Old Map of Southwest London in 1900 by Bacon & Co., Sheet 19 - Bushy Park, Kingston, Twickenham

Bacon & Co., a London map publisher known for large-scale suburban mapping at the turn of the twentieth century, issued this sheet in 1900 as part of their New Large Scale Atlas of London and Suburbs. Numbered Sheet 19 in that series, it covers the southwestern approaches to the capital at a scale detailed enough to show individual streets, greens and estates, and the atlas as a whole was compiled to give households and businesses a practical, up-to-date street reference for a city that was expanding rapidly in every direction. This particular sheet captures the area at a genuinely transitional moment, with new terraced housing and the trappings of Victorian suburban life sitting directly alongside farmland that had not yet been built over, a contrast that gives the map real documentary value for anyone interested in how London's southwestern suburbs took shape.

At the heart of the sheet sit Bushy Park and Richmond Park, two of the largest green spaces in the area, shown in enough detail to trace their paths, plantations and boundary walls. Around them, the map follows the neighbourhoods of Ham, Teddington and Twickenham along the River Thames, together with Ham Common, and the streets of Kingston and Norbiton a little further south, with Hampton also marked close to the riverside. Roads, plot boundaries and the early stages of suburban development are set down street by street, giving a precise record of how these Thames-side communities were laid out at the start of the twentieth century, while the surrounding farmland, not yet built over, is shown stretching between the built-up areas, a reminder of how recently this part of southwest London had been open countryside.

This sheet would make a natural housewarming gift for anyone who has just bought a home in Kingston, Twickenham, Teddington or Ham, or a thoughtful present for a Richmond Park regular who wants to see the park's Victorian-era boundaries hanging on their own wall. It also suits anyone tracing family history through this corner of southwest London, since street-level detail like this can help pin down exactly where a great-grandparent's house once stood, long before the farmland around Ham Common disappeared under new streets. For a collector already working through Bacon & Co.'s London sheets, this would slot neatly into a growing set of turn-of-the-century suburban maps. It is available unframed and in a full range of sizes, so it can be scaled to fit anywhere from a narrow hallway to a large sitting-room wall.