Research Room

 

You can look up all the aspects of Camden’s history that the Society has written about over the last 50 years in this index of articles from our annual Camden History Review and bimonthly Camden History Society Newsletter. The index will show you:

streets, localities, buildings, organisations and institutions that are within or adjacent to the London Borough of Camden, or the former Metropolitan Boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn and St Pancras; 

people having a direct connection with Camden, whether through residence or work; as visitors, performers at local venues, landlords, or architects of local buildings; or as grave occupants;

generic topics (e.g. theatres) treated within a Camden context.

 

If you find something in the index you like, or you’re just curious about your local history -

You can browse our free archive of Camden History Society Newsletters here. They have been published for our members every two months since the very start of the Society in 1970, when Sir John Betjeman was Vice-President and Nikolaus Pevsner gave one of the first talks.

Copies of our award-winning annual Camden History Review, which contains longer articles, are available to buy on our publications page.

 

How much do you know about your own street? Find out how it was named and whether that name has changed over time in this meticulously researched catalogue by Camden History Society Publications Editor, David Hayes. The catalogue will tell you the origins of more than 2,500 Camden street and road names, both present and past and the date for any changes of name.

 

Camden History Society in London has brought together local history groups from Camdens around the world to mark the 400th anniversary (on 9th November 2023) of the death of Elizabethan scholar, William Camden - the person after whom the first Lord Camden and so Camden Town, London (and many more) were named. Local historians have partnered internationally to celebrate the Camden name and chart its spread, from this talented 17th century man to two influential Lords, elephant-laden heraldry, sailing ships and nearly 50 places across six continents around the globe from Alaska to Chile and New Zealand. Find out where your Camden fits into the story.

 

When you want to know more about the history or architecture of your street, or any street in Camden we can recommend our popular Streets… books. Each of the 13 books in the series covers a different area of the borough and can be used for armchair research or a series of pleasant walks. Download this index of Camden streets to find out which book in the series provides detail about the history of your own road.  We were the first local history society to cover every street in its area. All the Streets... books are available from our publications section.

 

If you want to explore local property transactions in Hampstead dating back to 1572, the Camden History Society has translated them from Latin and indexed them for you. You can find out what names were common, what families were important or even what pub names cropped up during the 16th, 17th or 18th centuries.

The Hampstead manorial court rolls and court books cover a much wider area than modern Hampstead - from West End (bordering on Kilburn) in West Hampstead to the village of Pond Street in the east and from North End Way to the borders of Belsize and Chalcots in the south. 

The court rolls and books were written only in Latin before 1743 and lay in storage at the London Metropolitan Archives. Thanks to the work of Mrs Pauline Sidell DAA and Dr Peter Woodford and Daniel Croughton of the Camden History Society, you can now search each book and roll here by date or using our indexes of occupations , personal names or places. 

Read the Hampstead Court Rolls and Books

 

From the Cantelowes Court rolls you can find out about interesting people and events in a large part of the borough of Camden between 1480 and 1750. You will discover all about land and building sales, inheritance, inspectors of bread and ale, minor criminal offences, illegal residents, collectors of rents, constables, the maintenance of ditches, paths and roads, the impounding of stray animals and the customs of the manor.

Cantelowes manor covered an area that stretched from the southern side of Highgate High Street (the northern side was part of Hornsey manor), through much of Kentish Town and down to Crowndale Road in Camden Town, keeping east of the main highways. (The St Pancras manor of Tottenhall generally kept to the western side of these roads). The eastern perimeter of Cantelowes is now Dartmouth Park Hill, Brecknock Road and York Way, beyond which was the parish of Islington.

Transcribed from Latin parchments in the 1930s by Percy Lovell and William Mc B. Marcham, these notes have been painstakingly typed, edited and indexed by John Richardson of the Camden History Society, so that you may enjoy searching them.

Read the Cantelowes Court Rolls and Highgate Records

 

The parchment rolls detailing court proceedings in the manor of Tottenhall (Tottenham Court) from 1306 - 1732 have been translated from Latin by Pauline Siddell and edited and indexed by John Richardson. The Camden History Society can now present these public documents in English for the first time, searchable by index, where anyone may reliably look up court proceedings from the Medieval to the Georgian era for this fascinating area of, now very central, London.

Read the Tottenhall Court Rolls

 

Ask our friends

 

Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre in Theobalds Road, Holborn,  is the hub of local history research in Camden, with a collection of over 200,000 items. These include some 50,000 images (most of them digitised), numerous historical maps, and the renowned Heal Collection of 19th-century press cuttings and ephemera.

The Camden New Town History Project provides a searchable database of late-Victorian Camden Square residents and Murray Street shopkeepers.

Camden Notables, the database of CHS member John Cottrell, gives the names and addresses of over 3,000 notable former Camden residents, with links to ODNB, Wikipedia and Ancestry, and with interactive maps.

Camden Railway Heritage Trust can tell you a lot about locomotive sheds, vaults and tunnels, as well as offering guided walks. 

Camden Town Local History: the website of CHS member Mark McCarthy

LSE's Charles Booth's London will let you browse his maps of poverty and wealth in late-C19 London, along with his notebooks.

Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society records London's industrial history and advises on its preservation.

Hendon and District Archaeological Society are our northerly neighbours, whose area of study includes Hampstead Garden Suburb. They have an online archive of past newsletters.

Historic England is England's statutory advisory body on heritage. You can search vast archives of images and listed buildings and get a wealth of advice on caring for historic buildings.

Hornsey Historical Society have a flourishing programme of talks and events. Their coverage includes the Haringey parts of Highgate, and their website contains excellent material on the history of Highgate on both sides of the border. HHS also run regular local history surgeries (non-members welcome).

Islington Archaeology and History Society are our neighbours to the east. Their members and those of the Camden History Society are often interested in each other's events. 

London Metropolitan Archives is a great resource for documents, images, maps, films and books about London.

London and Middlesex Archaeological Society (LAMAS) runs a local history conference each autumn and presents awards for local historical society publications.

London Remembers is a website documenting the memorials and plaques across London.

London Topographical Society publish books and maps that show the history and growth of London in all periods.

London, Westminster and Middlesex Family History Society help family historians trace ancestors in this area.

Marchmont Association History Project: commemorative plaques scheme in north Bloomsbury.

Regent's Park and Primrose Hill is a bibliography of the area in literature and music

The UCL Bloomsbury Project is a browsable website detailing the history of the district's squares, streets and institutions.

West Hampstead Life offers some 100 stories about the history of London NW6.

Willesden Local History Society are the group covering the western (Brent) side of Kilburn.

Our friends overseas:

Camden Historical Society, New South Wales, with Camden History Notes by Ian Willis