A large bird's-eye view of London from the north

BANKS, John Henry.

A Balloon View of London (as seen from Hampstead).
London: Banks & Co. & Effingham Wilson, 1851. Coloured. 635 x 1040mm.

Binding folds flattened with a few repairs, laid on archival paper.

A very detailed 'balloon-view' of London, taken from a point above King's Cross, published the day the Great Exhibition opened in Hyde Park. Indeed, the northern viewpoint was chosen to make the Crystal Palace more obvious, with the open space of Hyde Park in front of it.
On the right edge are Vauxhall Bridge, Hyde Park Corner, Kensington Gardens and Battersea; on the left the Tower and the Docks at Limehouse and Deptford; in the foreground King's Cross and Regent's Park; and on the far horizon Kennington, the Oval and the Walworth Road. Also marked are the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, Brunel's Hungerford Suspension Bridge, the Great Western Railway, the Millbank Prison (where Tate Britain now stands), Lord's Cricket Ground and the Surrey Zoological Gardens.
Filling Leicester Square is a building housing "Wyld's Great Globe", constructed by map publisher James Wyld. It was a hollow plaster of Paris globe with the features of the world to scale on the interior. Again opened for the Great Exhibition, it was demolished in 1862 when Wyld's lease ran out.

HYDE: Victorian Maps of London, 3 (2).
Stock ID : 18604