New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

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M1keA
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New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by M1keA »

Hi all

Firstly I'm not sure if this is the best place for this post so do please move if required :) Secondly, apologies for the size of this 1st post!

I've been perusing the maps for a while and have found anumber of forum topics on specific roads that I can hopefully offer some comments on though some of the threads are quite old.

I'm in mid Sussex and my explicit road interests are;

1) The turnpikes and their history
2) Trying to get a better understanding of the early/mid 20th C OS map series

I've been researching the military units deployed in (mid) Sussex in the summer of 1940 and a number of the war diaries reference sheets 124, 125, 133 and 134. Another mentions 1" OS map sheet 113. They've quoted Cassini MRs for locations but I get a sense they're not using RE Field Survery unit produced maps in this period.

Could someone give me some pointers to likely series/editions/maps? Also do please let me know if you've an interest in this period / area.

TIA

Mike
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Steven
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by Steven »

Hi Mike, and welcome to SABRE!
M1keA wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 15:08 I've been researching the military units deployed in (mid) Sussex in the summer of 1940 and a number of the war diaries reference sheets 124, 125, 133 and 134. Another mentions 1" OS map sheet 113. They've quoted Cassini MRs for locations but I get a sense they're not using RE Field Survery unit produced maps in this period.
They'll be talking about OS One Inch War Edition maps, which are basically Tesco Value OS Popular Editions.

If you take a look at the SABRE Maps Co-ordinate Finder (https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/finder/), that will assist with your questions. If you click on the diamond-shaped menu top right, then you can select outlines of various OS (GB), OSI and OSNI sheet series, including the Popular Edition of England and Wales. If you tick that box, you'll see that the four map sheets you mention just happen to be the ones that cover the vast majority of Sussex; whilst 113 is Reading/Newbury/Basingstoke area.

You can also see that on there is a whole bunch of modern and archaic co-ordinate and projection systems at the bottom left which update to show the mouse cursor location - if you're looking for WW2 military locations from their War Office Grid co-ordinates, then the set you need are the Cassini (War Office), which are has a true origin at Dunnose on the Isle of Wight. However, the original Popular Edition maps are Cassini (Delamere) maps, and so that's why the grid squares on War Edition maps are skew to the map itself.


As for Turnpikes, we have some outline information on the Digest (the SABRE Wiki), but not a huge amount for Sussex.
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KeithW
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by KeithW »

M1keA wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 15:08 Hi all

Firstly I'm not sure if this is the best place for this post so do please move if required :) Secondly, apologies for the size of this 1st post!

I've been perusing the maps for a while and have found anumber of forum topics on specific roads that I can hopefully offer some comments on though some of the threads are quite old.

I'm in mid Sussex and my explicit road interests are;

1) The turnpikes and their history
2) Trying to get a better understanding of the early/mid 20th C OS map series

I've been researching the military units deployed in (mid) Sussex in the summer of 1940 and a number of the war diaries reference sheets 124, 125, 133 and 134. Another mentions 1" OS map sheet 113. They've quoted Cassini MRs for locations but I get a sense they're not using RE Field Survery unit produced maps in this period.

Could someone give me some pointers to likely series/editions/maps? Also do please let me know if you've an interest in this period / area.

TIA

Mike
For turnpike roads see
http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/
Sussex map here.
http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/map%20Susse ... npikes.jpg

There is a decent selection of Ordnance survey maps in Sabre Maps but there is more on the National Library of Scotland site
Military maps here - mostly Scotland but some from France and Belgium
https://maps.nls.uk/military/
https://maps.nls.uk/military/20th-century/index.html

On the internet archive there are some interesting military maps of the UK produced by the Germans in WW2 - lots of photos too
https://archive.org/search.php?query=Br ... ary%20Maps

Aerial view of Grimsby
https://archive.org/details/dr_view-155 ... 14-7808233

They had Dover nicely mapped and snapped
https://archive.org/search.php?query=Br ... ps%20Dover
This is unusual as its shows the conveyors for the old Shakespeare Cliff colliery which closed in 1909 and was demolished in 1918
https://archive.org/details/dr_view-dover-7810655


Ordnance Survey Maps for Scotland plus England and Wales with dates and series
https://maps.nls.uk/series/

and War Office Maps of Scotland
Individual Sheets
https://maps.nls.uk/os/25k-gb-1940-43/

On a zoomable modern base
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=6 ... rs=195&b=1
Last edited by KeithW on Tue Aug 16, 2022 17:02, edited 1 time in total.
M1keA
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by M1keA »

Steven wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 16:17 Hi Mike, and welcome to SABRE!

They'll be talking about OS One Inch War Edition maps, which are basically Tesco Value OS Popular Editions.

If you take a look at the SABRE Maps Co-ordinate Finder (https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/finder/), that will assist with your questions. If you click on the diamond-shaped menu top right, then you can select outlines of various OS (GB), OSI and OSNI sheet series, including the Popular Edition of England and Wales. If you tick that box, you'll see that the four map sheets you mention just happen to be the ones that cover the vast majority of Sussex; whilst 113 is Reading/Newbury/Basingstoke area.

As for Turnpikes, we have some outline information on the Digest (the SABRE Wiki), but not a huge amount for Sussex.
Hi and thanks very much Steven.

I'm probably being stupid but that finder shows you the sheet outlines, but doesn't take you to the maps? So for example comparing to https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/, The 1" New Popular edition shows the Crawley bypass but the 1937 1" doesn't and neither of them appear to reference what should be map sheet 125? - This will be my lack of familiarity with the site but I'm clearly missing something here?

Do like your Cassini converter :thumbsup: which is much easier than feeding refs through http://www.echodelta.net/mbs/eng-translation.php and https://www.fieldenmaps.info/cconv/cconv_gb.html though the accuracy of the original wartime refs leaves something to be desired!
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Sabre 1 inch New Popular Edition.JPG
Sabre 1937 1 inch.JPG
M1keA
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by M1keA »

KeithW wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 16:56
For turnpike roads see
http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/
Sussex map here.
http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/map%20Susse ... npikes.jpg

There is a decent selection of Ordnance survey maps in Sabre Maps but there is more on the National Library of Scotland site
Military maps here - mostly Scotland but some from France and Belgium

On the internet archive there are some interesting military maps of the UK produced by the Germans in WW2 - lots of photos too
https://archive.org/search.php?query=Br ... ary%20Maps
Thanks Keith :)

Dr Brian Austin has done fantastic work on the Turnpikes + lots of other items with Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society but I've yet to find a decent site providing zoomable maps with a comprehensive key and chronology. An interactive version of that .jpg would be perfect!

And NLS has been my goto site for a long time but unfortunately there's gaps in the coverage pre 1874 and the mid century 1:1,250 / 2,500
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Steven
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by Steven »

KeithW wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 16:56 There is a decent selection of Ordnance survey maps in Sabre Maps but there is more on the National Library of Scotland site
Actually, they don't have as many georeferenced maps at the roads-relevant scales as we do, but they do have the funding and resources to be able to do a lot more with the large scale maps than we ever could, short of a lottery winner funding us!
M1keA wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 17:01 I'm probably being stupid but that finder shows you the sheet outlines, but doesn't take you to the maps? So for example comparing to https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/, The 1" New Popular edition shows the Crawley bypass but the 1937 1" doesn't and neither of them appear to reference what should be map sheet 125? - This will be my lack of familiarity with the site but I'm clearly missing something here?
No, you're not being stupid at all - what you're looking at is the Co-ordinate Finder, which is simply designed to work out where various references are in relation to both present day locations and historic map sheet boundaries. Its original purpose was to help georeference mapping without clear printed co-ordinates, and it's grown out from there.

If you're looking for the exact sheets we currently have available for a location, you need the Sheetfinder (https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/sheetfinder/).

But what might also help answer your question is that there's also annotations at the top of SABRE Maps itself, between the top blue bar and the six yellow lozenges that include "Enable Markers", "Clear Markers", "Map Fader" and so on. They'll tell you exactly which sheet you're looking at for the annual layers at least.

And the reason that neither of those map layers reference Popular Edition of England and Wales sheet 125 is because, well, neither of the sheets you're looking at are from the Popular Edition! The 1937 sheet is from the OS One Inch Fifth Edition (the Popular Edition's intended replacement), and the New Popular sheets are from the post-war OS One Inch New Popular Edition - and the various map series all have different sheetlines (coverage areas), and hence different sheet numbers. For example, the Houses of Parliament in Westminster are on Popular Edition (E&W) Sheet 115, Fifth Edition Sheets 107, 114 and 115, New Popular Edition Sheet 170, Seventh Series Sheet 170 and Landranger Sheets 176 and 177.

We don't have a huge amount of Popular Edition coverage at the moment - and it's mostly of the Scottish Popular from the post-WW2 period. It's all in the pipeline to get there, but there's only so much resource we have available unfortunately
M1keA wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 17:01 Do like your Cassini converter :thumbsup: which is much easier than feeding refs through http://www.echodelta.net/mbs/eng-translation.php and https://www.fieldenmaps.info/cconv/cconv_gb.html though the accuracy of the original wartime refs leaves something to be desired!
Glad you like it! It makes use of the conversion routines originally written by Ed Fielden (which he's kindly released for people to use), but presents it in a completely different manner; and adds a few bits and bobs - for example, W3W.
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by Steven »

M1keA wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 17:14 Dr Brian Austin has done fantastic work on the Turnpikes + lots of other items with Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society but I've yet to find a decent site providing zoomable maps with a comprehensive key and chronology. An interactive version of that .jpg would be perfect!
Well, now that you mention it...

The Digest (SABRE Wiki) and SABRE Maps are designed to be used together to illustrate and describe routes on various base mapping - it would just need someone to actually put the information in place in a similar manner to how some of the Roman Roads have been done, like Watling Street for example.
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From the SABRE Wiki: Watling Street :

Watling Street (RM1) was the main Roman Road from Dover to Wroxeter, Shropshire. The earliest London Bridges were a part of this road.

The road was described by Ivan Margary in his book 'Roman Roads in Britain' (3rd edition 1973). It's numbered Road 1 and divided into sections 'a' to 'h'. Its length is 213½ miles.

Roman names for the settlements passed through by Watling Street are listed in the Antonine Itinerary Route II, an official document describing one of the 225

... Read More
M1keA
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by M1keA »

Steven wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 17:25
But what might also help answer your question is that there's also annotations at the top of SABRE Maps itself, between the top blue bar and the six yellow lozenges that include "Enable Markers", "Clear Markers", "Map Fader" and so on. They'll tell you exactly which sheet you're looking at for the annual layers at least.

And the reason that neither of those map layers reference Popular Edition of England and Wales sheet 125 is because, well, neither of the sheets you're looking at are from the Popular Edition! The 1937 sheet is from the OS One Inch Fifth Edition (the Popular Edition's intended replacement), and the New Popular sheets are from the post-war OS One Inch New Popular Edition - and the various map series all have different sheetlines (coverage areas), and hence different sheet numbers.
:confused: :lol: I had seen the little description under the blue bar but I think I need to keep playing and try and get my head around this!

Actually, come to think of it, the folk who look after https://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php already have a suitable system in place.

One of the other things I've been tinkering with is georeferencing some early 19th C estate and local tithe maps onto modern maps in QGIS. - 8/10 for intent, 5/10 for results thus far.....
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Steven
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by Steven »

M1keA wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 17:55 One of the other things I've been tinkering with is georeferencing some early 19th C estate and local tithe maps onto modern maps in QGIS. - 8/10 for intent, 5/10 for results thus far.....
Yeah, I've tried QGIS for georeferencing and come across similar issues - I can never get the results I want before I go back to the in-house SABRE Maps tools in frustration because it's easier to rewrite them to add support for a whole new projection than to work QGIS!

Stuff that old won't use any projections that the SABRE Maps Grid Calibrator will handle, so that won't help, but maybe the SABRE Maps OSM Calibrator might help you get the results you're looking for? Alternatively using MapWarper might work for you?
Steven
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From the SABRE Wiki: SABRE Maps/Calibrating#OpenStreetMap Calibrator :

Georeferencing scanned maps for SABRE Maps can seem very daunting at first, as there's an awful lot of background information that's useful for understanding the full picture, but not essential to know for casual assistance with the simplest maps to complete.

The easiest way by far to get involved in georeferencing scanned map sheets is by using the SABRE Maps Online Grid Calibrator, which provides all the information needed in a simple-to-use

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M1keA
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by M1keA »

Steven wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 18:01 Yeah, I've tried QGIS for georeferencing and come across similar issues - I can never get the results I want before I go back to the in-house SABRE Maps tools in frustration.

Stuff that old won't use any projections that the SABRE Maps Grid Calibrator will handle, so that won't help, but maybe the SABRE Maps OSM Calibrator might help you get the results you're looking for? Alternatively using MapWarper might work for you?
Biggest issue for me is I've taken hi res photos in archives so the 'source' images inevitably have distortions in it as the pages haven't been flat scanned. - I have some ribbon maps of railway routes that I haven't plucked up the courage to try and stitch together and then georeference. This multi page one is 180" long!

Haven't heard of MapWarper; I presume it's this site - https://mapwarper.net/?
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MA5D3-1839-2.jpg

From the SABRE Wiki: SABRE Maps/Calibrating#OpenStreetMap Calibrator :

Georeferencing scanned maps for SABRE Maps can seem very daunting at first, as there's an awful lot of background information that's useful for understanding the full picture, but not essential to know for casual assistance with the simplest maps to complete.

The easiest way by far to get involved in georeferencing scanned map sheets is by using the SABRE Maps Online Grid Calibrator, which provides all the information needed in a simple-to-use

... Read More
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Steven
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by Steven »

M1keA wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 18:34 Haven't heard of MapWarper; I presume it's this site - https://mapwarper.net/?
Yes, that's the one.

However, if you've not got actual flat scans, then you're really going to struggle no matter what the tools.
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M1keA
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

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Steven wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 18:36 However, if you've not got actual flat scans, then you're really going to struggle no matter what the tools.
Acutely aware of this and hopefully this one won't be too bad. - Another was so tightly rolled I left it 30 mins in the vain hope it'd settle enough to get some photos
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by c2R »

M1keA wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 18:55
Steven wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 18:36 However, if you've not got actual flat scans, then you're really going to struggle no matter what the tools.
Acutely aware of this and hopefully this one won't be too bad. - Another was so tightly rolled I left it 30 mins in the vain hope it'd settle enough to get some photos
Mapwarper might be able to do it, but you're going to need a lot of control points to distort the image back in shape - the problem is also that you're holding the camera at a slight angle as well as it not being perfectly flat, which adds an additional layer of complexity
Is there a road improvement project going on near you? Help us to document it on the SABRE Wiki - help is available in the Digest forum.
Have you browsed SABRE Maps recently? Get involved! - see our guide to scanning and stitching maps
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by M1keA »

DxO ViewPoint 3 does a very good job correcting these converged angles and these are massive files so can be cropped.

FYI the Parliamentary Archives have no camera stands so you have to handhold
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c2R
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by c2R »

M1keA wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 20:04 DxO ViewPoint 3 does a very good job correcting these converged angles and these are massive files so can be cropped.

FYI the Parliamentary Archives have no camera stands so you have to handhold
Absolutely, and better that than nothing. I'm really interested to see how you get on - I've only got my own experience of trying to stitch and scan and georeference to go on, and it can be very frustrating at times!
Is there a road improvement project going on near you? Help us to document it on the SABRE Wiki - help is available in the Digest forum.
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by KeithW »

Steven wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 17:25
KeithW wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 16:56 There is a decent selection of Ordnance survey maps in Sabre Maps but there is more on the National Library of Scotland site
Actually, they don't have as many georeferenced maps at the roads-relevant scales as we do, but they do have the funding and resources to be able to do a lot more with the large scale maps than we ever could, short of a lottery winner funding us!
To be fair I was thinking of the pre OS non georeferenced maps of Scotland such as this one from 1830
https://maps.nls.uk/view/74400712

Also the town plans such as this one of Leith dated 1807-1808
https://maps.nls.uk/view/74400712

Then there are the canal and railway plans
M1keA
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Re: New member hello + questions on early 20th C series maps

Post by M1keA »

c2R wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 20:27
Absolutely, and better that than nothing. I'm really interested to see how you get on
Conscious these are all railway related maps but I'll be looking at some historic road files this week. Hoping for some interesting info and hopefully maps
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