No Free Parking: The Curious History of London's Monopoly Streets

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I think based on the cover or the title I expected something more conversational or more colloquial.

This is a clever way of publicising the author's worthy and important crusade for London's heritage and against ill-thought planning authority proposals. Lots of quirky stuff and fantastic quotes plus also some hugely thought-provoking big picture stuff about how London has grown in the way that it has. He has lectured internationally, written for the Spectator, Evening Standard, Times, Sunday Times, Telegraph and Guardian, and been interviewed across TV and radio. And because everyone else has forgotten how dreary the world’s most famous board game is, and is too stuffed with turkey and trimmings to do anything else, we meekly acquiesce.

From the Roman and Celts marching along the ancient Old Kent Road, to the rattling newspaper presses of Fleet Street, the game of Monopoly has painted London's story across cheerful coloured tiles. But those Monopoly streets live and breathe – they open up whole new ways of thinking about our history.

I did enjoy it, once I adjusted my expectations from 'interesting fun, fact book with history' to 'history book'. I love reading about London and this is an engaging and fresh way to do so (especially if like me you were brought up in the Old Kent Road). In a city of rags and riches, where folk hero Dick Whittington believed the streets were paved with gold, anything could happen - and everything has.From the Roman and Celts marching along the ancient Old Kent Road, to the rattling newspaper presses of Fleet Street, the game of Monopoly has painted London’s story across cheerful coloured tiles. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. No Free Parking starts with a brief introduction to how the London Monopoly streets were most likely chosen, before tackling each street (and utilties and rail) one by one. All in all, a good and interesting book that I will be keeping on my shelf in case I need to refer back to it. As the government’s national archive for England, Wales and the United Kingdom, The National Archives hold over 1,000 years of the nation’s records for everyone to discover and use.