Survey of London

The Survey of London is a research project to produce a comprehensive architectural survey of central London and its suburbs, or the area formerly administered by the London County Council. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Robert Ashbee, an Arts-and-Crafts designer, architect and social reformer and was motivated by a desire to record and preserve London's ancient monuments. The first volume was published in 1900, but the completion of the series remains far in the future. The London Survey Committee was initially a volunteer effort, but from 1910 published the surveys jointly with the London County Council (later the Greater London Council, GLC). From 1952, the voluntary committee was disbanded, and all survey work was wholly council-run. Following the abolition of the GLC in 1986, responsibility for the survey was taken over by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME). Since 2013, it has been administered by The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. The series borrows its title from John Stow's A Survay of London (first edition 1598; revised edition 1603). Scope The Survey consists of a series of volumes based mainly on the historical parish system. Each volume gives an account of the area, with sufficient general history to put the architecture in context, and then proceeds to describe the notable streets and individual buildings one by one. The accounts are exhaustive, reviewing all available primary sources in detail. The Survey devotes thousands of words to some buildings that receive the briefest of mentions in the Buildings of England series (itself a vast and detailed reference work by most standards). However, the earlier volumes largely ignored buildings built after 1800.