London's suburbs may stretch for well over 600 square miles, but in historical accounts of the capital they tend to take something of a back seat. In Greater London, historian Nick Barratt places them firmly centre stage, tracing their journey from hamlets and villages far out in the open countryside to fully fledged urban enclaves, simultaneously demonstrating the crucial role they have played in the creation of today's metropolis. Starting in the first century AD, he shows how the tiny settlements that grew up in the Thames Valley gradually developed, and how they were shaped by their proximity to the city. He describes the spread of the first suburbs beyond the city walls, and traces the ebb and flow of population as people moved in to find jobs or away to escape London's noise and bustle. He charts the transformation wrought by the coming of the railways, the fight to preserve Hampstead Heath, Epping Forest and other green spaces and the struggle to create a London-wide form of government. He gives an account of wartime destruction and peacetime reconstruction, and then brings the story to the present with a description of the very varied nature of today's suburbs and their inhabitants. In the process, he evokes Tudor Hackney and Georgian Hampton, explains why Victorian Battersea and Finchley were so different from one another, and follows Islington's fall from grace and subsequent recovery. Magnificently illustrated throughout with contemporary engravings and photographs, this is the essential history for anyone who has ever lived in London.

This book examines this revolutionary development from the variety of perspectives that have shaped it, fully illustrated with maps, plans, paintings and photographs, and is the only book to examine London's suburban growth in its entirety.

This book explores how Victorian cemeteries were the direct result of the socio-cultural, economic and political context of the city, and were part of a unique transformation process that emerged in London at the time. The book shows how the re-ordering of the city’s burial spaces, along with the principles of health and hygiene, were directly associated with liberal capital investments, which had consequences in the spatial arrangement of London. Victorian cemeteries, in particular, were not only a solution for overcrowded graveyards, they also acted as urban generators in the formation London’s suburbs in the nineteenth century. Beginning with an analysis of the conditions that triggered the introduction of the early Victorian cemeteries in London, this book investigates their spatial arrangement, aesthetics and functions. These developments are illustrated through the study of three private Victorian burial sites: Kensal Green Cemetery, Highgate Cemetery and Brookwood Cemetery. The book is aimed at students and researchers of London history, planning and environment, and Victorian and death culture studies.

A study of London suburban-set writing, exploring the links between place and fiction. This book charts a picture of evolving themes and concerns around the legibility and meaning of habitat and home for the individual, and the serious challenges that suburbia sets for literature.

Suburban space has traditionally been understood as a formless remnant of physical city expansion, without a dynamic or logic of its own. Suburban Urbanities challenges this view by defining the suburb as a temporally evolving feature of urban growth.Anchored in the architectural research discipline of space syntax, this book offers a comprehensive understanding of urban change, touching on the history of the suburb as well as its current development challenges, with a particular focus on suburban centres. Studies of the high street as a centre for social, economic and cultural exchange provide evidence for its critical role in sustaining local centres over time. Contributors from the architecture, urban design, geography, history and anthropology disciplines examine cases spanning Europe and around the Mediterranean.By linking large-scale city mapping, urban design scale expositions of high street activity and local-scale ethnographies, the book underscores the need to consider suburban space on its own terms as a specific and complex field of social practice

The majority of the world’s population is now urban, and for most this will mean a life lived in the suburbs. City Suburbs considers contemporary Anglo-American suburbia, drawing on research in outer London it looks at life on the edge of a world city from the perspective of residents. Interpreted through Bourdieu’s theory of practice it argues that the contemporary suburban life is one where place and participation are, in combination, strong determinants of the suburban experience. From this perspective suburbia is better seen as a process, an on-going practice of the suburban which is influenced but not determined by the history of suburban development. How residents engage with the city and the legacy of particular places combine powerfully to produce very different experiences across outer London. In some cases suburban residents are able to combine the benefits of the city and their residential location to their advantage but in marginal middle-class areas the relationship with the city is more circumspect as the city represents more threat than opportunity. The importance of this relational experience with the city informs a call to integrate more fully the suburbs into studies of the city.

From Barnet to Richmond, explore the history of London's Metro-Land A Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land is your essential pocket guide to the modernist architecture of London's suburbs. Inspired by John Betjeman's 1973 documentary Metro-Land and the writing of Ian Nairn, it examines the growth of the city's suburbs from the 1920s up to the present day – a story that is closely interwoven with the development of innovative architecture in Britain – through its most remarkable modernist buildings. Featuring work by architects such as Charles Holden, Erno Goldfinger and Norman Foster, the book covers nine London boroughs and two counties: Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Richmond, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. It is designed to help you explore Metro-Land's modernist heritage, featuring short descriptions of each building alongside maps of the areas covered, and more than 100 colour photographs.