
A map of London as it was during the era of the Tudor monarchs - fanf2
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2018/06/13/this-tudor-london-map-overlay-is-marvelous/
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accnumnplus1
Nice. For a few years I had a desk in the middle of St Mary Graces Abbey
cemetery. I believe the black death and great plague filled it. There were
tunnels under my desk leading to The Tower, but they'd been blocked up years
before I could take advantage.

Edit: I've just found that I currently work in another, smaller cemetery.

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INTPenis
That's amusing. Excavating future beings will think we wanted our ancestors
near us so we built our cities ontop of their graves.

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fredley
What's funny is that the map only covers London, as in the City of London, not
the City of Westminster, which is where the Tudor monarchs themselves would
have been!

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chrisseaton
It’s just using Tudors as the historical era - it’s not really about the
literal Tudor monarchs.

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louthy
I work in Moorgate, and although I know so many names are derived from the
things that were at the location, I'd never put two and two together that
Moorgate is the gate to Moor field, which was I assume, a moor.

Especially when there's Moorfields Eye Hospital near by!

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inevitable2
Did you know Spitalfields comes from Hospital fields? There used to be a
hospital near the market. Every name has a story especially in London.

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smcl
The final link in the article was the most interesting part for me. The
National Library of Scotland had a side-by-side comparison of modern maps
(Bing Maps by default) with set of Ordnance Survey maps from 1892-1914. It's
incredible how accurate the maps are and how they line up:
[https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-
side/#zoom=15&lat=55...](https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-
side/#zoom=15&lat=55.9497&lon=-3.2021&layers=168&right=BingRoad)

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andrewaylett
[https://pastmap.org.uk/](https://pastmap.org.uk/) has the same maps in a (to
my mind) better interface.

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smcl
Thanks, I'm checking it now! Also hey Andrew, long time no see (edit: I
realised I have no details on HN - it's Sean, we worked together in ADI) :D

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robaato
Is it building on this: [http://www.historictownsatlas.org.uk/content/tudor-
london-15...](http://www.historictownsatlas.org.uk/content/tudor-london-1520)

It's a great book to have in paper form!

My Aunt worked on that map after retiring from being a cartographer for the
Oxford University Press and their world Atlases. It was fascinating to see the
work that went in to collecting data, drawing and redrawing maps. Things like
papers from a court case being discovered lead to observations such as "if
such and such happened then the width of street X at this point must have been
2 feet wider" or similar. A painstaking work of love by the whole team, driven
by tremendous academic rigour. Fascinating.

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oneeyedpigeon
It's a bit awkward to use (I was expecting a direct link) but for anyone else
wondering:

1\. Enable the Tudor layer using the Layers menu in the left-hand sidebar

2\. Apparently, only the City of London (not Greater London) is covered, so
make sure to pan/zoom over there!

Generally, a nice little tool — it's a shame the satellite imagery is so low-
res.

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lainga
It entertains me how small and precisely (presumably pettily) staked out the
parishes were. There must be a good story why All-Hallows-the-Less, upstream
from London Bridge, was specifically allocated that green space disconnected
from the parish itself, seemingly cloven off of All-Hallows-the-Great's
parish.

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Piskvorrr
Not sure about London specifically, but this sort of fragmentation occured in
medieval Europe through people donating their property to a specific church,
even though there would have been a geographically closer one.

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daheza
My gf loves this kind of work and actually wants to do something very similar
herself. She has been working on mapping the locations of Emma Smith during
her life in the 1800s. It would be super neat if something like this existed
for the united states during that time.

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xref
so the map doesn't appear to contain any royal residences, which were perhaps
all in Westminster not London at the time? So Henry VIII and QE1 etc didn't
live within the walls of London?

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fredoralive
The Tower of London is technically a palace, but yeah, Royals generally didn't
live inside the square mile. The Palace of Whitehall in Westminster would have
been the main London area residence at the time of these maps.

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irishsultan
Note that the Tower of London is actually outside the walls of the city of
London, so even it doesn't qualify as living inside the city of London.

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gadders
Interesting how little the names of places have changed in 4-500 years -
Bishopsgate, East Cheap, Cannon Street, Wallbrook etc. All recognisable.

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Patient0
Fascinating to discover I am currently sitting where there used to be a
Franciscan monastery!

