Ordnance Survey Maps Research Articles

The Use of Watermarks in Dating Old Series One-Inch Ordnance Survey Maps

Abstract This . paper discusses the methods available for locating watermarks in Old Series maps. The watermarks found in over 2000 maps and their contribution to dating are analysed. The main conclusion is that the watermarks enable a particular sheet to be dated within a few years, especially in the period 1823-36.

The First Edition of the One-Inch Ordnance Survey Maps

The First Edition of the One-Inch Ordnance Survey Maps

Error and Revision in Early Ordnance Survey Maps

The early One Inch maps of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, especially those published in the period up to c. 1820 were far less accurate than subsequent maps in the Old Series. The paper relates this characteristic to the changing organization and methods of topographical survey, and discusses hitherto unexamined evidence for the widespread revision of inferior maps.

Error and Revision in Early Ordnance Survey Maps

Error and Revision in Early Ordnance Survey Maps

Villages in Roman Britain: Some Evidence

‘Villages’ of ‘up to a hundred little huts’ and even ‘pit dwellings' passed from history to mythology after Bersu's Little Woodbury excavations, and Professor Hawkes's consequent reinterpretation of the Cranborne Chase ‘village’ of Woodcuts as superimposed successive farmsteads. The ‘villages’ of the old Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain have no place in the scheme of things exemplified in the 1956 edition. But the new orthodoxy of the ‘single farm’ as the dominant, or indeed the exclusive, settlement form in the Roman and immediately pre-Roman countryside has itself been thrown open to doubt as scholars have, on the one hand, accumulated more evidence of the actual abundant variety of Iron Age to Roman settlement types and, on the other, questioned themselves and each other more closely on the origins of the pattern of English settlement, and the probability that it was not imprinted on a countryside devoid of all trace of previous land-use and organization.

Population Density in Medieval Fenland

he medieval Fenland provides one of the rare opportunities in England to discover approximately how many people lived on how much land. By careful study of the thousands of twelfth and thirteenth-century charters produced by the numerous population of free sokemen the historian can reconstruct with confidence the plans of the thirteenth century townships and can trace the work of reclamation from turf fens and salt marshes which, between the Conquest and the Black Death, added about a hundred square miles to the enclosed arable, pasture and meadow of the original settlements. Study of the earliest maps and surveys, of rentals and acrebooks, enclosure awards and tythe awards, dyke-reeves' verdicts and eighteenth-century property deeds, together with a careful scrutiny of the land itself and of modern aerial photographs, compared with the six-inch ordnance survey map, give the opportunity to say where the waste lay unenclosed at any particular date and where the rights of the various townships were bounded.1 This essay is an attempt to use this topographical knowledge to say what the population of the wapentake of Elloe in the fenland of the Parts of Holland, Lincolnshire, was, and to compare it with that of the modern fenland. The attempt will be only partially successful because we do not know how to compare the resources of the fenlandin 1I300 and now, but at least therQ will be some impression of the density of population which one part of England could sustain at the height of the prosperity of the medieval agrarian economy. The remarkable series of three censuses of the native of Spalding, Weston and Moulton, made for the Prior of Spalding in i267-8, give the average figure of 4-68 persons per household amongst the bond sokemen and operarii of the three manors and there seems no reason why these bond households should be different from the free households of the same manors, which cannot have enjoyed a standard of living remarkably different from that of the bond households, or why the men of the Prior of Spalding should have households different in size from those of the men of other lords in the wapentake. I shall also assume that the same household size existed just before I 267-8 and also up to a generation after. Where appropriate I shall use the census

The design of ordnance survey maps

The design of ordnance survey maps

The Excavation of a Long Barrow at Nutbane, Hants

The excavation of the long barrow at Nutbane, Penton Grafton, Hants, took place from August to October 1957, covering a period of nine weeks, and was carried out by the writer on behalf of the Andover History Group. The barrow, which was not included in the Ordnance Survey's Map of Neolithic Wessex (1932), had only been discovered at the end of 1955 when the attention of Ordnance Survey Officers was drawn to its presence by Mr North of Penton Mewsey. Describing the barrow to Mr W. Woodhouse of the Ordnance Survey on 10 December 1955, Mr North stated: ‘In this field is a mound which, when ploughed, shows as an oval area of chalk. Black marks can be seen on either side. I dug a pit about 5 feet deep in the mound and the chalk was loose and easy to dig. I found nothing’. Mr Woodhouse reported that it was a typical long barrow of Wessex type. Later an air photograph provided confirmation and indicated the flanking ditches.

Hill-Shading in the New Quarter-Inch Ordnance Survey Map: Review

Hill-Shading in the New Quarter-Inch Ordnance Survey Map: Review

Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain

Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain

The Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain, 3rd ed., 1956, 4to, pp. 1–43, figs. 1–5 and folding map. The Ordnance Survey, Chessington, Surrey. Prices, text and folding map, 7s. 6d. map, unfolded, 3s. 3d.

The Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain, 3rd ed., 1956, 4to, pp. 1–43, figs. 1–5 and folding map. The Ordnance Survey, Chessington, Surrey. Prices, text and folding map, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> map, unfolded, 3<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i>

THE OPEN FIELD IN FLINTSHIRE, DEVONSHIRE AND CORNWALL

IN 1949 Mr H. P. R. Finberg published an article supporting the view that Braunton Great Field was once farmed under the open-field system., He drew attention to the statement of Dr and Mrs C. S. Orwin that evidence of the open-field system is doubtful or non-existent in Devon, Cornwall, Wales and Lancashire,2 and suggested that an examination of aerial photographs and the 6-inch Ordnance Survey maps of Devon might reveal more traces of open-field agriculture in that county. Since the Orwins wrote, material which proves that the system was practised in Wales in the Hawarden district of Flintshire as late as 1748 has come to light. It is the object of this paper to describe how some of the boundaries of unfenced strips in the open fields of Hawarden survived to form the boundaries of the fields of to-day, and to suggest that present field patterns in parts of Devon and Cornwall can only be interpreted in terms of a similar process of survival of selected boundaries from an open-field arrangement.

Ammonites from the upper Oxford Clay at Stangate Hill, near Huntingdon

A Stangate Hill, one mile north of Alconbury Hill and six miles NW. of Huntingdon, when the Great North Road was widened shortly before the 1939 war, a cutting exposed Chalky Boulder Clay resting on Oxford Clay. Lieutenant Edward L. Holt, stationed near by, measured and described the cutting in the early part of 1943. He collected about 236 ammonites, which he submitted to the Sedgwick Museum. They were sent to me by Mr. A. G. Brighton for determination in April 1943, after which a representative collection of about fifty specimens was returned to Lt. Holt, who took them to America. The rest he presented to the Sedgwick Museum. They are well-preserved pyritic casts, and constitute an interesting assemblage of the mariae Zone of the Upper Oxford Clay. After moving to Cambridge in 1947, I collected several times at the cutting, assisted by Prof. W. B. R. King, Mr. A. G. Brighton, Mr. A. E. Gunther and others, and altogether more than 400 ammonites were obtained during 1947-50. The sides and bottom of the cutting still yield ammonites at every visit, but comparison of the new collections with Lt. Holt's shows that few further novelties can be expected. The total number of specimens now collected is 646, belonging to at least twenty species, and it seems desirable that they should be recorded. There are also belemnites (Hibo/ites hastatus), rhynchonellids and a few small gastropods and lamellibranchs. Gryphaea dilatata (J. Sow.) ranges throughout the section, and there is much selenite. Stangate Hill is at the northern edge of a projection of the Boulder Clay plateau, the top of which is here about 155 ft. O.D. The exposures lie between the lOO-f1. and 50-ft. contours as shown on the one-inch Ordnance Survey map (Sheet 134). According to Lt. Holt's measurements, made with a Brunton compass, 23 ft. of beds are exposed, of which 20 ft. is undisturbed Oxford Clay and 3 ft. Boulder Clay. Small pyritised ammonites abound throughout the Oxford Clay and here and there are concentrated at certain levels, but even in

The drainage systems of Wales and the adjacent regions

Summary The streams of Wales have been incised in a surface of considerable relief. From the summit-levels shown on the one-inch Ordnance Survey map their means and standard deviations were calculated for each 10 kilometres square of the National Grid. From these data the main physiographic elements can be picked out, such as the mountain area, the high plateau and two major surfaces at lower levels. The numerical distribution of summits on each of these surfaces appears to be wholly random. Strahan's hypothesis of superposition from a Cretaceous cover is adopted with some modifications, but certain difficulties in accepting it are discussed. WALES and the adjacent regions are drained by many streams belonging to several systems; a map of these streams, based upon those shown on the quarter-inch map of the Ordnance Survey, is given as Pl. XII; it has the appearance of a complicated mosaic. A large part of the surface of the region consists of an extensive tableland in which the streams are deeply incised. Ramsay (1876, p. 223) gave a graphic description of the great extent of this tableland, “ all intersected by unnumbered valleys,” and recognized that its relief was due to “ fluviatile erosions that have scooped out the valleys ”.

Note on the gravel deposit from which the Piltdown skull was obtained

The age of the Piltdown skull has long been a subject of intermittent controversy and it is a question which can only be determined from palaeontological data or other evidence inherent in the fossil itself, such as that provided by fluorine fixation; details of river-terrace forms and levels as related to the present-day thalweg of the River Ouse, and of materials comprising the gravel in which the skull was found, offer little assistance. In the literature on the subject some misunderstanding has arisen as to the height of the gravel deposit in which the skull was found relative to the present-day River Ouse; height above the river having to some extent been used to date the fossil. According to levels taken from the six-inch scale Ordnance Survey map, Sussex 40 NE., the 100-foot contour above Ordnance Datum cuts the surface of the gravel spread, the highest part of which lies about 103 feet O.D. while the lowest part is about 97 feet O.D. The nearest part of the River Ouse, at Gold Bridge, is between 45 and 50 feet O.D. Thus the terrace is is about 50–55 feet above the nearest part of the river. Dawson (1913, p. 119), however, stated that the terrace lies on a plateau above the 100-foot contour, with an average height of about 120 feet above O.D.; a statement true of the plateau, but not of the gravel terrace, which is the thing that matters. Again, he gave the height of the gravel spread above

The New Ordnance Survey Map series

The New Ordnance Survey Map series

Geomorphological Fieldwork with the Aid of Ordnance Survey Maps

The geomorphologist MUST necessarily depend for much of his factual information upon the published maps of offlcial survey agencies. Such maps are not however designed expressly for his benefit, and even the best cannot provide more than a partial definition of the ground, or one more accurate than its scale will permit. This applies particularly to the portrayal of ground-relief, the aspect with which the geomorphologist is primarily concerned. Even in so well-mapped a country as Great Britain, it is only for the reconnaissance phases of landscape study, or for generalized analysis of wide areas, that such maps alone will suffice. For any more detailed or exact work, the data they afford must be supplemented by direct observation; measurement on the ground is normally essential, although to-day aerial photographs provide a partial substitute. This paper discusses briefly a few simple techniques that the writer has found useful for such fieldwork. As they are based on the fullest utilization of the data already provided on the offlcial maps, some notes on the latter precede the description.

On some Romano-British Place-Names

For over fifty years the standard source for the form and meaning of ancient Celtic names has been Holder's Altceltischer Sprachschatz. As usual with such encyclopaedic works, the result has been to endow it in the eyes of non-specialists with an authority sometimes greater than it deserves, fine piece of scholarship though it was in its day; for there is a good deal in Holder which Celticists now know to be mistaken. He made much use of the opinions of Stokes, Rhys, and Arbois de Jubainville; and these are by now often out of date. It is important that historians should realize this. The study of British place-names has made remarkable progress of late years, but the Celtic side of it has not kept pace with the rest; for place-name scholars very rarely have any first-hand knowledge of Celtic historical grammar. Hence even in the best recent works on our place-names the Celtic etymologies are sometimes unsound, because the authors put too much reliance in obsolete or untrustworthy authorities. The present article is a short list of addenda and corrigenda to Holder and other such works, in respect of a few Romano-British names whose Celtic etymologies seem particularly to need revision. The forms taken as the starting points are those given in the Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain; or, failing that, in Holder. References to Ptolemy are from C. Müller's edition, Paris, 1883; to the Antonine Itinerary from Otto Cuntz's, Leipzig, 1929 (also to K. Miller, Itineraria Romana, Stuttgart, 1916); to the Peutinger map from Miller's edition ibid.; to the Notitia Dignitatum from O. Seeck's, Berlin, 1876; and to Ravennas from J. Schnetz's, Leipzig, 1930.

Reviews of books

Reviews of books

The pH Range of Some Cliff Plants on Rocks of Different Geological Origin in the Cader Idris Area of North Wales

The geology of the area studied is described by Cox (1925), and an account of the general plant ecology has been given by Price Evans in two recent papers in this Journal (1932, 1945). The later paper also gives a useful and simplified extract from Cox's geological map. In this paper, co-ordinates of latitude and longitude have, in most instances, been used to indicate collecting localities and have been calculated from the second edition of the Six Inch Ordnance Survey Maps (1901). The cliffs studied belong to the five following geological series, beginning with the stratigraphically lowest: