London is “completely dwarfed by the sprawl of the suburbs that embrace and encircle it”. Nick Barratt’s appropriately massive history celebrates not just the central city but Greater London, a term that came of age in 1889 with the foundation of the London County Council. It embodied the idea that London was more than a city, it was a metropolis, the largest urban centre on the planet at that time. Adopting a chronological approach, Barratt traces its evolution from its pre-Roman origins, through its role as the “fortified heart of Norman power”, and into the medieval period, when 100,000 people lived in London, many of them beyond the City walls in nascent suburbs. By the time Henry Mayhew gazed down on London from a hot-air balloon in 1847 the “leviathan Metropolis” stretched as far as the eye could see. Barratt brilliantly tells the stories of the historical communities – such as Battersea (once famed for its asparagus) and Hampstead (a popular spa town in its day) – which were engulfed by the metropolis that now sprawls over 607 square miles.
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