Incredible Exploration of Victorian London in Maps

Thanks to the Londonist for this post:

 

London in 1884. Slide the 'opacity' bar toward zero, and a modern map fades in.

 

Damn good job there’s another long weekend coming up, because here’s a web site that will have you playing for hours. London Low Life* from AxisMaps collects together almost 30 historical maps of London and superimposes them over a modern Open Street Map.

The interface is simple and familiar. Drag the maps around and zoom in using a sliding scale. A second bar lets you adjust the opacity of the older map, allowing a gradual fade-in/fade-out between the two eras.

And that’s just for cartographic starters. Another tab explores themes in Victorian London. Find the locations of the city’s hospitals, universities, lunatic asylums and more, with a sliding scale that lets you move through the decades. Another tab offers something akin to Street View, with clickable map markers bringing up 19th century etchings of shop fronts all over town. A final area presents old photos and descriptions.

Google Street View...Victorian style.

 

* At the time of writing I think London Low Life is a bit overwhelmed - give it a couple of days and things should calm down.