Whitechapel, 1888in 3D · Holmes Hub

What is this?

Not a Holmes story. In the autumn of 1888 five women were murdered in these streets; no one was ever convicted. This view shows where they were found, on 11,717 buildings traced from the Ordnance Survey map of the time, over Charles Booth’s poverty map of 1889. Their names and dates are given; the details of the crimes are not.

▶ demo tells it in order of date, and that is where the insight lies: five sites within a single mile, every one of them in the black and dark-blue streets of Booth’s map. Seen in sequence, on the ground, the pattern says more about that autumn than any account of the crimes.

The maps

Two maps from Doyle’s own time lie under the buildings (the flat map has four to choose from). Press K to cycle through them, and use the sliders to fade them in and out.

Charles Booth, 1889

Every street coloured by the means of the people who lived in it, from gold for the wealthy to black for the poorest. Seen from above it shows where rich and poor lived, often only a turning apart.

The Ordnance Survey, 1869–1880

The surveyors’ sheets at 1:2500, the source of every building here. Close up they are exact to the house: the 3D footprints sit on the lines of the sheet.

The demo switches between the two as it goes: the Ordnance Survey when it flies close to a street, Booth when it pulls back.

Legend & keys

Keys and mouse