Redditor Shystone has laid historical paintings of London over modern day Google Street View photographs to create a series of images that bring the past and present together. Though there is lot of similar work in this category, this stands out well in a city like London, where the old buildings, architecture and infrastructure are preserved beautifully. Despite all the ways London has changed over the years; this artwork shows that there are immutable structures – landmarks which still stand tall in our present. This comparison between old and new showcases London’s evolution, not only in terms of landscape but through people and city life.
Borough High Street in Southwark, one of the oldest parts of London, was once known as Blackman Street, and was immortalised in this painting by John Atkinson Grimshaw in 1885.
Canaletto captured this view of Greenwich, South-East London, in the 1750s. It remains largely unchanged to this day.
For Londoners in the 1600s, Pleasure Gardens in Vauxhall were a legendary destination for music and entertainment. Pictured here is Canaletto’s painting “View of The Grand Walk” from 1751.
St Martin in the Fields church on Trafalgar Square survives to this day, and is shown here in a painting by William Logsdail from 1888.
The Strand is a major thoroughfare cutting through central London, and a view of it looking east is shown here in a painting by an anonymous artist. The buildings on the right of the picture are mostly all gone.
This painting by William Logsdail from 1890 shows Lord Mayor’s Procession passing through Bank Junction in the City of London. It captured The Old Bank of England which has since been demolished.
The Covent Garden Market was the first open square in London, and is shown here in a painting by Balthazar Nebot from 1737.
Canaletto painted “Westminster Abbey with a Procession of Knights of the Bath” in 1749, before Westminster Palace, where members of Parliament meet, was built in the form that we are familiar with today.
The River Thames with St. Paul’s Cathedral on Lord Mayor’s Day (1746) Canaletto
This photo shows a painting of Northumberland House which stood in Trafalgar Square until 1874, by Italian artist Canaletto
