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Have you ever wondered about the places where your English ancestors
lived a hundred, a hundred and fifty, two hundred years ago? The Village Atlas
series, enhanced composites of nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey maps of the
areas of England most dramatically altered during the Victorian and Edwardian
Era, is a unique research tool for family and local historians, or those researching
urban development between 1830 and the First World War.
This period saw much of England’s countryside alter beyond
recognition; although London and the great new industrial towns of the Midlands
and the North had begun their inexorable expansion in the latter decades of the
eighteenth century and the opening ones of the nineteenth, it was during the sixty-four
year reign of Queen Victoria that they saw their most spectacular period of growth.
As a result, it is today almost impossible to visualise the villages, hamlets
and green fields which existed, scarcely out of of living memory, where the concrete, brick and glass of modern conurbations rise today.
Quite fortuitously, these dramatic changes were chronicled by the
Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom. Commissioned in 1792, when those responsible
for the defence of the United Kingdom against the threat of an invasion by Revolutionary
France discovered that no accurate, detailed, large-scale modern maps of the country
existed, it was begun in the South-East, this being the area where any French
invasion force might attempt a landing. The first official series of maps began
to appear in 1805, and the last maps in the series were published in 1873. However, a continuous process of revision took place; for example, the Yorkshire survey
of 1843-1849 was initially published in 1858, revised in 1896 and republished
1898-1899, and again revised and republished in 1910 and 1913 respectively.
Immensely detailed as these original maps are, they have two deficiencies
as research tools: in the earlier maps, contours are represented by hatching rather
than lines, making it difficult to pick out some of the fine detail, particularly
in hilly areas; secondly, it is often the case that a location may be split inconveniently
between two or even three sheets.
The Village Atlas series was conceived in the mid-1980s as an attempt
to overcome these drawbacks and produce a convenient and comprehensive reference, both for the professional researcher and the layman or laywoman interested in
their home area.With the assistance of the British Library, original survey sheets
dating between 1805 and 1913 were photographically reproduced at a scale of 2"
to the mile, a 100% increase which greatly enhanced clarity. These reproductions
were then precisely cut and pasted together so that locations which had been split
between two and more sheets could (as far as was possible within the constraints
of an A4 format book) 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.
The first Village Atlas, that for London and its environs, was published
in 1986 to considerable critical acclaim, and was followed by the Birmingham and
the West Midlands atlas in 1989; volumes covering Lancashire and North Cheshire, Derby, Leicester, and Nottingham, and Leeds, Sheffield, and York appeared between
1990 and 1992.
All the books have been out of print for some years, and are now
much sought-after collector’s items, only seldom appearing on the secondhand
market. Only 4000 copies of the London atlas, and 2000 of its successors, were
printed. As a result of the huge growth of interest in local and family history
over the past few years, we have decided to re-release the map blocks individually.
The maps are A3-sized, and printed on high-quality heavyweight paper for durability.
They are priced at £7.00 plus p&p for a block of three maps. Note also that, if
the map sets from the original printed atlases do not precisely meet your needs, we can in most instances supply custom ones. Click on the Custom Sets
link on the left for details.
Please note that, because of the considerable time differential
in the surveying, revision, and publication of adjoining sheets, and the sheer
number of different maps involved in the production of the atlases, there are
occasional minor variations in scale. In addition, the age of the originals, and
the inevitable handling and folding which has occurred over the years, means there
are small but ineradicable blemishes here and there. However, we have made every
effort to minimise these in the reproductions, and trust our customers will make
allowances for such slight imperfections as remain. It should, though, be pointed
out that the hatched contours in the earliest maps can be very heavy in particularly
hilly areas, making any wording superimposed upon it difficult to read, even at
the increased scale. In extreme cases, we supply enlarged versions of these sheets
free of charge in addition to the standard three-map set.
See our Pricing and Ordering Information Page for details
of discounts on bulk/academic orders, or contact us at info@villageatlas.com.
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