Insurance records reveal the lost landmarks of the London Marathon Aviva has mined more than three centuries of its own records to retrace the London Marathon route, pinpointing the properties, trades and personalities its insurance policies once protected along the 26.2-mile course. The British insurer, whose roots stretch back to 1696, said the archive reveals how Londoners lived, worked and safeguarded their assets over the centuries, with some client relationships running for more than 300 years. Much of that paper trail sits inside the Aviva Group Archive, regarded in the industry as the UK’s most significant insurance collection. A long-running digitisation project has so far captured around 550,000 Hand in Hand fire policy entries dating from 1697 to the mid-19th century. Near the Greenwich Park start line, Ranger’s House, now familiar to television audiences as the fictional Bridgerton family home, was insured for £4,000 in 1740 by MP John Stanhope. Figures from the Bank of England’s inflation calculator place that cover at well over £1 million in today’s money. Close by once stood Montagu House, a royal residence insured by the Duke of Montagu in 1749 and demolished in 1815. At mile four, the course skirts Westcombe Park, former home of Georgian actress Lavinia Fenton, who took out a £4,000 policy with Hand in Hand Fire & Life Insurance Society in 1755. Best known as Polly Peachum in The Beggar’s Opera, she later married the 3rd Duke of Bolton. The Thames-side stretch around mile six captures 18th-century trades from bakers to rope makers, while a 1754 policy on The Ferry House pub on the Isle of Dogs survives in the files at mile 16. At mile 23, an 18th-century document records The London Coal Exchange insured for £4,000. The course finishes beside Buckingham Palace.
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