Last modified: 31 October 2026
Three sheets of the Ordnance Survey’s town plan of London at five feet to the mile (1:1056), of the mid-1890s, joined into one map. It runs from Clapham Junction and Lavender Hill, over Battersea Rise and St Mary’s Cemetery, down the whole length of Bolingbroke Grove beside Wandsworth Common, to Nightingale Lane. Thirty years after the five-foot plan of the 1860s, the fields behind the Grove have become streets of terraced houses; of the Five Houses only Bolingbroke House is still standing. Zoom right in: every house, garden wall and tree is drawn.
The sheets. Three sheets of the 1890s town plan, one below another: Clapham Junction to Battersea Rise and St Mary’s Cemetery; the northern half of Bolingbroke Grove, with Bolingbroke House, Chatham Road and St Michael’s Church; and the southern half, with Dents Road, Linden Lodge and Nightingale Lane, and the Common with the railway. Each sheet has been squared up to its printed border and the three joined edge to edge; the margins and the border lines have been removed.
The colouring. As on the five-foot map of the 1860s, the paper has been evened out to a warm cream, the engraved lines sharpened, and the buildings, which the sheets show with fine stippling, given a soft rose tint. A few buildings may have been missed, especially where a building crosses the join between two sheets, or a yard tinted by mistake: please tell us if you spot one.
See also. The five-foot town plan of the 1860s, the 25-inch map of the same years, and the Battersea tithe map of 1838.
Ordnance Survey maps of this age are out of copyright. Scans from the David Rumsey Map Collection. Joined and prepared by Philip Boys, with Claude.
Build 1.