Photography
Immerse yourself in London’s living history through our photographic archive, capturing the city's evolving landscape, diverse communities and social fabric
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Building a Victorian underground railway
Henry Flather’s photos of the Metropolitan District Railway show a transport revolution in action

Street life & work in 1877
John Thomson’s fascinating photographs reveal the lives of workers in 19th-century London

Atmospheric photographs of Hampstead Heath
Observing the living landscape of London’s urban wilderness


Photographing London after dark
When the sun set, Alan Delaney took out his camera, capturing a ghostly city marked by shadow

Inside St Paul’s Cathedral
Tiptoe through these tranquil photographs from the early 1900s

Portraits of London’s close-knit queer club scenes
Liz Johnson Artur captured community, individuality and joy on and around the dance floor

Alvin Langdon Coburn’s ethereal photographs of London
A foggy, shadowy view of the capital in 1909

The toilet photos that saved gay men on trial
Fighting the prosecution of gay encounters in the 1980s and 1990s

Victorian photographs of Barnet & Enfield
Roaming rural north London in the late 1800s


Inside Homerton Hospital, 1988
A new hospital for Hackney – its patients and staff, needles and blood

How wartime bombsites became adventure playgrounds
Reclaiming the wreckage for play and imagination

London buses: Red, iconic, double-decked
You wait for ages, then all you need to know about London buses comes along at once

Forgotten faces from post-war London
Fred Wilfred’s photos of London from 1957 to 1962 have remained largely unseen

Photographing an east London rent strike, 1939
Cyril Arapoff captures life in a dangerously dilapidated apartment block

Speakers’ Corner: A home of free speech
Hyde Park’s historic spot for public speaking and debate

Post-war photographs of the working River Thames
Sandra Flett’s snapshot of trade and industry on London’s liquid highway