OLD ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPS: THE GODFREY EDITION

December Newsletter

Welcome to our December Newsletter. Yesterday we finally succeeded in transferring our website to a new server, a process that seems to have taken several weeks. We shall make one or two minor improvements early in the New Year, but hopefully this will enable us to provide a reliable and fast website for years to come.

As usual, we carry on producing new maps. We try to bring out a steady stream of maps for the Midlands, and recently brought out three for Nottinghamshire, a county for which we would like to improve our coverage. A map for Radford is ready as soon as we discover a cover photograph. In the old days we used to rely on libraries for the photographs but increasingly that has proved difficult; indeed, Sandra Jones, who worked for us from 1994-2001 and was given the task of locating cover photos, suggested - only half in jest - that we should only start work on maps where we already had a photograph. Though many libraries were (and are) very helpful with photos, some had poor collections, or were unable to provide scans, or charged more than we could afford, or didn't know who could give permission, or (in one case) couldn't allow the use of the good ones because the librarian was going to use them in his own book. Nowadays we try to obtain postcards or similar illustrations from postcard fairs, or on ebay or delcampe, and this has enabled us to keep up a (we think) rapid rate of publication. Occasionally people point out that a photo does not match the date of the map - the appearance or non-appearance of trams and/or motor cars is the most frequent comment - but I'm sure most of you will forgive this. It is never for want of trying. The English 'Inch to the Mile' maps have always had a map extracts on the cover, but elsewhere I always see it as a sign that we failed; and for the Irish 'Inch to the Mile' maps, we are normally going to put photos on the covers.

Mind you, the odd 'howler' does occur. The Durham (North) map has a photo which, it transpires, is of a completely different town. Oops!

Within the Midlands one of our most regular authors over recent years has been Malcolm Nixon, who contributes introductions from Gloucestershire northward to the Potteries. Malcolm tells us that he "has spent his lifetime crawling over and sometimes under historic buildings, recording them and, occasionally, excavating them - especially in the Potteries, where his true joys can be found, potteries and bottle ovens! Being semi-retired as a college lecturer, where he trains building surveyors in architectural conservation, has allowed him even more time to cycle round the west Midlands and write historical notes for Alan Godfrey Maps, where his skills appear to be especially called on for those sheets which at first sight appear blank - for example, The Delves". In fact, he is currently working on the introduction for Lichfield, a far from empty map, though the new Worcestershire for Griffin's Hill shows how magnificently he copes with a somewhat empty (but hopefully not uninteresting) map.

Finally, may I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and prosperous - or at least cheerful - New Year. From January this newsletter should appear somewhat earlier in the month.