Old photos · United Kingdom

Old photos of London

Thin in this archive next to Moscow or Paris, but it starts at the very beginning: a daguerreotype of Parliament Street, taken from Trafalgar Square in 1839.

6,509 photographs within 10 km of the centre · counted 25 September 2026

Time Portal's archive holds about 6,500 photographs of London, taken between 1839 and 2000, each pinned to the spot where the photographer stood. 47% of them date from 1955 or later and are free to browse at map.timeportal.app with no account; the older ones open with Pro. The oldest, dated 1839 in the archive, shows Parliament Street seen from Trafalgar Square — a daguerreotype, and one of the earliest photographs of London.

Photographs: 6,500
Oldest: 1839
Busiest decade: 1960s
Free, 1955 on: 47%

Parliament Street seen from Trafalgar Square, London, in an 1839 daguerreotype — Parliament Street from Trafalgar Square, 1839

How many photographs, decade by decade

The busiest decades for London are the 1960s and the 1970s — 1,053 and 850 photographs. 1,264 were taken before 1900. Everything from 1955 onward is free to open on the map; the older photographs are part of Pro.

Photographs of London in the Time Portal archive, within 10 km of the centre, by the year each was taken. Counted 25 September 2026.
Decade	Relative size	Photographs
before 1860		46
1860s		104
1870s		270
1880s		349
1890s		495
1900s		774
1910s		403
1920s		317
1930s		248
1940s		241
1950s		393
1960s		1,053
1970s		850
1980s		363
1990s		610

Where the photographs were taken

Counted in a small square around each place — about 250 metres each way — so a number is every photograph taken there, of the place itself or of the street beside it. Each place opens the map on that spot.

Place	Photos	Oldest
Trafalgar Square	191	1839
Westminster and Big Ben	249	1880
Tower Bridge and the Tower	91	1890
Piccadilly Circus	140	1890–1895
St Paul's Cathedral	68	1897
Buckingham Palace	65	1904–1905

What changed

London's photographs here start in 1839, the year the daguerreotype was announced, with Parliament Street seen from Trafalgar Square — before Nelson's Column, which went up in the early 1840s.

From there the archive follows the city through Tower Bridge, opened in 1894, the Blitz of 1940–41 and the rebuilding that followed. Its busiest London decade is the 1960s.

Omnibuses and cabs around the fountain at Piccadilly Circus, London, in the 1890s — Piccadilly Circus, 1890–1895

Advertising signs and a taxi at the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly Circus, London, in the early 1950s — Shaftesbury Avenue from Piccadilly Circus, 1951–1953

Questions about old photos of London

Where can I see old photos of London on a map?

On Time Portal: about 6,500 photographs of London, each pinned where it was taken, most with the direction the camera faced. The map is free in any browser at map.timeportal.app — photographs from 1955 on need no account — and there is an app for iPhone and iPad.

What is the oldest photograph of London in the archive?

The oldest precisely dated photograph, from 1839, shows Parliament Street seen from Trafalgar Square — a daguerreotype, and one of the earliest photographs of London. 1,264 of the London photographs were taken before 1900.

Which years of London are best covered?

The 1960s, with 1,053 photographs, and the 1970s, with 850. 47% of the London photographs date from 1955 or later.

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The counts on this page are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 — credit Time Portal and link here. The photographs are not ours to license: they belong to their photographers and the archives that keep them.