In 1880 Herbert Fry published London a handbook for Victorian visitors. The popular book ran to many editions. A major factor for its success being the inclusion of twenty illustrations providing: “Bird’s-eye views of the principal streets.”
There are many excellent maps of Victorian London available in print and on-line but I haven’t seen these unusual and illuminating views published anywhere else and so wanted to share them here.
If you click on any image you can zoom in for much greater detail.
For example here is Buckingham Palace, a detail from Plate V.
Buckingham Palace, detail from Plate V
I didn’t want to risk damaging the original book whilst scanning it and my copy has a very tight binding. So, apologies for the slight shadows in the centre of each map. If anyone knows of better quality scans please do let me know.
From Charing Cross through Whitehall to Westminster
The Strand
Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill
Cannon Street
From Charing Cross, through Pall Mall to Pimlico
Regent Street
St James's Street and Old and New Bond Streets
Piccadilly
From Hyde Park Corner, through Knightsbridge to Kensington
Edgware Road
From Oxford Street, by Uxbridge Road to High Street Notting Hill
Oxford Street
Baker Street
Tottenham Court Road and Hampstead Road
New Oxford Street and Holborn
Euston Road and Marylebone Road
From The Poultry to Bishopsgate Street and to Whitechapel
The City Road
From London Bridge through the Borough to Newington Butts and Saint George's Fields
The Thames - A bird's-eye view from Herbert Fry's "London" (1891)
All these plates come from the 1891 edition of Fry’s London published by W.H. Allen, London.
I originally published them on my Facebook page but they can be enjoyed in far greater detail here.
(If you like this sort of thing, there are many unique albums of vintage London photos to be found on my Facebook page and you don’t need to sign-up in order to see them.)
The author of this blog is a qualified and insured City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours and private tours in London. All my public tours are bookable through Eventbrite.
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As one who frequently has recourse to Google Maps Street View and the Bing Maps equivalent, I can see how these illustrations could have possible historic value. Normal maps use symbols to indicate the various elements present in a particular environment but these views are pictorial and give us an impression of what the particular areas looked like, right down to the form of the buildings in some instances. This could resolve uncertainties about building and city layouts at about the time in question.
I hope there are copies retained in national collections so that researchers of the present and future may have continuing access to them.
The next obvious question is whether Fry’s book was a sole achievement or whether there are other books covering different areas at different periods. Possibly there was a vogue for such books.
Prints appear to be available from here:
http://www.antique-prints-maps.com/acatalog/London_antique_maps.html
Thanks very much for giving a link to this site.
My copy of the book is dated 1886, and appears to be the first edition. Your Old Books and Maps, at http://youroldbooksandmaps.co.uk, may still sell a CD containing the 1909 edition as a pdf file.
Several of the maps are reproduced – no date given – at http://sherlockholmes.stanford.edu/index.html, in Stanford University’s “Discovering Sherlock Holmes” site.
Roger Johnson
Editor: The Sherlock Holmes Journal
http://www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk
Thank you for this Roger. They really are great maps and deserve to more readily available.
This gives a quite fascinating account of the London Londoners of today can still be aware of if they know – or are shown – what to look for. Thank you. July 8th 2012