Colouring a 1746 Map Reveals London’s Lost Island in Shadwell
Tracing Prusons Island Through Shadwell’s Streets
Anyone who walks the backstreets between Wapping and Shadwell will know how quickly the modern city closes in. Narrow lanes bend around old warehouse walls, and the riverside air still carries a faint damp chill that locals have always associated with this low-lying ground. Now a local history project has turned its attention to a small cluster of streets here, and the findings may change how we read the neighbourhood’s street plan. The focus is Prusons Island, a dog-leg road labelled on John Rocque’s 1746 map of London. Its name suggests an island, yet nothing on the black-and-white chart shows water around it. Laughtons Rents, Hilliards Court and Pearl Street sit nearby, each a reminder of the way Shadwell grew piecemeal over the centuries. What makes this corner matter is its geography. Shadwell was marshy for most of its history, and buildings here were built on ground that the Thames and its tributaries once shaped. Streets that look like random lanes today may be following the edges of drains, creeks and rivulets that have long since been buried. For residents, that means the layout of their own doorsteps is partly a record of older water courses. It is a reminder that the ground beneath the pavements has a story of its own.
The Map-Makers and Researchers Behind the Discovery
The investigation is the work of a London history writer who has spent months colouring Rocque’s 1746 survey, a huge chart that records the city in remarkable detail. Each of its 24 panels takes around 20 to 30 hours to colour digitally in Photoshop. Rather than working with paint or crayons, the researcher separates buildings, cultivated land and waterways onto individual layers, switching them on and off to test ideas. That method made the faint blue channels around Prusons Island visible, including a small waterway near Hilliards Court that had been easy to miss. The work builds on earlier research by Adrian Prockter of Know Your London, who examined the island’s history and could not find firm evidence that it was ever surrounded by water. The new analysis does not claim to settle the question, but it offers a stronger visual case. Online mapping resources such as Layers of London, which can overlay historic parish boundaries on modern maps, also played a role, showing that old parish lines follow the curves of the roads. For local people, this kind of work matters because it turns casual curiosity into something checkable. Researchers in other parts of west London, including those in Richmond and Hounslow, have increasingly used similar tools. Some community history groups in Hounslow even keep their source notes in spreadsheets, a practice that feels a little like careful bookkeeping and makes it easier for volunteers to cross-check dates, plot references and archive records.
What Shadwell Residents Should Know and Watch Next
For those who live and work around Shadwell, the immediate impact is mostly intellectual. Nothing is changing on the street, and no planning decision hangs on whether a dog-leg road once marked an island. Still, the research raises practical questions about how low-lying land is understood and recorded. Historic waterways can affect how ground settles, where damp appears and how drainage behaves after heavy rain, so anyone interested in the building history of their home may find old maps a useful starting point. If you want to take part, there are simple steps. Compare the 1746 Rocque map with a modern street view on Layers of London, look for the faint blue lines the researcher has highlighted, and note any old lanes, ditches or property names that suggest buried water. Local libraries and archives are worth contacting if you hold deeds, parish papers or family records from the area, since these can confirm or challenge the theory. Several things are worth watching. The researcher has suggested reconstructing the lost streams in more detail, and independent checks against parish and archaeological records would be the real test. Any future excavation or development in the area may also reveal old channels, which would give the island debate firmer physical evidence. Keep an eye on the Know Your London and Londonist history pages, which tend to share updates as the evidence develops.
Source: The Lost Island Of Shadwell
