Ministry of Transport Road Maps and NI Road Maps

[c2R]

Thanks again for these, Wolfie - I'm just looking through them now, they're great!

[Lonewolf]

Yeah cheers Its not difficult to do if a little time consuming.

[c2R]

Yeah cheers Its not difficult to do if a little time consuming.

You're not wrong - I did one in the past by my time is currently occupied in preparing the next big thing

[Chris5156]

Yeah cheers Its not difficult to do if a little time consuming.

It’s also a job not many people are willing to volunteer for (me included, to be honest) - so thank you for doing it. The results are brilliant, I’m just enjoying the Leeds area in 1924 and trying to spot some differences!

[Ross Spur]

Yeah cheers Its not difficult to do if a little time consuming.

Yes, great work. Thank you. They are gems for pinning down the 1920's network.

Here's a little change - the new B6423 at Worksop providing an west - east link which followed the opening of Memorial Avenue on 9 July 1928. See https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/ind ... 13&layer=5 although its number is not shown.

On the same Sheffield 1929-30 map the cartographer must have had a bad day for inking in A6102 Prince Of Wales Road, Sheffield Outer Ring Road at https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/ind ... 13&layer=5 !

[c2R]

On the same Sheffield 1929-30 map the cartographer must have had a bad day for inking in A6102 Prince Of Wales Road, Sheffield Outer Ring Road at https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/ind ... 13&layer=5 !

It's worth comparing that to the 1924 version: https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/ind ... 13&layer=2

[Steven]

On the same Sheffield 1929-30 map the cartographer must have had a bad day for inking in A6102 Prince Of Wales Road, Sheffield Outer Ring Road at https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/ind ... 13&layer=5 !

It looks very odd, but it's really common on MoT maps, where it's only the coloured overlays that are updated rather than the base map, which sometimes dated back to Victorian days.

It's why there are a number of examples where it looks like the person doing the colouring had been to the pub earlier that day, because the overlays included new short bypasses whereas the base maps didn't. There's a whole collection of them on this extract, with some short improvements all along the A63, the new section of A63 to South Cave, plus the bypass and bridge over the Ouse at Howden.

[c2R]

On the same Sheffield 1929-30 map the cartographer must have had a bad day for inking in A6102 Prince Of Wales Road, Sheffield Outer Ring Road at https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/ind ... 13&layer=5 !

It looks very odd, but it's really common on MoT maps, where it's only the coloured overlays that are updated rather than the base map, which sometimes dated back to Victorian days.

It's why there are a number of examples where it looks like the person doing the colouring had been to the pub earlier that day, because the overlays included new short bypasses whereas the base maps didn't. There's a whole collection of them on this extract, with some short improvements all along the A63, the new section of A63 to South Cave, plus the bypass and bridge over the Ouse at Howden.

The interesting thing about the Sheffield example is that the map background was updated to include a new estate in the later revision, but the red overlay wasn't updated. The even later map then shows the overlay still going through the estate.

[Ross Spur]

Also new on the Sheffield 1929-30 MoT map (since the 1924-25 edition) are:

South Anston Bypass https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/ind ... 13&layer=5
Ollerton Bypass https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/ind ... 13&layer=5

[Steven]

So, yeah, I might have messed something up slightly, but I've made up for it!

I entirely forgot that the 1930-31 revision of Sheet 8 (Lancaster, Southport and Preston) had also been scanned at the same time as the others, and so it got missed out in the recent update.

So...

[c2R]

So, yeah, I might have messed something up slightly, but I've made up for it!

I entirely forgot that the 1930-31 revision of Sheet 8 (Lancaster, Southport and Preston) had also been scanned at the same time as the others, and so it got missed out in the recent update.

So...

Lovely first appearance of the A5085 in Preston.

Edit - it's interesting that the B6242 wasn't downgraded when it opened...

[Mapper89062]

Not sure if anyone has noticed it before, but it seems that prior to the current B1353, there was very briefly an earlier incarnation of the number used in the same area for the originally unclassified western end of the A1094 from Farnham to Friston (both are shown as unclassified in 1922-23, then the Farnham to Friston road has become B1353 on the 1924-25 map, then the 1928-29 map has both the A1094 and B1353 on their present routes.)

This must be a very good example of the original intent of road classification being only for administrative purposes, as this reuse is not only one in the immediate area of the original but both roads are used on many of the same journeys!

[Steven]

Just a quick update (though there are a couple of new MoT maps in the pipeline).

The MoT Two Inch sheets of London are now on Sheetfinder so they're much easier for everyone to find them given that generally they're not exactly well-known.

[Steven]

Does anyone fancy some new MoT maps?

How about some of those super-rare later Scottish sheets? Two of these three new sheets had an original print run of 500 sheets; whilst the third had a run of a whole 700 sheets, almost 100 years ago. And to top it off, there's a single English sheet as well!



OS Ministry of Transport 1927-29
Sheet S27 (Lanark) 1927-28
Sheet S28 (N. Berwick and Kelso) 1927-28

OS Ministry of Transport 1929-32
Sheet 28 (Oxford and Swindon) 1930-31
Sheet S33 (Wigtown and Stranraer) 1930-31

[rileyrob]

Excellent, thank you.
I've had a quick look, and unfortunately there is nothing obviously new jumping out at me. I'll take a proper look when I've finished the Isle of Man though, and maybe we can find a hidden gem of information here and there!

[DavidB]

I think I might have found something of interest. For me the B4448 used to be a long-standing gap in my own pre-SABRE road lists and the mystery seemed to be solved when I saw it here as 'Link in Shillingford'. I worked out that it must be the short road between the A42 (as was) and the B4013 and indeed in this map the road is coloured green but not labelled. Surely this is enough to confirm its existence?

Not really! Further south there's a short road labelled B4448 in Wallingford. The Wiki entry is blank so that's no help. It can't be the B4447 or the B4449. Could the Shillingford link simply be a mistake on the map which somehow found its way into that Sandbox list?

[Vierwielen]

The MoT maps use the Cassini Grid rather than the OS grid which is hardly surprising since the Cassini Grid was only phased out in favour of the OS grid after WWII.

The big give-away as to which system is being used is to look at Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour. The 2 degree West line passes through the island. This is also the principal N-S line used for the OS grid. If you are looking at a map that uses the Cassini system (which also used a kilometre-based system), then no principal N-S grid lines pass through Browsea Island.

[Steven]

The MoT maps use the Cassini Grid rather than the OS grid which is hardly surprising since the Cassini Grid was only phased out in favour of the OS grid after WWII.

The big give-away as to which system is being used is to look at Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour. The 2 degree West line passes through the island. This is also the principal N-S line used for the OS grid. If you are looking at a map that uses the Cassini system (which also used a kilometre-based system), then no principal N-S grid lines pass through Browsea Island.

Actually, that's not true, sorry - and I think this assertion is based around a misunderstanding of number of similarly named items.

The Cassini Grid (or War Office Grid) is the purple kilometre-based grid used exclusively for military mapping, though as you say it was phased out eventually after WW2 once the OS National Grid moved from a yard base to a metre base - there's examples of post-war New Popular Edition maps with the War Office Grid overprinted. It was never used for civilian mapping. It was based on a Cassini projection with the origin being Dunnose on the Isle of Wight, and almost no OS sheets, not even War Edition One Inch sheets have their sheetlines based upon the War Office Grid.

The England and Wales MoT maps are based on the civilian Half Inch Large Sheet series, which whilst it's also a Cassini projection, has its origin at Delamere in Cheshire; and all its measurements, including its sheetlines, are entirely Imperially sized. For example, Sheet 38 (which contains Brownsea Island) has its top left corner at 26.30114 E and 142.73106 S; and its bottom right corner at 80.30114 E and 183.73106 S; measured in miles from Delamere.

Meanwhile, the Scottish MoT maps aren't based on a Cassini projection at all, but on a Bonne's projection with its origin "in the middle of nowhere" (thanks Ritchie!) east of Inverness.

The two Cassini projections are set skew to one another, as can be seen when looking at a Popular Edition-based map with the purple grid overprinted. The gridlines on an MoT map are also just two-inch squares, with an exception for one column being only one inch wide because, well, that's how wide the maps are.

There's a shed load of information about this stuff on the SABRE Wiki for anyone who's interested in the ins and outs of how this stuff all works - for example, the sheetlines of MoT maps are on OS Ministry of Transport Road Map, and more general projection information is in SABRE Maps/Calibrating, underneath the useful stuff about how to actually do it!

And then of course, there's also the little-known SABRE Maps Co-ordinate Finder which converts all manner of co-ordinate and reference systems used on these islands together in an easy to view format.

[vlad]

I think I might have found something of interest. For me the B4448 used to be a long-standing gap in my own pre-SABRE road lists and the mystery seemed to be solved when I saw it here as 'Link in Shillingford'. I worked out that it must be the short road between the A42 (as was) and the B4013 and indeed in this map the road is coloured green but not labelled. Surely this is enough to confirm its existence?

Not really! Further south there's a short road labelled B4448 in Wallingford. The Wiki entry is blank so that's no help. It can't be the B4447 or the B4449. Could the Shillingford link simply be a mistake on the map which somehow found its way into that Sandbox list?

If the B4448 in Wallingford is genuine (and there's no obvious reason why it shouldn't be) then it didn't last very long. Later maps seem to show it as unclassified again!