UK Street View Has Arrived
Wednesday, 18th March 2009 by Alex Turnbull
Yes people, it's finally here. UK Street View has arrived. We will update this post as news develops! UK news agencies looking for comment can get in touch via our contact form
Street View has arrived here in the UK at long last, and Google have given us imagery in many parts of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Additionally, Street View is now available in the Netherlands for the first time, and while they were at it, Google has added several new cities in France and Spain!
Coverage is extensive, and covers all of the UK's major cities. Both of the GSS HQs in Edinburgh and Oxford have coverage, and London has an absolutely staggering number of blue lined streets!
In Edinburgh the images appear to have been taken mainly during the Edinburgh Festival, which explains why there's lots of odd looking people around.1 You can see the seating for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo in place on the Castle Esplanade.
Here's London's seat of power, Downing Street, showing off their awesome security measures, which has been captured alongside all of the other standard tourist sights like the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.
In Belfast, it seems that the famous Northern Irish political murals aren't safe from Google's face-blurring software!
The Netherlands has also received a large helping of Street View today with coverage of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Here's the "Coffee Shop Extase" and Sex Museum:
Other reports are coming in of new Street View imagery in France (including Calais and Le Havre), Spain (including expanded coverage or Barcelona), Northern Italy, and expanded coverage in numerous US states.
Make sure to follow us on Twitter for the latest news, and new Street Views throughout the day.
Google Maps Mania has a good selection of London sights to see, but what else have you found?
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I actually spoke to this guy one day, but I haven't found myself... yet! ↩︎
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
Minor bit of film paraphernalia, not really worthy of any sort of secondary mention, but I like the quirky stuff:
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The ‘blue door’ from the Hugh Grant epic Notting Hill; not actually blue. Which instantly writes it off as being anything of worth. Maybe of more interest was that the house belonged to the writer Richard Curtis before he sold it, realising that he would not be left alone.
I can see my house from here…
It’s nothing short of surreal seeing your own house on streetview. very conflicted emotions needless to say.
Belfast in northern ireland is covered too.
heres one from the shankill road
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very surreal going around belfast – you really get a feel for how “loyalist” and “republican” areas are completely separated.
the “peace wall” is particularly weird – harks back to the Berlin Wall of Germany. yet its right there in a UK city!
Is this a backup Google street view car?
it’s in Edinbugh, near the Castle.
It also looks like they updated the US as well. Many places (well major roads) in southern New Jersey have Street View for the first time such as roads in Atlantic City, and Margate.
Heres something interesting in Atlantic City that I always get a laugh at.
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Western Virginia including Harrisonburg and Staunton also got updated, as well as the entire Blue Ridge Parkway. The I-40 corridor in Tennessee, pretty much the entire states of South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky are now in its entirety.
Ehm, the sexmuseum which you can see on the picture is really a sexmuseum. Many Dutch words are exactly the same in English.
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Wow.
TRUMPLE: What was there? Your link has been removed.
OK, not fair, Derby, Coventry, Nottingham – what have we poor Leicester folk done to deserve being the outcasts of the Midlands!?
Any info out there on when leicester was mapped for streetview ? Thanks.
Just a little bit of useful info. in reference to your “Leicester being mapped for Street View” comment.
If you go on to Google Earth, in the bottom left corner of the screen, you have options like “3D Buildings, Street View, Gallery” etc. Well, if you click on the “+” button in Gallery, it comes up with many options. When you tick the box “360Cities”, you get Street View, just from a different sort-of company. It’s fine, as if Google didn’t approve of it, they wouldn’t allow it on their software. When you are looking around Leicester, you will get red bubbles containing “360” and when you double-click on them, it will take you into a Street View mode, in good quality. There is about 10+ in Leicester. Hope this helped. (If you don’t have the “360Cites” option, try updating your Google Earth.)
Thats ok, but it’s not StreetView is it. When places like Arbroath have been done, I find it strange and insulting that Leicester have been left off.
M1 M69 & some of A46 have appeared recently. Hobby Horse down to near Bently garage. Still cack though, especially as Leicester has a lot to do with Google earth.
Why are other smaller non-touristy cities covered and Leicester is not ? We have more sites of interest and more visitors than some of the other cities that are covered. Strange…
My mate fixes traffic lights for a living and he saw the google van driving past the Fox Hunter roundabout towards Whetstone around June of last year I think. Look out for them as they simulated a carnal act when it drove by! The world is a big place and I imagine it’ll take a little time to map it all! Brighton, Hull, Southend are all important places and they’ve not got Street View yet…
They startet driving through Switzerland today and the first one was already spotted: http://www.20min.ch/digital/webpage/story/31799300
In Edinburgh, the google car was behind… another google car. View Placemark,,0,5
433 says: Thursday, 19th March 2009 at 3:04 pm
An almost naked woman clearly visible in the window without blurring with really, really big…
toes cough
Where?
Huh, now the Bobby Sands link has been removed. If you turn down the road, though, you can see an even better shot, with no image blur.
The Downing Street link doesn’t work any more, what was there exactly?
Road works in front on the giant steel gates with armed guards.
Like this, but with a couple of extra workies: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianapa/2219254359/
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a mural that’s near me also with blurry faces…
I notice certain roads in London have been left out due to certain circumstances, fo example, the bottom of Northborough road in Norbury clearly shows a Police car and something is clearly happening, the streetview car seem to have avoided that road completely.
Also to note, parts of Sicily have been given streetview too.