Exhibition: Mapping the Hamlets

Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives holds a collection of over 4000 historic maps. This exhibition features more than thirty of these, most of which have never before been displayed. Many are unique to our collection and others will only be found in a select number of libraries.

Maps represent a vital source for answering a wide variety of enquiries: for local and family history or for legal research or land redevelopment. We are fortunate in that, as a result of abutting the City of London, parts of the present-day borough are covered by large-scale mapping dating back to the sixteenth century.

The map collection is a working library collection, not a museum collection, put to continual use by scholars and researchers and stored for decades in vertical suspension chests. This has taken its toll on many items within it. Despite this, we have chosen to display only original maps in this exhibition - not digitised copies.