The Vault is Slate’s history blog.Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @slatevault, and find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is all about here. This panorama of the River ...

A REMARKABLE early 19th century map of London has emerged for sale revealing how the city has dramatically changed over the past two centuries. The detailed 1830 map produced by celebrated cartogra… ...

The previous Thames Tunnel had attracted millions of visitors after opening in 1843 as a pedestrian tunnel, but in 1869, that tunnel was running freight under the river, according to The Brunel ...

In the 19th century, London was the capital of the largest empire the world had ever known — and it was infamously filthy. It had choking, sooty fogs; the Thames River was thick with human ...

In 18th- and 19th-Century London, mudlarks were impoverished citizens (often children) who scraped a meagre living by scavenging for sellable items in the stinking mud of the Thames at low tide ...