OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

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OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Steven »

A new sheet has been added today to the 1964 layer - Sheet 11 (North Midlands and Yorkshire) Revision B. Whilst I was looking at it, I noticed an issue with the tiling between Sheets 7 and 9 (Firth of Forth and NE England), so there's also a chunk of mapping that's now available between those two sheets.
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Steven »

And one to the 1963 layer today - the Wales and The Marches Special Sheet, revision B.

Hope people are enjoying these!
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Steven »

Two more sheets have now been added to the 1967 layer, completing everything in the map pipeline up to that date.

They are:

Sheet 12 (South Wales) Revision B
Sheet 13 (The Midlands) Revision B/*

There is quite a lot of new at Quarter Inch scale on there - A48(M) Port Talbot Bypass, the Severn Bridge, M6 south as far as just beyond J10, A46(M) and so on...

As a reminder, these are the maps currently available in the Quarter Inch Fifth Series from the 1960s. If you have any of the maps shown as "not currently available", please consider donating map scans so that everyone can enjoy more mapping.
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From the SABRE Wiki: SABRE Maps/Quarter Inch coverage project#Which maps are actually available.3F :

This SABRE Maps Coverage Project is to provide online coverage of various series of OS, OSI and OSNI maps at the Quarter Inch and 1:250,000 scales.

Within Ordnance Survey, Quarter Inch maps were generally considered to be motoring maps, and as such were the first "standard" series to include road numbers on them, starting in 1929 on the Third Edition (New Series) mapping. These were then replaced in the mid-1930s by the Fourth Edition, easily recognised by the very tall sheet

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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Steven »

A whole new annual layer has been added this morning, so we are proud to bring you the following from 1968:

* Sheet 6 (Firth of Clyde) Revision B/*
* Sheet 9 (North East England) Revision B/*/*
* Sheet 13 (The Midlands) Revision C
* Sheet 16 (Southern England) Revision B/*/*

I hope people enjoy them.
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Bryn666 »

Yay more maps. :D

Although it is easy to see why the Quarter Inch died out (metrication aside) in that style as red motorways are just lost amongst everything else.
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Chris Bertram »

Was the quarter-inch actually quarter-inch, or 1:250 000, like "two-and-a-half inch" was actually 1:25 000?
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Mattemotorway »

Bryn666 wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 13:27 Yay more maps. :D

Although it is easy to see why the Quarter Inch died out (metrication aside) in that style as red motorways are just lost amongst everything else.
Am I right in thinking that motorways went blue on the Quarter Inch around the same time as the 1:50000 maps first came out, before the Quarter Inch was replaced by the Routemaster series?
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Robert Kilcoyne »

Bryn666 wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 13:27 Although it is easy to see why the Quarter Inch died out (metrication aside) in that style as red motorways are just lost amongst everything else.
The OS mapping used for the earlier editions of the AA/Reader's Digest Book Of The Road also showed motorways in red. Johnston & Bacon used red for motorways in its detailed mapping until it was bought out by Bartholomew while Bartholomew used red/yellow for motorways in many atlases until the mid-1980's (although Barts did use blue for motorways in the atlases which it published for Hamlyn and for the GT maps).
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Steven »

Chris Bertram wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 16:38 Was the quarter-inch actually quarter-inch, or 1:250 000, like "two-and-a-half inch" was actually 1:25 000?
OS Quarter Inch

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Bryn666 wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 13:27
Although it is easy to see why the Quarter Inch died out (metrication aside) in that style as red motorways are just lost amongst everything else.
Well, they do turn blue later on in the Fifth Series (in about 1973 IIRC), which helps the clarity. You could say the same thing about One Inch maps of course, but they're saved by the different scale.
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From the SABRE Wiki: OS Quarter Inch :


The OS Quarter Inch maps series was a range of maps initially at a quarter inch to a mile scale (1:253,440) but metricised to 1:250,000 scale in 1957.

Third Series cover

Coverage of this mapping is available on SABRE Maps

The Third Edition was introduced in 1919, with a major revision to the mapping standards in 1926. The later revisions are often known as "A" or "New" Series, due to

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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Steven »

The continuing catch-up at Quarter Inch scale continues...

There's a new 1969 layer which includes the following:

* Sheet 11 (N Midlands and Yorkshire) Revision C/*
* Sheet 12 (South Wales) Revision B/*
* Sheet 15 (SW England) Revision B/*
* Sheet 12 (SE England) Revision B/*/*

Again there's quite a lot of new at this scale items - for example, plenty of M1 through Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, the appearance of M18, a chunk of under construction M62 in Lancashire, and the M1, M2 and M4 in the South East.
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Steven »

The 1970 layer has now been added, but unfortunately there is only a single map that is both not in copyright, and is available to use:

Sheet 13 (The Midlands) Revision C/*

There are a few obvious changes - the M6 is now open between J9 and J10, whilst the rest of the Midlands Links right across to the M1 is now shown as under construction, along with the A38(M) and a great chunk of the M5 south of M50.
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by SouthWest Philip »

Steven wrote: Tue Jan 22, 2019 21:16 The 1970 layer has now been added, but unfortunately there is only a single map that is both not in copyright, and is available to use:

Sheet 13 (The Midlands) Revision C/*
That map rather suggests the M5 had a temporary terminus at Bredon with the B4080. I'm guessing that's just a mapping error?
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Steven »

SouthWest Philip wrote: Tue Jan 22, 2019 21:28
Steven wrote: Tue Jan 22, 2019 21:16 Sheet 13 (The Midlands) Revision C/*
That map rather suggests the M5 had a temporary terminus at Bredon with the B4080. I'm guessing that's just a mapping error?
I'm not convinced that it is an error per se.

1. There's no junction symbol marked
2. If you look at the 1968 revision you can see something similar south of M6 J10 - the motorway extends south to the A4038, but no junction is shown in the same way.

Now, we know what is going on in the 1968 edition - OS mapping at all scales consistently shows the motorway construction continuing south of J10 to just north of A4038 (with no junction) rather than J10 being the usual kind of temporary terminus where the main carriageways just stop, most often before the first bridge of a standard roundabout interchange. Therefore the most likely answer is that the J11 - J10 construction contract actually ended at that point prior to the viaduct section south of the A4038.

I suspect the M5 at Bredon is probably something similar - an initial contract to make the needed changes to M5 J8 and the first stretch of M5 to the south which was simply completed at the time of the map, therefore as it existed (though was inaccessible) at the time, it's mapped but with no junction marked where there wasn't one.
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Chris Bertram »

Steven wrote: Wed Jan 23, 2019 08:37
SouthWest Philip wrote: Tue Jan 22, 2019 21:28
Steven wrote: Tue Jan 22, 2019 21:16 Sheet 13 (The Midlands) Revision C/*
That map rather suggests the M5 had a temporary terminus at Bredon with the B4080. I'm guessing that's just a mapping error?
I'm not convinced that it is an error per se.

1. There's no junction symbol marked
2. If you look at the 1968 revision you can see something similar south of M6 J10 - the motorway extends south to the A4038, but no junction is shown in the same way.

Now, we know what is going on in the 1968 edition - OS mapping at all scales consistently shows the motorway construction continuing south of J10 to just north of A4038 (with no junction) rather than J10 being the usual kind of temporary terminus where the main carriageways just stop, most often before the first bridge of a standard roundabout interchange. Therefore the most likely answer is that the J11 - J10 construction contract actually ended at that point prior to the viaduct section south of the A4038.

I suspect the M5 at Bredon is probably something similar - an initial contract to make the needed changes to M5 J8 and the first stretch of M5 to the south which was simply completed at the time of the map, therefore as it existed (though was inaccessible) at the time, it's mapped but with no junction marked where there wasn't one.
That sounds most likely. When M5 opened south of M50, it was at first to J10, A4019, with temporary arrangements to allow access to A4019 W/B as well as E/B, so traffic could reach A38 at Coombe Hill and continue as before towards Gloucester. When M5 was extended to Bristol, the junction then assumed its present form with access to Cheltenham from M5 to the north and the reverse only.
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Robert Kilcoyne »

If you look at the 1969 revision of Sheet 11 (N. Midlands and Yorkshire) you will see that although the M1 is shown as complete south of Junction 40 near Wakefield, it is only complete as far as the railway bridge near the River Calder and the M1 is shown only as under construction between the railway bridge and the A636.
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Andy P »

Robert Kilcoyne wrote: Wed Jan 23, 2019 11:50 If you look at the 1969 revision of Sheet 11 (N. Midlands and Yorkshire) you will see that although the M1 is shown as complete south of Junction 40 near Wakefield, it is only complete as far as the railway bridge near the River Calder and the M1 is shown only as under construction between the railway bridge and the A636.
I lived near Wakefield at the time.

My recollection is that the building of the M1 was completed to just south of the bridge over the A642, but it was certainly not open south of junction 40. There was definitely no temporary access to the A642 or any other road. I remember a friend telling me that he'd walked over fields to the unopened road and examined an emergency phone box.

It depends on mapping conventions, but my view is that it was incorrect to show the M1 as complete south of junction 40 in the 1969 revision.

This mapping practice may well explain the situation on the M5.
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Truvelo »

It must have been a standard mapping convention at the time to show motorways as complete to an inaccessible point. There's yet another one on the 1970 map at M5 J3. This and the M6 J10 example are impossible to access from street level due to the difference in elevation.
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Richard_Fairhurst »

OS is, of course, not solely or even primarily a provider of navigational maps for motorists. If the M5 viaduct over the River Avon was built at the time the map was printed, then it's right to show it on the map - boaters on the Avon deserve accurate maps too!

(OS's selection of navigable waterways as denoted by thick blue lines is definitely interesting for 1970... but that's another matter. Either they didn't have anyone on the staff with any subject knowledge or they simply hadn't thought to update it.)

That said, I do think the way that the casing runs into the B4080 is indeed a little misleading.
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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Steven »

The next batch were uploaded last night, from 1971, being the following:

* Sheet 3 (Northern Scotland) Revision B/*
* Sheet 4 (Western Highlands) Revision B/*
* Sheet 5 (Eastern Highlands) Revision B/*
* Sheet 6 (Firth of Clyde) Revision B/*/*
* Sheet 12 (South Wales) Revision B/*/*

Which basically covers the majority of mainland Scotland, and half of Wales.

I think my favourite little bit of the lot is the tiny bit of Glasgow Inner Ring Road shown, and the odd looking mapping associated with it.

As of this post, we only have two further out-of-copyright maps within the pipeline at Quarter Inch scale to go, so if you've enjoyed looking at the available mapping, please consider scanning any of the missing revisions that may be in your collection for use on SABRE Maps - it would be very much appreciated. Remember that it is quite possible to do on a domestic A4 scanner.

As a reminder, the current status of every sheet printed is available on the Roaders' Digest: The SABRE Wiki.
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From the SABRE Wiki: SABRE Maps/Quarter Inch coverage project#Which maps are actually available.3F :

This SABRE Maps Coverage Project is to provide online coverage of various series of OS, OSI and OSNI maps at the Quarter Inch and 1:250,000 scales.

Within Ordnance Survey, Quarter Inch maps were generally considered to be motoring maps, and as such were the first "standard" series to include road numbers on them, starting in 1929 on the Third Edition (New Series) mapping. These were then replaced in the mid-1930s by the Fourth Edition, easily recognised by the very tall sheet

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Re: OS Quarter Inch annual revisions

Post by Andy P »

I have an OS Quarter Inch map in my possession.

It is Sheet 11 England South and covers the area between Cardiff, Reading, Sidmouth & Portsmouth.

It is described as Third Edition (New Series) and has the following dates:
Published 1919
Minor corrections 1928
Railways inserted to 1925
Roads revised to September 1926

The main map does not include road numbers.

However (and very strangely in my view) the booklet includes town plans of Basingstoke, Andover, Reading and Newbury, dated 1933, and with road numbers.

This edition does not seem to fit with those listed in the SABRE wiki.

Would there be any interest if I were to scan this?
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