London: A Life in Maps

Panorama of London, William Smith, 1588. Copyright © The British Library Board

London: A Life in Maps, is on at The British Library from 24 November 2006 – 4 March 2007:

"Take a look at London as you have never seen it before. This once-in-a-lifetime exhibition brings to life London’s lost lanes and landmarks, parks and palaces, riots and railways, towers and temptations.

Maps, views, letters, and ephemera from the British Library collections, show the city’s transformation from a Roman outpost to the huge, heaving metropolis of today - and look to the Olympic and post-Olympic future.

In a series of magnificent maps and panoramas, London’s growth spreads before you through disease and fire, property booms and commercial expansion, war and comprehensive redevelopment. At the same time lesser-known images will enable you to see why and how these changes happened, and to catch a glimpse of Londoners’ lives and values, hopes and fears, preoccupations and aspirations through the ages.

Discover the ‘lost’ London’s you never knew - the great estates and the workhouses, the palaces and prisons, the grand churches and vast dockyards, the ancient villages and vanishing fields."

There's a book out too - London: A Life in Maps by Peter Whitfield. Looks tasty - have I mentioned that I love maps?