The Godfrey Edition: Reprints of Old Ordnance Survey Maps |
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Welcome to our latest newsletter!
With the nights drawing darker, I have decided to continue researching my family tree. My maiden name was completely Irish, so when I started this, it was no surprise to find very quickly that I have many Irish relatives. On my Grandmothers side I wasn’t so certain – where would that lead?
Working for a map company means that my Geography has certainly improved, but after 15 years here I find its more my memory of what we publish that is more reliable. So, when I came across the place name ‘Mitford, Norfolk’ I knew instantly we didn’t have a detailed map of it. What I later learnt was that this was in fact an old grouping of parishes for administrative purposes.
Every now and again Alan will ask me to write this introduction and it has came about just at the time when we are going to announce a new subscription for Norfolk, so hopefully there will be a map in there for some of you (and maybe me!) that are looking to link an area with your family tree. Even I don’t know all the maps that will be in there and, as I’m not an author with any knowledge of the area, I don’t get any leeway on what will be published, but it will be a nice variety of new places and new dates. We hope many of you will subscribe to this, and all the details are below.
We are also working on bringing out online gift vouchers by the next newsletter. So if you know someone who loves our maps, but you aren’t sure what they already have in their collection, then this is the perfect Christmas/birthday gift.
Suzanne
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County Durham Sheet 42.07 South Church, Coundon Grange & Eldon 1915 |
This double-sided map is dominated by the coal industry, with collieries, the railways built to serve them, and three pit villages. The collieries, most of which include cokeworks, are Auckland Park, Eldon, Old Eldon and the Gurney Pit, with the railways including the Bishop Auckland & Weardale main line, the Black Boy Branch and Haggerleases Branch. The introductions to this and the following Shildon map are by Tom Hutchinson (see below).
As usual, this page provides two links. The thumbnail provides a link direct to details of the map, the link below to a more general range of maps.
The extract below is from the South Church map. Please note that the printed version is sharper.
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County Durham sheet 42.11b Shildon 1915
Shildon, of course, is a railway town and this double-sided map complements the 1896 version already available in the series. Both Shildon and New Shildon are shown, with the main Bishop Auckland & Weardale line, the Black Boy Branch, the Surtees Railway and part of the Brusselton Incline line, as well as Shildon Wagon Works. The map links up with the South Church map (above).
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Buckinghamshire sheet 53.13 Slough Trading Estate 1932
This is a map with a difference, concentrating on the huge Slough Trading Estate developed by the Slough Trading Co, established in 1920. The estate is shown with many of its factories as well as the railway layout which included its own station. The housing east of Farnham Road is also included. Barrie Trinder's introduction gives us the history of this remarkable project.
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Buckinghamshire sheet 56.02b Slough 1932
Continuing our current Buckinghamshire project, this map of Slough complements the 1897 version already available in the series, showing a substantial change over the years. By 1932 Slough had become a significant town, with industry shown on the north side of the railway. The introduction for this too is by Barrie Trinder.
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With the latest batch of County Durham maps we introduced a new author to the series, Tom Hutchinson, who wrote the historical texts for the South Church and Shildon maps mentioned above, and also for our map of Consett in 1939. Tom is the author of numerous books and articles, especially on the South West Durham and Bishop Auckland area where he was born. We have asked him for a little bit more about himself, and so click here for an introduction to Tom Hutchinson
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A Walk round the Leeds SE map |
I think we have done Leeds, Wakefield and now Bradford proud recently, with numerous new maps, both of the suburbs and outlying villages or of city centres. There are more to come! Here is a short walk I made while researching the latest edition of the Leeds SE map. I actually made the walk last New Year's Eve, which explains the fairly empty streets. I parked my car at Leeds Dock, walked into the centre and then back again, giving a nice circular route. For those interested, the music is Sousa's White Rose march.
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Maps of Anglesey and Caernarvonshire |
This week we travel to north Wales, and Anglesey and Caernarvonshire in particular, where we have quite good coverage, the major towns as well as smaller ones such as Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllandysiliogogogoch. As a special offer all the maps listed on the Anglesey and Caernarvonshire pages are available at the reduced price of £2.50 until midday on Friday 21st October. Note that this also includes several Inch to the Mile maps.
This offer is only available through our Online Webshop and is subject to availability. |
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Subscription News Part One |
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Subscription News Part Two |
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Though our sales remain strong in the metropolitan and industrial conurbations, such as the current Leeds/Bradford, Potteries and Sunderland/South Tyneside areas, the more rural shire counties can be more challenging. The group for Cumbria is going quite well, thanks to interest in unfashionable industrial (or post-industrial) towns such as Millom, but the disappointing response to the Buckinghamshire group has led us to put future maps for Berkshire, Hertfordshire or Oxfordshire onto the back burner.
However, as we look ahead to our 2023 programme of new maps, we feel there is unfinished business in East Anglia, despite already good coverage. (Click on the thumbnail right for our current list of maps in the county.) We are now inviting subscriptions to a new group of 12 maps for Norfolk. The group will include new titles for Norwich and probably for Great Yarmouth too. (I haven't been to the latter since 1974 when I and my theatrical colleagues were flung out of our digs for arguing with the landlady, so it would be nice to go back.) The majority, however, will be for towns not previously covered in the series and one of the first will be Wells-next-the-Sea. Note that this group is for 12 maps, not the usual 10, as there are so many interesting towns. The first will be published in January and all 12 will be published in 2023, normally in groups of 2 or 3 at a time, to keep postage costs down. The price will be £30 for the twelve maps, post free, and there is an Earlybird offer of £25 for those subscribing by midday on Friday 4th November.
Finally we still invite subscriptions to a new group of 10 maps for Liverpool & Sefton, for which the first titles will be published in November. Here, to summarise, are the subscriptions currently available:
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10 maps for Liverpool & Sefton. The price is £25 for the ten maps, post free. The maps will cover Liverpool itself and the southern part of Sefton, building on one of our most popular areas. The group will commence in late November with two new maps for the Princes Park area of Liverpool. For more details go to the Liverpool Subscription page
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12 maps for Norfolk. The price is £30 for the twelve maps, post free, with an Earlybird price of £25 until the 4th November. The group will include new maps for Norwich and possibly Great Yarmouth, but the majority will be for towns new to the series. For more details go to the Norfolk Subscription page.
- For the real map enthusiast we have an All Areas Subscription which brings you the next 100 maps for all areas, at £175 post free. For more details go to the All Areas Subscription page.
We are constantly working to develop and expand the series further and subscription schemes are invaluable in this. We hope to announce another South East subscription in about a month's time.
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Leadgate, Consett, DH8 7PW, England
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