Early in the 20th century, London’s population grew so much that public transport had to expand, enabling thousands of people to go and live in the suburbs and commute into Central London for work. The Suburbia exhibition is packed with previously unseen posters, Londoners stories and memorabilia celebrating public transport’s contribution to the London suburbs.

Areas formerly outside London became more like London villages and new stations were built. Stunning posters were commissioned for the tube encouraging Londoners to move to the suburbs – work all day in the city, then escape and spend your leisure time in a heavenly paradise like Edgware or Morden.

The exhibition celebrates the great suburban pastime of gardening (hence the gnomes) and includes video clips of entertaining fictional suburbanites like Reggie Perrin and Margo Leadbetter.

The history of commuting is brought bang up to date with suburban inspired pop songs and a loving tribute to the iPod, a necessity for every commuter who needs to drown out the inane blather of the vacuous twit on the mobile phone.

If you know London well, you’ll love searching through the old sepia photos looking for pics of your local high street when it contained a horse and cart instead of a kebab shop!

The Suburbia exhibition is great fun and captures the spirit of the suburbs. Afterwards you can go and play on the old trains. Bliss. The exhibition runs till 31 March 2010.