OLD ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPS: THE GODFREY EDITION

April Newsletter

Sorry I'm late! With the second half of April thrown into confusion by a brace of bank holiday weekends, and consequent staff time-out, there was no time to prepare this Newsletter before the month slipped away. Better late than never.

The main story of April was the outstanding success of our latest map for Huddersfield 1889, the third map from the OS 25" series that we have printed in full colour. The good reception to the map has more than compensated for the wretched weather - driving rain - in which I researched the notes.

We are pushing ahead with more such maps, and Colour Editions for Pudsey and NW Leeds are at the printers as I write. I spent an enjoyable day, albeit in gale force wind, walking round Leeds researching the second of these, ending up at the Armley Industrial Museum, where my first request was for coffee! I normally walk 5 or 6 miles, maybe more, when perambulating a map, but this one was especially interesting - but tough in the conditions. Hopefully we will be able to bring out one or two such Colour maps most months, so do keep an eye out on the website. We think the maps are a bit special.

Other places researched recently include Islandmagee, for Irish One Inch sheet 21 which will be out in May; a broad stretch of Co Monaghan, ending up in Clones (where this photo was taken); the Haigh and Aspull area north of Wigan; and Witten, on the south side of the Ruhr.

Finally, I would like to plug our subscription schemes. We have a loyal band of customers who subscribe to everything we publish, sometimes for a particular region, sometimes for everything we do. These subscriptions, which are for new titles only, give very good discounts and ensure you receive the maps as soon as we receive them from the printers. We often get to know our subscribers and the recent sad death of one, Colin Hills, caused me to look back through our files to see for how many years he had been a customer. He first bought from me in July 1980 (when I was dealing in secondhand maps) and started subscribing to my London maps from the very beginning, February 1983. Not many people can beat that! We often received amusing emails from him, perhaps praising a map, or lamenting our choice, or simply reminiscing, always signing himself 'Inky' Hills. RIP, 'Inky'.

If you are interested in receiving the maps for a particular region - London, Yorkshire, the North West, the West Midlands, Scotland or Wales - do have a look at our subscriptions, which can be placed on line. The Yorkshire and Lancashire/Cheshire ones are especially good value at present, as both will include several colour edition maps. But move quickly; the recent hike in postage costs means we will have to increase subscription rates in a month or so!