Recordings of background atmospheres and incidental noises from all over London. Many form part of a sound grid series recorded at evenly-spaced points across the city, each marking the centre of a square on the map below.
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Above: graphic based on a daytime satellite image courtesy of the Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center. Each red grid square is 2.5 miles or 4 kilometers across.
File name: Roadside snack bar Surrey Row
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 1:06
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 15 January 2010
Time of day: 7.30am
Location: Junction of Surrey Row and Great Suffolk Street.
Description: The snack bar owner hands over some change, sounds of an egg frying in a pan, occasional chinks from pots and pans, traffic, a train passes along the nearby viaduct towards Blackfrairs station.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. 2 x Shure WL-183 mics and Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Victoria Embankment
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: Ben Cripps
Recording date: 15 December 2009
Time of day: 1pm
Location: Victoria Embankment, alongside the ship 'The Wellington'.
Description: Water can be heard lapping up to the stairs that lead down into the river. Traffic is waiting at a traffic signal light near Temple Underground station, and moves off when the signal comes off. Pedestrians can be heard walking and talking.
Technical guff: Stereo. Olympus LS-10 digital recorder with internal mics.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Farringdon station
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 3:30
Recorded by: Ben Cripps
Recording date: 7 December 2009
Time of day: 12.45pm
Location: Eastbound Metropolitan/Circle lines platform at Farringdon station.
Description: Both Metropolitan and Circle line Underground trains and First Capital Connect National Rail trains can be heard, together with the (sometimes overlapping) loudspeaker announcements relating to both! Just after a minute, the crackling sound of the FCC train's pantograph lowering and disconnecting from the overhead power line can be heard. A passenger sitting on the bench next to me coughs. Other passengers converse with each other and one speaks into his cellphone.
Technical guff: Sony TCD-D7 portable DAT recorder with a Sony ECM-DS70P electret condenser stereo microphone.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Lambeth bridges
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 1:22
Recorded by: Stuart Fisher
Recording date: 29 October 2009
Time of day: 5.25pm
Location: Railway arches, Carlisle Lane.
Description: Recording made on Carlisle Lane under the railway arches at Lambeth on the way towards Archbishops Park. The sound of trains passing and various other ambience.
Technical guff: Not known.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Whispering Gallery St Pauls
Grid square: City Spitalfields Waterloo Borough
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 2 October 2009
Time of day: 11am
Location: The Whispering Gallery, St Paul's Cathedral.
Description: Indistinct murmuring of visitors' voices from the cathedral floor below, occasional coughs, echoes.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. Sonic Studios DSM-6S/EH mics and PA-3SX preamp, Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Borough market
Grid square: City Spitalfields Borough Waterloo
Duration: 2:03
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 25 September 2009
Time of day: 10.45am
Location: Walking around Borough market.
Description: The market specialises in high-quality, high-price foodstuffs and is already crowded before 11am on a Saturday morning. Crowd sounds, traders' voices, sizzling noises from stalls selling cooked snacks, grinding of trains overhead going to and from London Bridge station.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. Sonic Studios DSM-6S/EH mics and PA-3SX preamp, Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Waterloo tunnel
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 3:07
Recorded by: Will Montgomery
Recording date: Early December 2007
Time of day: Not known.
Location: Tunnel near Waterloo station, central London.
Description: "Recording made in early December 2007 in a Victorian rail tunnel a few hundred metres from Waterloo station." – Will Montgomery.
Technical guff: Not known.
Additional notes: Recording from soundtransit.nl, covered by a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.
File name: Hungerford Bridge
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 2:34
Recorded by: Will Montgomery
Recording date: Late January 2008
Time of day: Not known
Location: Hungerford Bridge, crossing the Thames between Waterloo and Charing Cross.
Description: "The bridge runs across the Thames between the South Bank complex and Charing Cross station. It is used by trains and pedestrians. The recording was made by attaching a contact mic to one of the bridge's steel stays. Some eq'ing applied." – Will Montgomery.
Technical guff: Contact mic.
Additional notes: Recording from soundtransit.nl, covered by a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.
File name: Faraday Elephant
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 2:23
Recorded by: Will Montgomery
Recording date: Early December 2007
Time of day: Not known
Location: Faraday monument, Elephant and Castle.
Description: "In the middle of the northerly roundabout at the Elephant and Castle in south London is a large, box-shaped stainless steel monument to Michael Faraday, the scientist, who is best known for his work on electricity and magnetism. Inside the monument is a transformer and electricity sub-station for the Northern line of London's Underground train network, which runs through Elephant. This recording was made in early December 2007 by attaching a contact mic to the monument. Some eq-ing has been applied." – Will Montgomery
Technical guff: Contact mic.
Additional notes: Recording from soundtransit.nl, covered by a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.
File name: Ball games Commercial St
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 2:54
Recorded by: Matthias Kispert
Recording date: 2005
Time of day: Not known
Location: A lane off Commercial Street, Spitalfields.
Description: "A group of children from the local Bangladeshi community playing ball games in a side lane off Commercial Street on a Sunday afternoon. Recorded for the D-Fuse project Undercurrent." – Matthias Kispert
Technical guff: Not known.
Additional notes: Recording from soundtransit.nl, covered by a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.
File name: TQ 3231 8067
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 11 July 2009
Time of day: 12.15pm
Location: OS grid reference TQ 3230 8067. On the Thames Path, north side of the river, a few score yards west of Southwark Bridge.
Description: Traffic noise from Southwark Bridge, a pleasure cruiser captain's voice in the distance, sound of boat engines and wash crashing on the river shore, a beeping siren somewhere.
Technical guff: Stereo. Audio-Technica BP4025 mic and Fostex FR-2LE recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Bankside wash
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 14 June 2009
Time of day: Around 1.30pm
Location: On the south shore of the Thames at low tide, near Bankside.
Description: Pleasure cruisers on the Thames create a powerful wash which crashes on the shoreline. A helicopter clatters overhead, aircraft drone, and boats' engines.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. Sonic Studios DSM-6S/EH mics and PA-3SX mics. Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Grafitti subway Waterloo
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 11 April 2009
Time of day: 2.30pm
Location: A pedestrian subway running from Lower Marsh beneath Waterloo station.
Description: Youths rattle paint spray-cans and add to the already considerable quantity of grafitti and tags decorating a subway beneath Waterloo station. A speaker in an armoured cage mounted high up plays monastic plainsong, maybe to encourage a peaceful attitude. Sounds of traffic passing outside on Lower Marsh.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. 2 x Shure WL-183 mics. Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Cello and hotdogs
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 0:49
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: June 2008
Time of day: Mid-afternoon
Location: South Bank near Coin Street.
Description: Walking southwards, a cello-playing busker is encountered playing a melancholy tune, then a few yards further on a hotdog seller, with sizzling sounds from the hotplate and a few words from him for a customer.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. Sonic Studios DSM-6S/EH mics and PA-3SX preamp. Olympus LS-10 digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Elephant shopping centre
Grid square: City, Spitalfields, Waterloo, Borough
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 11 February 2009
Time of day: 4.00pm
Location: The lower gallery of the Elephant and Castle shopping centre.
Description: Walking around the lower gallery of the Elephant and Castle shopping centre, towards the exit on New Kent Road. Laughter and chatter of shoppers, and also birdsong, which turned out to be emitted by an intriguing range of wall-mounted electronic objets d'art sold from an indoor stall.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. Sonic Studios DSM-6S/EH mics and PA-3SX preamp. Olympus LS-10 digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
Sound map recordings fall into two kinds, shown by the filenames they're given.
A sound grid recording has a filename beginning with the letters 'TQ', followed by eight digits. These are the Ordnance Survey co-ordinates for where the recording ought to be made. Each is part of a regularly-spaced series of recordings covering London. More about them, including graphics showing the resulting city-wide patterns of sounds, can be found on this page.
Other recordings have more descriptive filenames and these are simply of curious or distinctive sounds heard in different places.
