Historical London

[mockney piers]

I don't know if any of you made it to London, a Life in Maps up at the British Library, but it was very very cool (in the sort of way that old maps can be cool, rather than The Fonz was cool, obviously).

But if you did miss out and you have Google Earth, then this is pretty good too.

Go to the explorer panel on the left, open 'featured content' folder, the the 'Rumsey Historical Maps' folder.

There you can click on London and you get a high res overlay of London circa 1843 on your earth.

If anything it shows just how much it grew in a short space of time.

fascinating stuff for a saddo like me.

Google earth is totally free from google by the way, if you haven't got it do so, and revisit every cool holiday you've ever been to.

Download here

http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

[mumra]

Oh no, I might not tell Mr M this as it could take up hours of his time. Please don't call yourself a saddo Mr Mockney - we actually went to the maps exhibition at the BM on Valentine's day, how sad/un rock and roll is that? On the up side I am going to see Guitar club at the 12 bar tonight, so feel like I can honestly say I have my sad side and my rock and roll side.

[mockney piers]

Just poking fun at myself mumra don't worry though I am prone to geeky moments (I even find this funny but please don't tell anyone).

I went to the exhibition and found it utterly mesmerising.

Especially the open pages of John Evelyn's actual diary. My Granddad Charles Evelyn Smith was his direct descendant, so felt a real visceral connection there that really surprised me; not bad for a mongrel spaniard!.

[Michael Palaeologus]

I went to the map exhibition. So many of the very familiar street names in Packham were there hundreds of years ago, albeit in a very rural context. Most of Peckham and ED were "salad gardens", Peckham was a rural village and ED didnt seem to exist as such. Goose Green was Goose Green, but I suspect it was the gathering point for flocks of geese driven to London from out-lying farms.

[Chartwell]

I bought a CD rom at the Dulwich Picture Gallery on Sunday which contains a very detailed map of Mid Georgian London and is very interesting, if slightly hard to navigate...it wasn't cheap at ?26.99 and I haven't quite decided yet whether it was worth it. Although it does seem that a lot of work has gone into putting it together.