The Charles Dickens Page

Charles Dickens Aerial London Map

Bird's-Eye Views of Victorian London

Aerial Maps:

1 - The Strand from Charing Cross to Fleet Street

2 - Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill to St Paul's Cathedral

3 - New Oxford Street and Holborn to Smithfield and Cheapside

4 - The Borough from London Bridge to Elephant and Castle

5 - Charing Cross through Whitehall to Westminster

6 - Cannon Street to the Tower of London

7 - The Thames from the Tower of London to Westminster

8 - Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace and Belgrave Square

9 - Mansion House Through Bishopsgate Street to Whitechapel

10 - Oxford Street from Hyde Park to Tottenham Court Road

11 - The City Road from Finsbury Circus to the Angel Islington

12 - Piccadilly from Regent Circus to Hyde Park Corner

See a list of every location shown on the twelve aerial views

A Note on the Aerial Views

These splendid aerial views of London were drawn by Thomas Sulman (1834-1900) in the 1880s while soaring above the city in a balloon. The drawings were then engraved on woodblock by George William Ruffle (1838-1901) and W.M.R. Quick.

I have taken these images from a London guidebook by Herbert Fry (1830-1885) published in 1886. The images were printed in halves on facing pages and I have repaired the image centers which had fallen into the binding of the book. I have also cleaned up the text to make it more readable and applied a tint to the water to make the images clearer.

I have attempted to align the images with Dickens' lifetime, deleting some place names, and in some cases altering the illustration itself, to remove changes made after Dickens' death in 1870. For example, I have restored Temple Bar to its location between the Strand and Fleet Street and have removed the early construction of Tower Bridge from one of the images as it would have been unfamiliar to Dickens.

Also included with each view is a footprint of the area on Reynold's 1862 map of London.

David Perdue - The Charles Dickens Page - April 2020