Brondesbury was a Roman fort guarding Watling Street. It was surrounded by woodland, which was cleared by the 17t century for cattle. The Hampstead Junction Railway line passed through Brondesbury in the 1860s, and this led to a rash of developments but mainly of fairly high-class housing for city businessmen. In the 20th century, Brondesbury Park was further developed towards Willesden Green.

In Saxon times Camberwell had a well whose waters were meant to be good for invalids. “Cam” in old Celtic means crooked. So the name probably meant the well of the crippled or crooked.

In the 18th century Camberwell was a village famous for having its local species of butterfly - the Camberwell Beauty. It is now extinct. In the first half of the 19th century it was caught up in the general expansion of housing out from the centre of London. Some quality Georgian houses were built in Camberwell Grove.

Camden Town. It always seems to me like somewhere you’re going through on the way to somewhere else. What is it with Camden Town, and Kentish Town?  It strikes me as a bit affected to start calling areas ‘Town’ is if you really have to make sure people realise it’s not just an extension of London’s housing sprawl, which is what it really is.  It seems like the locals were always trying to sound a lot grander than they really were. Royal College Street sounds very grand, but actually it was named after the local veterinary college.

In the 18th century the area was owned by the Earls of Camden, hence the name. The construction of Regent’s Canal through the area brought industry and destroyed the previous rural nature of the place. There was some house building, but the real development was the construction of yards and tracks for the London & Birmingham and the Midland Railways.

The main residential attraction of Catford is the Corbett Estate, built by Archibald Corbett in the late 19th century. This is to be found between Wellmeadow, Hazelbank, Muirkirk, and Brownhill Road (the South Circular). The houses come in various sizes, but all follow a basic design pattern. Another popular area is between Bellingham Road, Thornesbeach, Bromley Road and Culverley Road, where there are wide roads with semi-detached houses mainly from the 1930s.

You would think ‘Chalk Farm’ would have something to do with chalk, but it doesn’t. In Anglo Saxon times there was a village here called Caldecote, which just meant ’cold cottages’.  This became Chalcot in mediaeval times. It was an ignorant inn keeper who built a pub on the site of Chalcot Farm and and converted Chalcot to Chalk House. There’s a Chalcot Estate (formerly the Eton Estate).

Much more interesting than this, in my opinion, is how the Roundhouse Theatre came about. In 1851 the London to Birmingham Railway was being built and Chalk Farm was one end of the line. So the railway company constructed “the Round House” to hold the turntable on which the trains could be turned round, to be sent back to Birmingham.  When Chalk Farm ceased to be a rail terminus, the Round House was no longer needed and in 1960 it was turned into a theatre.

In the 19th century, much of the land was owned by Eton College who developed it for housing. The Eton Estate which covered much of the local area was redesigned by Camden Council in the 1960s and renamed Chalcot’s Estate after the mediaeval name.

The name may mean “chalk wharf” or “shelf of sand” in Anglo Saxon. Sir Thomas More first put Chelsea on the map as an attractive place to live when he built a country house here in 1520. He was followed by other aristocrats. In the 16th century it was known as “The Village of Palaces”. Henry VIII had a large house in Chelsea and Queen Elizabeth I was brought up there. In 1682 Christopher Wren established the Chelsea Hospital to be home for old soldiers, as it still is today. Chelsea Bridge was built in 1851. It was replaced by the present bridge in 1932. Chelsea Green is the remnants of the much larger Chelsea Common of the past. Chelsea Embankment, along with the rest of the of the Embankment, is a new road from Victorian times which serves the dual purpose of a main roadway through London, and also to house one of the largest sewers under London designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette.

Clapham is referred to at the time of King Alfred the Great, when it was spelt Clopeham or Clappeham, meaning “village on the hill”. Hardacanute, King of England, fell dead here in 1042 after a particularly wild party. In the 17th century it became a popular area for rich people to build county houses, but they had to run the gauntlet of the highwaymen of Clapham Common to get there. Samuel Pepys had a house there. There is a local legend that Captain Cook lived in a house on the north side of Clapham Common - the balcony on one of the houses is known as Captain Cook’s Quarterdeck. Many famous people lived there: Wilberforce, Shelley, and Macaulay. It was still exclusively a preserve for the rich until the trains arrived in the late 19th century. This and overspill from Battersea led to a lot of the area being redeveloped with terraced houses.

The historic heart of Clerkenwell is the attractive Clerkenwell Green, just north of Clerkenwell Road, with the original parish church of St James. Here streets follow the street plan laid down in mediaeval times, with many twisting streets and alleys. The Clerkenwell was London’s ‘Little Italy’. Much of the design, media, computing and advertising business which was centred in Soho in the early 1990s has moved east to Clerkenwell. Clerkenwell always had a tradition as a centre of crafts and there are still small jewellery businesses scattered around the area, and other small workshops.

Most of the factories and warehouses which were built when Clerkenwell was a light industrial area in the 19th and 20th centuries were converted into lofts during the property boom in the area in the 1990s. So modern Clerkenwell is a mix of residential and commercial buildings.  

The name suggests this was a wood where charcoal was burnt for fuel.  The High Street is the original Roman Stane Street between London and Winchester, which was the capital in mediaeval times. The settlement probably relied on trade from travellers.  In the 18th century, a large country house and gardens was created for a London lawyer, Francis Barlow.  The garden was progressively sold off for development in the 19th century although the house itself was not replaced until the early 20th century.

The land used to belong to the convent of St Peter at Westminster - hence the name Covent (or “convent”) Garden. After Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, the land came into the possession of the Earl of Bedford. His successor engaged Inigo Jones to create a new square which was to include St Paul’s Church and houses built round a large open courtyard or piazza. The houses were built in 1639. They were initially very popular with rich tenants wanting to live in London. But Covent Garden gradually fell out of favour as the richer folk moved further west and wanted bigger houses. In 1670 the Fifth Earl of Bedford was given the right to set up a market for fruit, flowers, and herbs in Covent Garden. The market gradually expanded to take over the whole piazza. The area generally had turned into an extremely rough one, with a large number of brothels taverns and gambling dens. The market itself expanded to include poultry and other goods. The Sixth Duke of Bedford acquired additional powers from Parliament to reorganise the area. He had a new market building constructed in the 1830s, designed by Charles Fowler. The buildings were renovated in the 1870s and 80s, and the Floral Hall, designed by E M Barry, was opened in 1860. The 11th Duke of Bedford sold the market to Covent Garden Estate Co Ltd in 1918. The market continued until 1974 when it was moved to Nine Elms across the river and became the New Covent Garden market. Greater London Council restored Covent Garden as a shopping and leisure area. The flower market became the London transport Museum but the rest of the buildings were converted into small attractive shops.

A theatre was constructed in Bow Street in 1732, and several Handel operas were staged their in the mid 18th century. Several replacement theatres followed. E M Barry designed the existing Royal Opera House in 1858. This was renovated and considerably extended in the 1990s.