Editorial policy
Research and Editorial Method
The aim is not to make every origin story neat. It is to make every important claim traceable, and to leave uncertainty visible where the evidence remains uncertain.
Source selection
Research prioritises official archives, public bodies, museums, libraries, historic institutions, transport operators, scholarly work and digitised primary material. Local-history sources are used where they preserve evidence not readily available elsewhere, and are weighed against stronger sources when accounts conflict.
Citations and links
Numbered references connect material claims to the Notes and Sources section of each chapter. Source titles, institutions and links are shown openly. A source list is not intended to transfer authority automatically: the wording of a claim is kept within what the cited evidence can support.
Uncertainty and disputed origins
Clear evidence is presented as clear. Competing interpretations remain competing interpretations. Approximate dates are not sharpened for effect, and attractive folk etymologies are identified when reliable evidence does not support them.
Transport and place entities
Underground, Overground, DLR, National Rail, streets and districts are distinguished in the text and structured data. A familiar name does not by itself prove that the place is an Underground station.
Corrections and updates
When evidence changes, an error is identified or a source link fails, the relevant chapter should be corrected and its reviewed date updated. This policy page records the method currently applied across the site. A dedicated public corrections address is not yet published.
Current review
The site’s technical structure, page entities, crawl controls and visible editorial policy were reviewed on . Historical pages are not given artificial freshness dates unless they have actually been reviewed or changed.