The Sunday Times reports [Apple News+ link] that a small family business selling map-themed picnic blankets has reached a settlement with the Ordnance Survey. Rubbaglove’s PACMAT series was launched in partnership with the OS, but their sales “stalled” after the OS launched their own line of “almost identical” blankets, which, they said, violated their design trademark. In addition to a monetary settlement, the OS has agreed not to sell competing products for 10 years.
Tag: Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey Asked to Change Route of Historic Path Through Dartmoor
Nick Pannell wants the Ordnance Survey to change the route of the Abbot’s Way path through Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. Pannell says his own research shows that medieval monks took a more northerly route between Buckfast and Tavistock, and that the path shown on OS maps since 1886 is wrong. The OS doesn’t dispute Pannell’s research, but says that the current route existed 130 years before the initial survey, and there are no currently existing paths along Pannell’s preferred route. This seems to be a case of the prescriptive vs. the descriptive: Pannell shows where the path used to be or ought to have been, the OS shows the current reality on the ground. Nor can OS change the map unless, per the article, Historic England changes the official route: it’s not OS’s call to make.
The Map Men Visit the Ordnance Survey, and Also Wrote a Book
Map Men Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones visit the Ordnance Survey in a (sponsored) set of two (vertically aligned short) videos: part one, part two. Complete with map-folding mishaps, gratuitous hi-viz vest wearing, and a Google Maps dig.
Meanwhile, they’ve also gone and written a book: This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong (and Why It Matters) will be out from HarperCollins imprints in the fall of 2025: the U.K. edition will come out from Mudlark in October (£17) and the U.S. edition from Hanover Square Press in November ($30). Amazon (Canada, UK), Bookshop.
The Economist’s Interactive History of the Ordnance Survey
The Economist looks at the history of the Ordnance Survey in an interactive feature that shows the progress of the first 19th-century maps across Great Britain. Of course the definitive history of the Survey’s first century, as the Economist article readily allows, is Rachel Hewitt’s Map of a Nation (2010), which I reviewed here. [Maps Mania]
Ordnance Survey Soliciting Ideas for New Map Symbols
The Ordnance Survey is asking its users to propose new symbols for its paper and digital maps, the Sunday Times reports [paywalled; News+]. “The national mapping agency is suggesting a list of potential updates, such as cafés, dog-waste bins and bicycle repair shops, as well as annotations to alert wheelchair and pushchair users about paths that have stiles. It may also include defibrillators once there is a reliable register.” Symbols were last updated in 2015. The Times article quotes a number of people who point out that the OS map could stand more radical change: among other things, there are still no separate symbols for non-Christian places of worship. See also the Guardian’s coverage.
What Do You Mean, Three Norths?
The Ordnance Survey is making a small deal over a so-called “triple alignment” of true north, magnetic north and grid north early this month: “the historic triple alignment will make landfall at the little village of Langton Matravers just west of Swanage in early November and will stay converged on Great Britain for three and a half years as it slowly travels up the country.”
Now, grid north is an artifact of a map projection’s grid lines. On a map grid there’s always some difference between true north and grid north except along the central meridian, which in Ordnance Survey maps is two degrees west of Greenwich. The further away from that central meridian, the greater the difference.
What the Ordnance Survey is hyping is that magnetic north, which is constantly shifting, has moved to a point where magnetic declination (the difference between true north and magnetic north) is zero along that central meridian. Kind of neat—if you’re using an Ordnance Survey map. Because this particular triple alignment only exists for Ordnance Survey maps. It’s all a bit anglocentric, really (especially the bit in the video that describes true north as “the line which runs through Britain to the North Pole”).
Censorship and the Ordnance Survey
A blog post from the National Library of Wales explores how sensitive military and industrial sites were omitted from the published versions of Ordnance Survey maps.
The removal of military installations from OS maps was at its height in the 19th century and the World Wars, but throughout the Cold War and beyond, many sensitive sites were left off the maps entirely. It took the public availability of high-resolution satellite imagery at the turn of the 21st century to render this type of censorship largely ineffective, although labels are still omitted in some cases.
The Ordnance Survey did survey and map sensitive sites, but those maps were military-only. The differences between these military maps and the public maps make for a number of interesting comparisons: see the post for examples.
The Ordnance Survey Releases a Moon Map
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first crewed landing on the Moon, the Ordnance Survey has released a map of the Apollo 11 landing site. The map is based on a 60-metre digital elevation model and covers a roughly 1,350×1,000 km swath of the near side at a scale of 1:1,470,000. Details from the map are available at this Flickr album. Paul Naylor describes the creation of the map here. The Ordnance Survey is selling a paper version of the map (100×89 cm, in rolled and folded versions) for £16. I kind of want one for my wall.
The Ordnance Survey produced a map of Mars in 2016.
Great Britain’s National Parks Poster
To mark the 70th anniversary of the legislation creating the United Kingdom’s national parks, the Ordnance Survey has released the above poster showing each of Britain’s 15 national parks in relief. The 84 × 119 cm poster can be had for £15 via the Ordnance Survey’s shop.
The First Ordnance Survey Map
The first map produced by the Ordnance Survey, their blog reminds us, was this map of Kent. Published in 1801 at the scale of two inches to one mile (1:31,680), it took three years to complete; the OS started in Kent over fears of a French invasion. As such, the map “focused on communication routes and included hill shading to ensure men at arms could interpret the landscape with precision. Over time, this map design became less focused on these elements and was developed to appeal to a much wider audience.”
The definitive history of the early years of the Ordnance Survey is Rachel Hewitt’s Map of a Nation, which I reviewed in 2012.
The BBC on the Ordnance Survey
Speaking of the Ordnance Survey, here’s a potted history of the OS from the BBC’s Bethan Bell. The definitive history, of course, is Rachel Hewitt’s Map of a Nation (2010), which I reviewed in 2012, but it only covers the first century or so. Bell’s piece is full of factoids—scattershot, random access—from both the 19th and 20th centuries. [A-Z Maps]
The Ordnance Survey Puzzle Book
Today is the publication date for The Ordnance Survey Puzzle Book (Trapeze), a collection of map quizzes and puzzles—a “mix of navigational tests, word games, code-crackers, anagrams and mathematical conundrums” contrived by Gareth Moore—based on some 40 Ordnance Survey maps dating as far back as 1801. It’s out in the U.K. only; North Americans will have to try third-party sellers on Amazon (or elsewhere) or order directly from British vendors.
The Least Popular Ordnance Survey Map
The Guardian reports on the worst-selling Ordnance Survey map, which I suspect will very quickly cease to be the worst-selling map thanks to the news coverage. It’s OS Explorer 440: Glen Cassley and Glen Oykel, a 1:25,000-scale map of a remote region of the Scottish Highlands. (Buy it at Amazon.) The area covered by the map is apparently spectacularly empty, at least as far as humans are concerned, with only “a few dozen houses,” most of which are used for vacation or hunting purposes. In a blog post today, the Ordnance Survey goes into more detail, listing the 10 least popular maps in the U.K.: they’re all in Scotland, so they also give the least popular maps for England and Wales.
If the purpose here is to point to the route less travelled, well and good, but I suspect the effect will be rather like what happens when a travel guide raves about an out-of-the-way, hidden gem of a restaurant.
At the Edinburgh Fringe: ‘The OS Map Fan Club’
At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? You may want to check out The OS Map Fan Club, an hour-long solo performance about Ordnance Survey maps that sounds relevant to our interests. Written and performed by Helen Wood, The OS Map Fan Club has been making the fringe and festival circuit this year and has been getting good reviews (see here, here and here). At the Edinburgh Fringe until 18 August; details and tickets here. [Map of the Week]
Previously: Cartography: ‘A Gently Interactive Show’ at the Halifax Fringe Festival.
The Ordnance Survey Launches a Line of GPS Devices
Now seems an odd time to be launching a line of standalone, single-purpose GPS devices, but the Ordnance Survey has gone and done so: they’ve announced a total of four devices, ranging in size from the cycling-friendly Velo to the robust Aventura and in price from £370 to £500. The OS has been offering third-party devices from the likes of Garmin and Satmap through its online store; it’ll be interesting to see how people see these as measuring up against those devices—or against an app on the smartphone they may already own. More at Road.cc.