seventeenth century under the building speculators Dr Nicholas Barbon and Richard Frith. Some fine Georgian houses are described and illustrated, for example No. 1 Greek Street and 76 Dean Street. Many well-known West End theatres are also found here. Published in 1966. Read Volumes 33 and 34 on British History Online.
Volume 35. The theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden: Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. An account of the history and buildings of these two prominent London establishments, from their origins in the seventeenth century to the twentieth century. Published in 1970. Read Volume 35 on British History Online.
Volume 36. Covent Garden: Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. Covent Garden has a special significance as the birth-place of modern town planning in London. Inigo Jones's Italianate Piazza, designed in the 1630s for the 4th Earl of Bedford, was unlike anything the capital had seen before, and provided the prototype for the laying-out of London's suburban estates for centuries to come. Based on a detailed study of the surviving fabric and the Bedford Estate's archives, this volume recounts the story of the Piazza's evolution (and eventual redevelopment), including the building of St Paul's Church, the area's principal monument. In addition to the Piazza and surrounding streets, the volume also describes the buildings of the Covent Garden Market, at the time the nation's principal market for horticultural produce, since removed to Nine Elms, Battersea. Published in 1970. Read Volume 36 on British History Online.
Volume 37. Northern Kensington: Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. This is first of the Survey's four volumes to cover Kensington, an area synonymous with Victorian architecture. It concerns the area to the north of Kensington High Street, extending as far as Kensal Green, where large-scale building development took place between the 1820s and 1880s. Here can be traced in some detail the evolution of London's nineteenth-century suburban housing. Among the many examples described are the fashionable Italianate villas of the 1820s and '30s in Campden Hill and Holland Park; the opulent large mansions of 'Millionaires Row' in Kensington Palace Gardens; and the red-brick 'Domestic Revival' artists' houses of the 1860s and after in the Melbury Road area. Victorian ecclesiastical design can also be studied in its many variants, in the area's churches, chapels and convents, including the Greek Revival architecture of Kensal Green Cemetery. Published in 1973. Read Volume 37 on British History Online.
Volume 38. South Kensington Museums Area: Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. At the core of this volume is a study of the estate in South Kensington and Westminster acquired under the auspices of Prince Albert by the Commissioners for the Great Exhibition of 1851, and developed as a remarkable cultural centre for the applied arts and sciences. In many ways the great sequence of world-famous institutions described here - such as the Victorian and Albert Museum, the National History Museum, the Royal Albert Hall, and the Imperial Institute - is a memorial to the Prince Consort's vision. The book sets out his role in the creation of South Kensington as a centre for art and scholarship, and the parts played by others, such as Queen Victoria herself, Captain Francis Fowke, and Sir Henry Cole (the dynamic first Superintendent of the South Kensington Museum). The High Victorian memorial eventually erected to the prince in Hyde Park is also considered. Part of the Commissioners' estate was used for house building, and the volume describes the development here and on adjoining lands of the great ranges of Italianate stucco mansions in and around Queen's Gate, Elvaston Place and Cromwell Road, which today give South Kensington its architectural flavour. The emergence after 1870 of the red-brick 'Domestic Revival' idiom in reaction to all this 'builders' classical'-style housing is here exemplified by half-a-dozen important houses and flats by Richard Norman Shaw. Published in 1975. Read Volume 38 on British History Online.
Volume 39. The Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part I (General History): Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. The Grosvenor family's large estate in northern Mayfair, for two centuries a by-word for wealth and fashion, is described in two volumes of the Survey. This first volume, a general history, traces the administrative and architectural history of the estate from its acquisition by the family in 1677 and its development and redevelopment from the 1720s onwards around the centrepiece of Grosvenor Square, and analyses the reasons for its pre-eminence among London's great private estates. Detailed accounts of the buildings are provided in the companion volume 40. Published in 1977. Read Volume 39 on British History Online.
Volume 40. The Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part II (The Buildings): Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. This volume completes the Survey's study of the Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair by looking in detail at its rich and varied architectural and building heritage. From the fine eighteenth-century houses of Brook Street and Grosvenor Street to the smart inter-war flats of Park Lane, the Grosvenor Estate offers a compendium of some of the best English urban architecture, often by leading practitioners, from Colin Campbell (who lived here in a house of his own design) and Robert Taylor in the eighteenth century, to Lutyens and Detmar Blow in the twentieth. Among the larger buildings described, both standing and demolished, is Grosvenor House, the Grosvenor family's own London mansion, the internationally renowned Claridge's Hotel and the American Embassy's controversial post-war building on the west side of Grosvenor Square. Published in 1980. Read Volume 40 on British History Online.
Volume 41. Brompton: Edited by F. H. W. Sheppard. This, the third of the Survey's four volumes devoted to Kensington, describes the southernmost part of the old parish, covering both sides of Brompton Road and then continuing westward between Old Brompton Road and Fulham Road as far as Brompton Cemetery. Published in 1983. Read Volume 41 on British History Online.
Volume 42. Kensington Square to Earl's Court: Edited by Hermione Hobhouse. This volume completes the Survey's study of Kensington. It describes the expansion of building development south and west towards Earl's Court from the original late seventeenth-century 'Old Court Suburb' around Kensington Square and Kensington High Street. The area has a great variety of house-types and architectural styles: surviving 1680s houses in Kensington Square; brick-and-stucco Regency terraces in and around Edwardes Square; George & Peto's large and flamboyant Flemish-inspired brick-and-terracotta family homes in Harrington and Collingham Gardens; and later mansion flats. In addition to the residential architecture, the volume also traces the history of the commercial and light-industrial quarter to the west, near the Kensington Canal and West London Railway; the fashionable shopping area on the south side of the High Street, with its well-known department stores, such as Barkers and Derry & Toms; and a rich collection of churches and chapels. The volume ends with a retrospective chapter, considering some of the themes and building trends common to Southern Kensington as a whole. Published in 1986. Read Volume 42 on British History Online.
Volumes 43 and 44. Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs: Edited by Hermione Hobhouse. The dockland parish of All Saints', Poplar, encompasses the ancient hamlet of Poplar itself, the old shipbuilding centre of Blackwall, and the former industrial districts of Millwall and Cubitt Town. Poplar's story is one of development and redevelopment on both the grand and the comparatively small scale, driven in the nineteenth century by mercantile interests and manufacturing, and after the Second World War by de-industrialization and the obsolescence of the Thames-side docks. The East and West India and Millwall Docks system is discussed in detail, together with the riverside wharves and works, and the massive regeneration, still in progress, which followed the creation of the Isle of Dogs Enterprise Zone in 1982. Among important individual buildings described is the seventeenth-century church of St Matthias, a rarity from the Interregnum, built for the East India Company. A major subject is public housing, which includes the famous Lansbury Estate, built in association with the 1951 Festival of Britain. Published in 1994. Read Volume 44 on British History Online.
Volume 45. Knightsbridge: Edited by John Greenacombe. This volume describes a district today synonymous with wealth and smartness. The area covered includes the old thoroughfare of Knightsbridge itself, and the triangular swathe of land to its west, north of Brompton Road, bounded on the north by Hyde Park and on the west by Exhibition Road. In addition to the hotels, shops and fashionable houses and apartments for which the area is known today, the volume also describes the fabric of Knightsbridge's more diverse past: the medieval hamlet, straggling out along the road to Kensington; the string of aristocratic mansions, such as Kingston House, that in the eighteenth century lined the south side of the road west of Knightsbridge Green; the famous Tattershall's horse-mart at Knightsbridge Green; the Japanese Native Village of the mid 1880s, from which W. S. Gilbert drew inspiration for 'The Mikado'; and Whistler's legendary Peacock Room at 49 Princes Gate, the greatest of all Aesthetic interiors. Also included is Sir Basil Spence's Knightsbridge Barracks, still providing a Brutalist modern concrete home to the military pageantry of the Horse Guards. Published in 2000. Read Volume 45 on British History Online.
Volume 46. South and East Clerkenwell: Edited by Philip Temple. Details the architecture of the southern areas of the historic parish of Clerkenwell immediately to the north of the City of London, including Clerkenwell Green and the church of St James Clerkenwell. It also includes Charterhouse Square, to the east of the historic parish. To the north and east it covers the Northampton Square area, and Rawstorne Street as far the the Angel, Islington. The rest of the parish is described in volume 47. Published in 2008. Read Volume 46 on British History Online.
Volume 47. Northern Clerkenwell and Pentonville: Edited by Philip Temple. Details the architectural history of the north-western portion of the historic parish of Clerkenwell. It includes Islington High Street and the Angel, the Exmouth Market area, and the Pentonville westwards towards King's Cross. The southern and eastern parts of the parish are covered in volume 46. Published in 2008. Read Volume 47 on British History Online.
Volume 48. Woolwich: Edited by Peter Guillery. Woolwich is among London's most intriguing districts, with a vigorously independent record. A Thames-side settlement with pre-Roman origins, it grew from Tudor times into a dynamic military and naval centre, crucial to the country's defences. In the Royal Naval Dockyard and the Royal Arsenal, both beside the Thames, vast skilled workforces wrought ships and armaments in ever-expanding series of specialized structures, fully chronicled and analysed in this volume. In due course, pressure on space pushed the military to expand onto the open uplands of Woolwich Common. Here the grand set pieces of the Royal Artillery Barracks and Royal Military Academy survive, along with the training landscape of Repository Woods. Between riverside and common, the town of Woolwich benefited from this military presence, but also struggled with poverty. It maintained a proud life of its own, expressed in buildings that include a noble Edwardian town hall set in an early municipal enclave; big co-operative department stores that represent a strong local history of mutualism; distinctive churches, including one by Pugin; and fine 1930s cinemas. Shops have thrived on Powis Street, and Woolwich has always been an important point for crossing the Thames. Most of the domestic fabric is of post-war date and there are historically significant housing estates. Manufacturing departed in the 1960s and Woolwich declined. Since the 1990s there has been new investment, bringing great change. Published in 2012. Read and download the whole volume.
Volumes 49 and 50. Battersea: Edited by Andrew Saint and Colin Thom. The south London parish of Battersea enjoyed meteoric growth during Queen Victoria's reign. Before that it was part working village, growing produce for the London markets, part high-class suburb, with a colony of merchants' villas on the elevated ground around Clapham and Wandsworth Commons. Along the Thames developed a smattering of industry. Then came the railways, crisscrossing the fields and transforming Battersea into archetypal smoky London, heavily industrialized all along the riverside, with countless gradations of suburban streets behind. A few welcome tracts of open land have survived, including the two commons, both partly in Battersea, and the delightful Battersea Park, created by the Crown in the 1850s and later the site of open-air sculpture exhibitions and of the Festival of Britain's amusement park. These oases apart, Battersea is densely built over. These two volumes trace Battersea's development from the medieval times down to the present day. Anatomizing its streets and buildings both thematically and topographically, they range from Battersea's Victorian boom and the radical politics and social provision of the early twentieth century, down to schemes for Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station. They cover subjects of national resonance, such as the vanished Battersea Rise House of the Clapham Sect, the making of Britain's busiest railway station at Clapham Junction, the 1870s 'Workmen's City' at Shaftesbury Park, the eponymous dogs' home and the monumental power station itself. Published in 2013. Read and download the draft chapter texts.
Volumes 51 and 52. South-East Marylebone: Edited by Philip Temple and Colin Thom. The creation of Cavendish Square from 1717 took London's fashionable West End north of Oxford Street, inaugurating a process of development that ran for the rest of the century. Spreading west to the village of St Marylebone and its celebrated pleasure gardens, east towards St Pancras and modern-day Fitzrovia, streets were pushed northwards to what is now Marylebone Road in a systematic grid-pattern, which is among the enduring masterpieces of Georgian urban planning. Most of this area comprised a single landholding, the manor of Tyburn, which when development began belonged to the Harleys, Earls of Oxford. Its core remains intact today as the Howard de Walden estate. Historically and architecturally, this is an area of extraordinary richness and variety, resonant with famous names and associations from the Adam brothers' Portland Place and Nash's Park Crescent to the medical specialists of Harley and Wimpole Streets, the artists and craftsmen of Berners and Newman Streets and the motor-traders of Great Portland Street. In contrast, historically impoverished neighbourhoods included courts and alleys such as the notorious Grotto Passage, and Paradise Place, the scene of Octavia Hill's first efforts at housing reform in the 1860s. Individual sites and buildings described include Nash's All Souls, Langham Place; Bufferfield's ecclesiological masterpiece All Saints, Margaret Street; the Langham, among the grandest of Victorian hotels; the BBC's Broadcasting House; Wigmore Hall and the lost concert venues Queen's Hall and St George's Hall; and the 1960s Brutalist campuses of the University of Westminster. Published in 2017. Read and download the draft chapter texts for Volumes 51 and 52.
Volume 53. Oxford Street: Edited by Andrew Saint. Oxford Street is among the world’s great shopping streets, renowned for its department stores and the vitality of its crowded pavements. After well over 200 years of retailing, it stands unchallenged as London’s most continuously successful magnet for shoppers. As a thoroughfare Oxford Street is far older, going back to Roman times. Under its earlier name of Tyburn Road, it was notorious for centuries as the route of the condemned to the gallows on the site of the present Marble Arch. The volume will be the first in the Survey of London series to deal with the development and architecture of a single street. No major London street has ever received such a complete analysis, offering fresh insights on the growth of shops and shopping in the British capital and illuminating the variety of buildings and activities that have given Oxford Street its striking and fluctuating character. The book will contain copious new information and pictures covering such celebrated stores as Selfridges and John Lewis, as well as other once-famous shops that have vanished, like Peter Robinson, Mappin & Webb, D. H. Evans, and Bourne & Hollingsworth. It also explains the reasons underlying Oxford Street’s unique success – at first, its position between opulent Mayfair and Marylebone, later, the array of underground lines affording fast and easy access to its shops. Published in 2020. Read and download the draft chapter texts for Volume 53.
Volumes 54 and 55. Whitechapel: Edited by Peter Guillery. In these volumes, the Survey of London returns to the East End to chronicle Whitechapel, covering Aldgate to Mile End Green, and Brick Lane to Wellclose Square. The name Whitechapel – one of London’s best known – is highly evocative, carrying dark, even mythic associations. These are set aside to present new histories of all the area’s sites and buildings, those standing and many that have gone, in districts that have been repeatedly rebuilt.  Abutting the City of London, Whitechapel has, since medieval times, housed commerce and many varied industries. Enriched by centuries of immigration, this area has been “global” for as long as that word has denoted the world and, amidst widespread poverty, some of London’s great institutions have been founded here. In the midst of these landmarks, Whitechapel has seen recent transformation. These volumes bear historical witness with hundreds of superb new photographs and meticulous architectural drawings illustrating detailed accounts of topographical development in accessible prose. They will be an invaluable resource for historians, planners, residents, and the wider public. Published in 2022. Read the draft texts for Volumes 54 and 55.

Monograph Series

Monograph 1. Trinity Hospital, Mile End: By C. R. Ashbee. The architectural history of the Trinity Hospital, or College, built in 1695 by the Trinity Corporation. Originally published by the Guild & School of Handicraft, London, 1896. Read Monograph 1 on British History Online.
Monograph 2. Saint Mary, Stratford Bow: By Osborn C. Hills. An account of the history and fabric of St Mary, Stratford Bow; the parish church of Stratford Bow from 1719, and before that a chapel of ease in the parish of Stepney. Published in 1900. Read Monograph 2 on British History Online.
Monograph 3. Old Palace, Bromley-By-Bow: By Ernest Godman. A description of the Old Palace of James I, made shortly before its demolition. Published in 1901. Read Monograph 3 on British History Online.
Monograph 4. The Great House, Leyton: By Edwin Gunn. An account of the Great House, built in the early years of the eighteenth century by Sir Fisher Tench. Published in 1903. Read Monograph 4 on British History Online.
Monograph 5. Brooke House, Hackney: By Ernest A. Mann. An account of the manor house of Kingshold, also known as Brooke House, in Hackney. Published in 1904. Read Monograph 5 on British History Online.
Monograph 6. St Dunstan's Church, Stepney: By Walter C. Pepys and Ernest Godman. An account of the history and fabric of the medieval parish church of Stepney. Published in 1905. Read Monograph 6 on British History Online.
Monograph 7. East Acton Manor House: By Philip Norman. An account of this manor house, rebuilt in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, and demolished in 1911. Published in 1921. Read Monograph 7 on British History Online.
Monograph 8. Sandford Manor, Fulham: By W. Arthur Webb. An account of the seventeenth century manor house at Sands End, between the King's Road and the Thames. Published in 1907. Read Monograph 8 on British History Online.
Monograph 9. Crosby Place: By Philip Norman and W. D. Caroe. An account of the fifteenth century Hall of Crosby Place, near Bishopsgate Street, now demolished. Published in 1908. Read Monograph 9 on British History Online.
Monograph 10. Morden College, Blackheath: By T. Frank Green. An account of the the college of Sir John Morden, dating from the late seventeenth century. Published in 1916. Read Monograph 10 on British History Online.
Monograph 11. Eastbury Manor House, Barking: Edited by Philip Norman. The history and architecture of Eastbury Manor House, between Barking and Dagenham in east London. It dates from perhaps the early sixteenth century. Published in 1917. Read Monograph 11 on British History Online.
Monograph 12. Cromwell House, Highgate: By Philip Norman. The history and architecture of Cromwell House on Highgate Hill, built by Robert Sprignell in the early seventeenth century. Published in 1926. Read Monograph 12 on British History Online.
Monograph 13. Swakeleys, Ickenham: By Walter H. Godfrey. An account of the house built by Edmund Wright, Alderman of London, complete in 1638. Published in 1933. Read Monograph 13 on British History Online.
Monograph 14. The Queen's House, Greenwich: By George H. Chettle. A description of the house begun by James I in 1616 for Anne of Denmark, and completed in 1639–40. Published in 1937. Read Monograph 14 on British History Online.
Monograph 15. St Bride's Church, Fleet Street: By Walter H. Godfrey. An account of Christopher Wren's church of St Bride, Fleet Street, prepared as the building lay ruined by enemy action in December 1940. Published in 1944. Read Mongraph 15 on British History Online.
Monograph 16. College of Arms, Queen Victoria Street: By Walter H. Godfrey and Anthony Wagner. An account of the College of Arms in Queen Victoria Street, rebuilt after the Great Fire. It also contains biographical lists of all the known officers of arms. Published in 1963. Read Monograph 16 on British History Online.
Monograph 17. County Hall: Edited by Hermione Hobhouse. An account of County Hall, home of the London County Council, London's 'Hotel de Ville' and a tangible expression of the metropolitan government of London, opened in 1922. Published in 1991. Read Monograph 17 on British History Online.
Monograph 18. The Charterhouse: By Philip Temple. The London house of the ascetic Carthusian order, the Charterhouse was founded in 1370–1 on ground set aside for burials during the Black Death. Admired for its spiritual life, it was savagely suppressed by Henry VIII, with the deaths of sixteen monks - including Prior Houghton, hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. Subsequently the Charterhouse was adapted to make one of the greatest private houses in London. As Howard House it was home to Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and the scene of his plot to seize the throne from Elizabeth I as husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. After Norfolk's execution it passed to his son Philip (St Philip Howard), a Catholic convert who also fell foul of Elizabeth and died a prisoner in the Tower of London. In 1611 Norfolk's second son Lord Suffolk, the builder of Audley End, sold Howard House to the moneylender Thomas Sutton for his projected almshouses: Sutton's Hospital in Charterhouse. This it has remained ever since. In the 1870s Charterhouse School, also part of Sutton's foundation, moved away, its portion of the site being redeveloped first by Merchant Taylors' School and then by the Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital. Partly burned out in the Blitz, Sutton's Hospital was restored in the 1950s. Much of the Tudor complex survives, including the Great Hall with its carved oak screen of 1571, and the ornate Great Chamber where Elizabeth I and James I held court, together with substantial remnants of the original monastery. This is the first full-length study of the buildings at the Charterhouse, from its fourteenth-century origins to the present.