Mapping London:  Inspiration from 4 map enthusiasts.

Step into the fascinating world of London’s maps and their makers at a special evening of talks from four of the capital’s most renowned map enthusiasts.

Oliver O’Brien, has showcased striking new ways to visualise the city for 15 years on his popular Mapping London blog; Vivien Godfrey is the owner of the legendary Stanfords bookshop; Professor James Cheshire is a leading geographer at University College London and Matt Brown has wowed Londoners with his fanatical London mapping projects as editor-at-large of Londonist.

Alongside the talks, browse a pop-up map gallery of some of the maps featured, and there'll be a selection of books and maps available for purchase just in time for Christmas.

Tickets £25 (includes 1 drink at the bar and TK voucher to spend on books/ prints)

This event will start promptly at 7pm and close at 10pm

James Cheshire: Introduction and Welcome
Oliver O'Brien: 15 years of the Mapping London Blog
Vivien Godfrey: 170 years of Mapping London at Stanfords Bookshop

Interval drinks, gallery, shop

Matt Brown: Map Everything! From the Complete Geography of Dickens, to the 50 Lost Streams of Southwark
James Cheshire: London's Lost Map Archive
Drinks, gallery, shop

About the speakers:

Oliver O’Brien

Oliver is a data wrangler and software developer at the Department of Geography at University College London, where he investigates new ways to visualise spatial data, including the mapping of open demographic and socioeconomic datasets, particularly London-focused ones. He has been celebrating novel contemporary maps of the capital for the past 15 years on mappinglondon.co.uk which he co-founded with James.

Vivien Godfrey

Vivien is the Chairman and CEO of the Edward Stanford Group, a retailer of travel books, maps, globes and other travel related products. Stanfords was founded in 1853 at 6-7 Charing Cross Road by the first Edward Stanford. Throughout its long history, it has been the essential first port of call for adventure and armchair travellers alike. Stanfords’ roll-call of customers past and present includes such famous names as Amy Johnson, David Livingstone, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Florence Nightingale, Ranulph Fiennes, Bill Bryson, Michael Palin, and even Sherlock Holmes.

Matt Brown

It is fair to say that Matt is London-obsessed. In the cause of exploring London, he has waded along the buried River Fleet (twice), spent the night in a haunted plague pit, crawled through the little-known tunnel beneath the deck of London Bridge, and walked along the tracks beneath Leicester Square at 2am. He is the main contributor to Londonist: Time Machine, a Substack 'bestseller' newsletter about the history of London. Matt is also author of 12 books, including London Night and Day (2015), Everything You Know About London Is Wrong (2016), the bestselling/award-winning Atlas of Imagined Places (2021) and its sequel Atlas of Imagined Cities (2023). His forthcoming book The Boroughs of London (2025) explores the history and peculiarities of London's 32 boroughs.

James Cheshire

James Cheshire is Britain’s only Professor of Geographic Information and Cartography. A world-leading map maker, his cartographic creations have been enjoyed by millions. He is an elected fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and has been recognised with many prestigious awards from the likes of the Royal Geographical Society and the British Cartographic Society. His co-authored book London: The Information Capital became a bestseller and he has spent the last three years in a forgotten map library researching his latest book The Library of Lost Maps. When he is not making, writing about, or teaching with maps, James spends his time scouring eBay for them in the hope that one day he’ll have a map library of his own.