Whenever I drive in France, I use a trusty Michelin atlas which shows all number of 'scenic' routes by highlighting road edges in green. It means that even on a relatively short journey, it's sometimes worth taking a slightly longer route because you can be sure of a more attractive journey.
I've never found anything to match the completeness of the Michelin approach when looking at UK road atlases.
Does such an atlas exist that shows a broad range of 'attractive diversions'?
And if not, why not?

I've got a Michelin atlas of the UK and Ireland, dating from the early to mid-90s, that does the same thing. It also distinguishes between high-quality and lower-quality dual carriageways. Seeing the UK mapped in "Continental" style gives a different perspective.

A quick web search suggests it's no longer produced - I've certainly not seen one recently.

I think I got it as a free gift for taking out a year's subscription to Top Gear magazine.

The UK Michelin Atlas for 2012 seems to use A to Z mapping; I bought one as a way of getting A to Z mapping in a useful sized format. It is probably not worth their effort to produce their own mapping for the UK when sales are relatively low.

Tony

This prompts the question and I'm sure a debate: What would we in Sabre include in a map if we were producing it? Further as we have the wiki, is it something (a list) we should create for reference?

Some would broker no argument I feel. To start:

A87 Glen Shiel
A82 Glen Coe

One of my own choosing:

B3306 St Ives to St Just

Noticed that - disappointing.

I know the AA atlases now include a similar attempt at showing scenic routes, using the same technique of highlighting the edge of the road in green, but I don't know how it compares to Michelin's previous efforts.

I have an AA atlas from a few years ago. It include scenic mapping for Ireland but not GB which I find odd.

As I feared - maybe that's a SABRE project for the future!

Certainly AA atlases do highlight A- and B-roads with a green line to indicate that they're scenic. Apparently there aren't any scenic motorways.

Of course, whether a road is scenic or not depends on the opinion of the cartographer - I've had several disagreements with an atlas as I don't think the beauty of a road has been appropriately labelled....

The M4 and M48 Severn Bridges are marked as scenic!

I just dug this out - dated 1994. A nice atlas, 1:300 000, scale, covering the whole of Ireland as well, and including a lot of detailed town plans and enlargements of urban areas.

There's a bit of scenic route marked on the M74 near Crawford, but nothing on the M6 through Lunesdale and over Shap which arguably is considerably more scenic. The A74 (as was) is shown as scenic pretty much all the way down to Lockerbie.

Most of the well-known roads in the Peak District are marked as well, including the A626 between Marple and Dinting, a fair bit of which is actually built up. I suppose it's inevitable the selection of scenic roads will seem a little arbitrary. I find it surprising, for example, that none of the B-roads radiating south and west from Bridgnorth and Much Wenlock through the Shropshire Hills are marked in green.