The
nasty commercial tie-in! I’m also the proprietor of Hampden Maps, and sell
a variety of reproduction maps via the web. Chief amongst these is the Village
Atlas, which is a series of composites of Victorian and Edwardian OS Maps, reproduced
at 2” to the mile. They are taken from a series of books published by my
father between in the late 80s–early 90s, and long out of print. Dad’s
idea was to show how villages and small towns were swallowed up by the growth
of cities in the 19th century, and to this end original survey sheets from between
1830 and 1910 in the possession of the British Library were photographically reproduced,
then precisely cut and pasted together to eliminate (as far as possible within
the constraints of an A4 format book) areas which had been split between two and
more sheets could be viewed as one. Each Atlas covered an area of approximately
1500 square miles, divided into 50-square mile blocks. Three maps for each block,
printed on consecutive double-page spreads, allowed the reader to study the changes
which took place within the area covered at the turn of a page.
Five areas are covered —
London; Birmingham and the West Midlands; Derby, Leicester, and Nottingham; Lancashire
and North Cheshire; and Leeds, Sheffield, and York. We hope to expand the range
in due course.
More information is provided
on the Village Atlas website.
Pay us a visit!