Exhibition: LFA - London 1840

LONDON 1840 is building a 1:1500 scale wooden model of London as it was in that year, from Paddington in the west to the River Lea in the east, and from Highbury in the north to Kennington and Greenwich in the south.

In the early to mid-19th century London was at its height, the World capital and its richest city, with a globally dominant economy - Europe's first modern trading, financial and industrial centre.

By 1840 London had expanded hugely, reinforced its industrial might with the construction of vast new docks and canals and become the focus of the great new railway age, so much so that in 1840 it had six railway termini.

For the London Festival of Architecture we are exhibiting the Greenwich section of the model. In 1840 Greenwich was two working towns separated by probably the finest collection of classical buildings in the country. West Greenwich, or Old Greenwich according to Booth, 'retains the characteristics of a country town.....the inhabitants are with the exception of a few shop-keepers, working people - coalies, gas stokers, lightermen, bargemen, waterside and other labourers', and East Greenwich, also a working riverside town but a little more salubrious with better houses and bordering on the countryside - the Greenwich Peninsula.