John Ogilby's Britannia, 1675

[M4 Cardiff]

Not sure whether this has been posted here before, but I found these maps on Reddit, from what looks like the early Coaching era. Link https://www.fulltable.com/vts/m/map/ogilby/mna.htm . It will be interesting comparing the routes then to the routes we now know as major routes. They are presented as route strip maps, rather than as an atlas.

[lefthandedspanner]

Interesting reading for sure. Had a look at the first one (London-Aberystwyth); as you might expect it's mostly current and former A40 and A44, though there are some significant deviations onto what are now B roads, particularly the section between Leominster and Rhayader.

Also of note is how the through route around Oxford is some way to the north of the city, along the B4027, rather than through the centre (as it is in other cases.) Maybe it had traffic problems even 350 years ago.

[KeithW]

Interesting reading for sure. Had a look at the first one (London-Aberystwyth); as you might expect it's mostly current and former A40 and A44, though there are some significant deviations onto what are now B roads, particularly the section between Leominster and Rhayader.

Also of note is how the through route around Oxford is some way to the north of the city, along the B4027, rather than through the centre (as it is in other cases.) Maybe it had traffic problems even 350 years ago.

Ogilby was presumably selecting the most direct route suitable for a large number of men. The job of the Royal Cartographer was to find the best roads to march an army along and tramping through Oxford with thousands of men and a large baggage train would not have been an attractive proposition. Additionally foraging would have been much easier in the country.

PS I note that the road passes through stretches marked 'Arable' or 'Pasture' which rather reinforces this possibilty.

[jgharston]

Not sure whether this has been posted here before, but I found these maps on Reddit, from what looks like the early Coaching era. Link https://www.fulltable.com/vts/m/map/ogilby/mna.htm . It will be interesting comparing the routes then to the routes we now know as major routes. They are presented as route strip maps, rather than as an atlas.

Interesting route from York to Whitby (plate 100). It goes the expected route via the A169 through Pickering, but north of Saltersgate somehow then approaches via the B1416 through Sneaton and Ruswarp. Must be going over Sneaton High Moor somehow, but all the tracks there run northwest-southeast, not the required southwest-northeast.

[KeithW]

Interesting route from York to Whitby (plate 100). It goes the expected route via the A169 through Pickering, but north of Saltersgate somehow then approaches via the B1416 through Sneaton and Ruswarp. Must be going over Sneaton High Moor somehow, but all the tracks there run northwest-southeast, not the required southwest-northeast.

Ii is a bit odd. I would have expected him to follow what is now the B1410 from Sleights to Ruswarp. However a little digging through parish records showed that Sleights was just a hamlet until the 1830's when Ironstone mining started . At the time of his survey there was no bridge there. Littlebeck however was a centre of Alum production in the 1650's so it looks as if he took the road through Littlebeck and then Little Beck Bank to the north east to pick up the B1416 to Sneaton and then Ruswarp. If you look at the OS Map of the area it is littered with old industrial workings.

http://www.eskdaleside-cum-ugglebarnby- ... php?id=170
https://www.teeswildlife.org/what-we-do ... lum-works/
http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=1455842

[jedikiah]

Leicester on plate 40 is quite interesting as it has a light brown stub crossing the Soar at North Gate that peters out. That was the former main way out of Leicester to Loughborough, superseded already as shown here by Belgrave Gate and the East Gate. The approach from the south is also clearly the A6 rather than the Welford Road as it had been earlier. Not enough scale to judge though what the route was through Leicester itself.

[Paul7755]

Were these the primary routes of the day then? Maybe they should have used green mileposts.

Not much at all in the far north though, ie beyond Newcastle...

Paul

[KeithW]

Were these the primary routes of the day then? Maybe they should have used green mileposts.

Not much at all in the far north though, ie beyond Newcastle...

Paul

His task was a survey of the principal English roads and he covers the routes to Berwick (plate 9) in the East and Carlisle in the West, as well as the Border road from Carlisle to Jedburgh, Kelso and Berwick. There really was not that much more except what is now the A68. I suspect at the height of the little ice age it was not exactly a popular route. Travellers of the day usually went via the Newcastle to Berwick and Carlisle to Glasgow. Places such as Carter Bar had been the heart of the 'Debatable Lands' and still had an unsavoury reputation left over from the days of the Border Reivers. As late as 1712 special powers were provided to government troops "for preventing theft and rapine upon the northern borders of England". It continued to be a troubled area until the Act of Union when the Parliaments of England and Scotland were combined.

[Paul7755]

His task was a survey of the principal English roads and he covers the routes to Berwick (plate 9) in the East and Carlisle in the West, as well as the Border road from Carlisle to Jedburgh, Kelso and Berwick. There really was not that much more except what is now the A68. I suspect at the height of the little ice age it was not exactly a popular route. Travellers of the day usually went via the Newcastle to Berwick and Carlisle to Glasgow. Places such as Carter Bar had been the heart of the 'Debatable Lands' and still had an unsavoury reputation left over from the days of the Border Reivers. As late as 1712 special powers were provided to government troops "for preventing theft and rapine upon the northern borders of England". It continued to be a troubled area until the Act of Union when the Parliaments of England and Scotland were combined.

Can’t see for looking. I reckon I missed that simply because it was spelled “Barwick”.

Paul

[KeithW]

Can’t see for looking. I reckon I missed that simply because it was spelled “Barwick”.

Paul

Spelling was not standardised until the 18th century most notably with Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1755.

[jgharston]

Interesting route from York to Whitby (plate 100). It goes the expected route via the A169 through Pickering, but north of Saltersgate somehow then approaches via the B1416 through Sneaton and Ruswarp.

... so it looks as if he took the road through Littlebeck and then Little Beck Bank to the north east to pick up the B1416 to Sneaton and then Ruswarp. If you look at the OS Map of the area it is littered with old industrial workings.

Yes, I was showing some visitors from Alaska around a couple of weeks ago and suddenly realised that Whinstone Ridge used to be mine workings, and had a railway line running along it connecting to Goathland.

The problem I got was Ogilby seems to suggest Sneaton Low Moor to the B1416 200-degree corner, not the dogleg through Littlebeck (and it would be an easier horse'n'cart, marching men route) - but I can't find any evidence of routes going south-west from there to get to Eller Beck/Saltersgate area. Though there is York Cross on Whinestonre Ridge which could well be a route marker for the York Road.

[jgharston]

ooo, ooo!

The 1853 6" map has "Old Post Road" running across Whinstone Ride near York Cross, so that must be it. No sign of it today on the ground, though maybe drought-ridden aerial photos may show something.

Route seems to be: A169 to Eller Beck Bridge, north past the first Goathland turnoff, then at the top of Widow Howe Rigg a 90degree fork to the right along a track that is still there, that then turns north-east over the moors as a bridleway, to Foster Howes, thence to Falling Foss with no visible evidence on the ground, and thence to Haxby Corner, but the "8 o'clock" junction not the "6 o'clock" junction.

Edit: and the 1894 has no road marked, but has more than 60 spot heights along the likely route, suggesting there was some form of navigable route.

[KeithW]

ooo, ooo!

The 1853 6" map has "Old Post Road" running across Whinstone Ride near York Cross, so that must be it. No sign of it today on the ground, though maybe drought-ridden aerial photos may show something.

Route seems to be: A169 to Eller Beck Bridge, north past the first Goathland turnoff, then at the top of Widow Howe Rigg a 90degree fork to the right along a track that is still there, that then turns north-east over the moors as a bridleway, to Foster Howes, thence to Falling Foss with no visible evidence on the ground, and thence to Haxby Corner, but the "8 o'clock" junction not the "6 o'clock" junction.

Edit: and the 1894 has no road marked, but has more than 60 spot heights along the likely route, suggesting there was some form of navigable route.

From the Historic England web site

Details
SNEATON WHINSTONE RIDGE NZ 80 SE 878015 9/170 York Cross, also known as Jack Cross - II Waymarker cross. Medieval. Sandstone socket with gritstone shaft. Hollow square socket stone supporting broken cross shaft, approximately 1 metre high, inscribed: JACK over a form of Maltese cross. OSBM on socket. Cross was a waymarker on the medieval Abbey road from Whitby to Pickering, via Falling Foss and Ellerbeck. T H Woodwark, The Crosses on the North York Moors, pp.11, 19.

Listing NGR: NZ8785901525

Selected Sources
Books and journals
Woodwark, T H, The Crosses of the North York Moors11,19

[ajuk]

Has anyone ever put his routes as lines onto modern maps?

[c2R]

Has anyone ever put his routes as lines onto modern maps?

What do you mean, as traces, or deforming the strips using photoshop or similar and georeferencing the resultant images? Either would be interesting projects using different skillsets...

[Marzo]

I'd use ESRI ArcMap rather than Photoshop - infinitely flexible (and great fun). Unfortunately I don't have access to it any more.

[ajuk]

Has anyone ever put his routes as lines onto modern maps?

What do you mean, as traces, or deforming the strips using photoshop or similar and georeferencing the resultant images? Either would be interesting projects using different skillsets...

I mean putting black lines on maps along what roads the routes follows today and as much as possible estimating where the route was where no modern route exists, although I doubt there will be many parts of the route that have been completely abandoned, at least not prior to the first ordinance survey map, so you might need to reference that for some of the road, for example, parts of the old A420 have been obliterated in Swindon (I'm not sure if that is part of the Ogilby route from Bristol to Oxford) but there are plenty of old maps that show you the route.

[Viator]

For many years I've owned a (rather small-scale, and not all that sharp) facsimile reproduction of Ogilby's Britannia -- I claim it to be the oldest set of maps ever brought to a SABRE Awayday! (Wolverhampton in pre-"Great Western" days, if I remember correctly). So, of course, I've spent many, many hours happily attempting to trace the routes of his roads on modern maps. And when I say "trace", I do mean of the kind that involves the use of old-fashioned tracing-paper, pencils, and a lot of rubbing out; I've never claimed to be much of a dab hand at digital image manipulation and all that jazz.

The only attempt that I know of to make a detailed plot of these roads on 20th-century maps nationally is A Map of XVII Century England (Ordnance Survey, Southampton, 1930), which depicts the roads mapped by Ogilby with each referenced by its plate number.

That information comes from a paper entitled Identifying the Trunk Roads of Early Modern England and Wales, which I can heartily recommend to Cosabristi with an interest in this topic. It goes into considerable detail concerning Ogilby's work and includes a GIS map of his "network" as a whole.

By the way, I don't think these routes were surveyed (on foot, by men pushing measuring-wheels and taking notes) in conjunction with the movement of armies, as conjectured earlier in this thread. I believe they were rather the main posting and commercial routes of the day as used by wagon and coach traffic. Ogilby himself claimed that they were "the most considerable roads", but with the addition, he added, of "such [others] that an orderly distribution of the kingdom has obliged us to exhibit"; in other words, a number of them were included not because they were themselves heavily trafficked but simply to ensure that most of the territory of the kingdom received at least some coverage. Not so very different from the criteria used in the definition of modern-day "national networks"!

[c2R]

Has anyone ever put his routes as lines onto modern maps?

What do you mean, as traces, or deforming the strips using photoshop or similar and georeferencing the resultant images? Either would be interesting projects using different skillsets...

I mean putting black lines on maps along what roads the routes follows today and as much as possible estimating where the route was where no modern route exists, although I doubt there will be many parts of the route that have been completely abandoned, at least not prior to the first ordinance survey map, so you might need to reference that for some of the road, for example, parts of the old A420 have been obliterated in Swindon (I'm not sure if that is part of the Ogilby route from Bristol to Oxford) but there are plenty of old maps that show you the route.

We've certainly got the ability to do this, as seen with our 1922/3 trace list: https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/ind ... ute_Traces - although we haven't got Ogilby's traces themselves.

[ajuk]

What do you mean, as traces, or deforming the strips using photoshop or similar and georeferencing the resultant images? Either would be interesting projects using different skillsets...

I mean putting black lines on maps along what roads the routes follows today and as much as possible estimating where the route was where no modern route exists, although I doubt there will be many parts of the route that have been completely abandoned, at least not prior to the first ordinance survey map, so you might need to reference that for some of the road, for example, parts of the old A420 have been obliterated in Swindon (I'm not sure if that is part of the Ogilby route from Bristol to Oxford) but there are plenty of old maps that show you the route.

We've certainly got the ability to do this, as seen with our 1922/3 trace list: https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/ind ... ute_Traces - although we haven't got Ogilby's traces themselves.

I suppose a lot of it would need to be extrapolating from his map the roads we think it would have followed, it may not be all be correct, something like this already exists for the roman roads on Google Earth. Some are obvious like the Fosse Way, whereas some fade in and out, there can be little to no evidence of there ever having been a road along the line of it and not even any crop marks, the look like someone could have made them up.