I don't use maps for any practical purpose very often. I may quickly glance at one the night before I set off for an unknown destination, but once in the car I switch on SatNav.
I have a few Ordnance Survey maps which are completely out of date - 1930s, 40s and 50's - and I love looking at topographical features which may have been scarred by new roads and developments shown on an up to date version of the same area. The one in the previous post dates from 1940.
I have a fairly modern one of my immediate surroundings though, because - in the unlikely event that I go out in the field - it is good to know how to get there in the 21st century.
My feet hurt and I am scared of cows, but I can traverse square miles with ease with an old map. I get a thrill of excitement when I spot a series of black radial lines with the word, tumulus written in a classic font beside them.
The circular layout of places like Upton Scudamore are easily recognised in a one inch to one mile layout, and you can easily spot the logic of a town's modern street plan if you consult an old map such as the one above.
I can see the trig-point of Solsbury Hill from our kitchen window - a tiny pimple in silhouette, framed by a handful of hawthorn bushes that will soon pretend to be white with frost.
I had a set of mapping pens once. I didn't use them in the same way as I don't use the maps that they created. Nibs so fine that they were half the width of a human hair. The people that did use them went into the fields and used the trig-points so that I could become absorbed in thought from the comfort of my own home.
O.S. maps have to tell the plain truth. Artillery batteries depended on them.
Another couple of months here before the hawthorne pretends to be frost.
ReplyDeleteI think we are going to be very early this year.
DeleteMaps are fascinating! I love them..and to see how places changed as they were mapped over the years...
ReplyDeleteLike the old man who says 'I can remember when this was all fields...'
DeleteLook at the area between Southampton and Portsmouth on a late 1940s map....glasshouses and horticulture....food production...now it is houses and the M27....
DeleteIt made me smile broadly to think of you seeing layouts as one inch to one mile. Years ago, on family vacations including my brother and his family and me and my family, we would play a game of How far to that underpass? He always won. I asked him why he always won and he said an inch to the mile. It may still be so. I guess you are still miles to go, too, not meters.
ReplyDeleteThey tried to force metres on us but we still drink pints in pubs and litres of milk. Like everything else here, it's half-hearted. Did your brother consult maps or were you in a car?
DeleteI can sit don with one of my many Ordnance Survey maps (when we caravanned I would always buy ones of the area) and read them like a book. I am so fascinated that an hour can easily pass.
ReplyDeleteThey are far more enlightening than a sat-nav as you can see all around the area you are in, not just where you want to get to. How can you, with a sat-nav think, "that looks interesting 10 miles over there, let's go and take a look".
A very cosy recreation.
DeleteI plan journeys using OS maps as I haven't got a satnav. I write the route out very simply in big letters with a felt tip pen and keep it beside me on the passengers seat of the car for reference.
ReplyDeleteI used to do just that for years.
DeleteIt is easy to gaze and get lost in a map. When traveling, I like to consult my map. Ultimately, I use the GPS because maps are rarely up-to-date.
ReplyDeleteSatNav is linear. With maps you can wander off.
DeleteI loved to study maps and as you say a tumulus would lead to speculation. Satnav is not necessarily always right. Yesterday we saw a sign warning you not to go up a driveway the satnav had got it wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe early ones sent you over cliffs. Darwin theory in practice.
DeleteThe map above your post is one I can understand well.
ReplyDeleteNormal maps - and I talked with many women who have the same problem - lead us always (!) in the wrong direction (if one is not so sophisticated as my friend Christine, who walks with the help of cardinal direction) - yet when we put the map on the head it works wonders.
You have to hold maps the right way up - North - but have to be prepared to hold them the wrong way up too.
DeleteAch so, das wusste ich wirklich nicht!
DeleteSo I learned something, thank you - and will use the compass of my cellphone to find my North-star - and maybe I can then rely on a map (till today I followed my inner compass - and believe it or not: it works fine!)