The UK Building Age Map

Over the last few years we've seen building age maps from all around the world. It is now possible to view maps showing the age of buildings in New York, Barcelona, Moscow, Reykjavík, Ljubljana, Vancouver and all of the Netherlands.

Despite the worldwide popularity of these types of maps there have been no UK building age maps. Until now! Now there is a map showing building age data for the whole of England & Wales. CDRC Maps has added a modal building age layer which allows you to study the geography of residential building ages in towns and cities throughout England & Wales.

The map reveals the fascinating history of residential building patterns in UK towns and cities. For example, if you zoom in on London, you can see how the West End has remained largely undeveloped since the nineteenth century. You can also clearly see the trend for building new residential properties along both banks of the Thames since the turn of the 21st century, as the old riverside docks and wharves have slowly been replaced with newer apartment buildings.

Elsewhere you can see the recent developments in the Isle of Dogs and, even more recently, around the new Olympic Park.


Zoom in on new towns, such as Crawley in West Sussex, and you can study the development of the postwar boom in new residential towns. In these new towns you can see the concentration of fifties housing stock in the town centres, with newer neighborhoods springing up in the suburbs as the decades pass.

These towns also often show a more recent pattern of brand new residential properties springing up in the town centres. The downturn in the high street retail sector has seen a trend for building new apartment blocks in what were once almost exclusively retail & commercial areas. This probably also reflects a rise in the popularity of city centre living for many people.