John Tallis's Street Views of London and The London Low Life Project

In 1838, John Tallis, mapmaker, created a series of street views of central London that are breathtaking. His images showed detailed views of the streets using the facades of the buildings. These street views are much like we use Google street view today, giving us a sense of what the city looked like in the early Victorian era.

John Tallis’s view of Fleet Street, ca. 1840 Image @Christie’s.

This detail of a Tallis street view comes from the informative London Street Views blog.

This street view is the header of the of London Street Views blog.

This YouTube video clip of “London Low Life: (published by the Adam Matthew Group) uses a variety of maps to bring early Victorian London back to life. It includes a series of Tallis Street Views, which have been computer enhanced. The website, which is not free, is designed for students and scholars to explore 19th century London in great detail. The video was produced by Axis Maps (www.axismaps.com)

The blog, The Consecrated Eminence, gives you an idea of the size of Tallis’s  street views, which were modest when compared to the Grand architectural panorama of London: Regent Street to Westminster Abbey: from original drawings made expressly for the work by R. Sandeman, architect, and executed on wood by G.C. Leighton. Published by I. Whitelaw in 1849, which reached up to 22 feet in length. See the image at right and click here for more views.

Image of a street view based on Tallis’s maps at The Consecrated Eminence

More on the topic:

• Click here to read more about John Tallis on Intriguing History.
• More about the London Street Views at Yesterday’s Papers
• Riba: Oxford Street
• Tallis Images: Tufts Digital Library: – Regent Street, – Holborn Division III, – Lowther Arcade, and King William Street, Strand
•  Riba: Image of Fleet Street
• Christie’s image of Fleet Street
• In Bishopsgate, 1838, Spitalsfield Life

Image of John Tallis

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