THE TOWN PLANS

Abstract

The town plans in question are those ranging from the “five-foot” (1/1056) to the modified “ten-foot” (1/500) scales, made by the Ordnance Survey between 1841 and 1894, and then, in principle at any rate, abandoned. This is, I fear, wholly a British matter and profuse apologies are offered to oversea readers. Yet history, repeating itself as usual, may presently add the wider interest to the tale.     

Lewis Petit and his Plans of Scottish Fortifications and Towns, 1714–16

Abstract

The background and context to the cartography of the French military engineer Lewis Petit and his work in Scotland is explained. Petit was responsible for drafting the earliest plans and profiles of four castles in the north-west Highlands of Scotland (1714), as well as the earliest town plans of Perth and Inverness (1716). A consideration of their functions, particularly through the Board of Ordnance archives, allows a better understanding of these plans and their value as historical sources, as well as their accurate dating. Petit's work reflected national and international developments, including war in Europe and the Jacobite rebellions in Britain. His cartography illustrates the spread of new European military theories and practices, at a time when a professional corps of military engineers was being established in Great Britain. Through studying Petit and his maps we can gain a fuller understanding not only of the Board of Ordnance in Hanoverian Scotland, but also of the militarisation of cartography in the eighteenth century, and the emergence of standards relating to colour, scale and terminology.     

The preparation of the town maps for Lysons' Magna Britannia

Abstract

Although methods of map preparation and production in the nineteenth century are generally understood, in truth little is known in detail. A rare opportunity to further understanding of the methods of the day is offered by the analysis of the surviving working documents and correspondence related to the production of town maps for Lysons' Magna Britannia. As methods of compilation and preparation become clearer, some of the resultant town maps appear more original and carefully created than previously thought, forcing a reassessment of their value as historical evidence.     

REPRODUCTION OF THE 1/1,250 AND 1/2,500 SCALE NATIONAL PLANS,OF GREAT BRITAIN

Abstract

Field work for the 1/1,250 scale re-survey of Great Britain was fully described in an article by Brigadier R. P.Wheeler in the April, 1948, issue of this Review (ix, 68, 234–247). The object of this article is to outline the method’ of reproduction of these plans and of the resultant 1/2,500 scale plans of urban areas. The 1/2,500 series covering rural areas is a separate problem, one of revision rather than re-survey. Experiments are in hand now to find out the best ways to provide field material and produce the final plans on National Grid sheet lines. The 1/1,250 scale series will contain about forty thousand plans and the 1/2,500 series of the same areas about nine thousand. It is therefore important that production methods should be straightforward and maintain an economical balance between the use of men and machines.     

ROAD-SURVEYING IN THE EAST

Abstract

The title of this article is wide and generous, covering the art of road-surveying under every condition of climate from snow to tropical heat and in all types of country from moist forest to arid desert, from wooded mountains to barren rocks. But there is one feature that is common to all these conditions. Skilled supervision is at a minimum, and semi-skilled subordinates do the work. This has naturally had an influence on the quality and extent of the surveying carried out as a preliminary to the making of new roads. Some junior official, frequently from a subordinate service, is detailed for a survey, and he is expected to locate the final centre-line of the road on the ground and to produce plans, sections and a complete construction estimate. How then does he set about it? He probably has a small-scale map—in India, if he is lucky, a good, contoured, one-inch-to-the-mile map; and there are almost certain to be village tracks, either cart-tracks or man-tracks. Further, there will be certain obligatory points on the route, a pass to be crossed, a river to be bridged in a particular neighbourhood where it has well-defined banks, a town or village to be served, and so on.     

The Town Plans and Sketches of William Stukeley

The eighteenth-century field archaeologist, William Stukeley, travelled widely throughout England to produce the numerous sketches and plans that illustrated his Itinerarium Curiosum. His work has generally not been seen as having made a serious contribution to the cartography or to the portrayal of the towns and landscape of preindustrial England, but the quality of his sketches and the relative accuracy of his town plans are explored here to suggest that this may be too harsh a view.     

The Earliest Maps of Southampton

Abstract

In editing the early maps of Southampton for reproduction, the City Archivist has made a detailed study of their origins. This account demonstrates the precautions which must be taken in dealing with old maps and plans.     

EXPANSION OF PAPER AS AFFECTING BEARING

Abstract

The problem of the influence of the paper itself on bearings taken off maps or plans has been recently discussed by G. T. M. in this Review (iii, 22, 479). The following alternative method of solving the problem may be of interest; the same figure and symbols are used as in the article mentioned.     

John Wood 2: Planning and Paying for His Town Plans

Abstract

John Wood, the 19th-century urban cartographer, surveyed almost 150 towns spread widely across Great Britain. His detailed large-scale plans are an astounding achievement. In light of this, two questions are posed: did he have a strategy that guided the places which he surveyed; and how did he pay for his work, given that so few copies of his plans appear to have been produced for sale – or at least to have survived.     

Cross-Checking: A Method to Test the Comprehensiveness of Pigot’s Nineteenth-Century Plans of Manchester & Salford

The long sequence of Pigot’s plans of Manchester and Salford is used to test the concept that the dates of churches and chapels can be used as a valuable indicator of the completeness of the coverage of large-scale nineteenth-century town plans. The approach appears to hold some promise and suggests that Pigot’s plans were surprisingly comprehensive. This may reflect not merely his drawing on existing surveys but, more interestingly, may be the incidental product of collecting data for his town directories. The methodology could usefully be extended to explore the value of directory plans of other towns.     

SURVEYS AND HISTORY

Abstract

Not long ago a very energetic and able soldier-surveyor said to me, “Why do people indulge in all this hero worship? Our forerunners in the Survey were not so remarkable”. Perhaps, on the few occasions when any of us do write Survey history, distance and loyalty add enchantment to the memories. But there is little harm in that. Besides some, at least, were great men. It is not perhaps of much value to our present work to read how Captain Drummond invented the limelight, in order to get his connexions across the Irish Sea. It does not help us much, although it is very interesting, to know how the Ordnance Survey stumbled on photozincography just at the same time as an Australian in Sydney. On the other hand it is of great importance to know just what standards Clarke did gather together for his great series of comparisons. It is of importance to know how the need arose for this scale or that, from the town plans to the I/M, for the same needs still exist. It is sadder but even more important to know how, entrusted with a magnificent field of action, the Survey gave up this item or that to the great inconvenience of the public. Survey history gives a yard-stick by which to assess the value, the authenticity and the precision of such measurement or topography as still underlies our work. It encourages us by showing what obstacles lcan be overcome, and it also teaches us to avoid the dangers, delays or mistakes we may, all unwittingly, repeat. The last are many indeed. Ordnance Survey history is full of warnings of that sort, for “the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”.     

An ontology-driven multi-agent system for nautical chart generalization

ABSTRACT

On nautical charts, undersea features are portrayed by sets of soundings (depth points) and isobaths (depth contours) from which map readers can interpret undersea features. Different techniques were developed for automatic sounding selection and isobath generalization. These methods are mainly used to generate a new chart from the bathymetric database or from a larger scale chart through selection and simplification. However, a part of the process consists in selecting and emphasizing undersea features formed by groups of soundings and isobaths on the chart according to their relevance to maritime navigation. Hence, automation of the process requires classification of features and their generalization through the application of a set of operators according not only to geometric constraints but also to their meaning.

The objective of this work is to conceive a multi-agent system (MAS) for nautical chart generalization that is driven by the knowledge on the generalization process and the undersea features and their relationships. First, this work provides a feature-centered ontology modeling of the generalization process. Then, the MAS structure is introduced where agents access cartographic knowledge stored in the ontology. The MAS makes use of measure algorithms to evaluate constraint violations on the chart in order to decide which generalization operators to apply. The whole model has been implemented to provide generalization plans on a real case study.     

THE YEAR 1932 IN NORTHERN RHODESIA

Abstract

In spite of the world depression, the effects of which are now being severely felt in this Territory, the Departmental activities were almost a record in regard to output. Not only were applications for land in excess of previous years, but the issue of deeds, the surveys of farms and plots, the work on mineral areas, and the preparation and issue of maps, plans, and diagrams were well above previous years.     

Desktop Mapping on the Apple Macintosh

Abstract

This paper describes the range of topographic maps produced by the Danish Geodetic Institute, some of the production methods together with plans for the future.     

Coloured Roads on Ordnance Survey First Edition 1 : 2500 Plans and One-Inch Maps 1897–1935, and the Rights Of Way Disclaimer

Abstract

In 1892 a government committee of inquiry into the Ordnance Survey suggested that the Survey should make a distinction between public and private second class roads at the one-inch scale. This study is confined to England and Wales and looks at the nineteenth-century practice of colouring roads on the large-scale plans, and compares the representation of coloured rural roads on early Ordnance Survey one-inch maps with near contemporary highway records of the county of Huntingdonshire, sixteen rural district councils in six counties and an estate in Suffolk. The results show that all but four of the coloured roads on the one-inch maps in these areas are recorded as publicly maintainable highways.     

MAPPING OUT OF CROWN LANDS IN CEYLON

Abstract

13. As mentioned earlier (xi, 83, 199) the “Final Village Plan”, which is evolved from the 4-chains-to-an-inch (1:3,168) “Block Survey” village plan after inquiry and settlement of claims as between the Crown and private parties, provides a sound basis for mapping-out and for the subsequent administration of the Crown estate. But as (in all cases) the development of Crown land could not await Block Survey and “Settlement”, it was also necessary to undertake mapping out in areas which had not been systematically surveyed, and for which no continuous large-scale plans were available.     

SURVEYS OF TOWNS AND TOWNSHIP LAY-OUTS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Township plans in Nigeria are, in general, required for the following objects:- <list list-type="alpha"> <list-item>

illustration of existing detail for administrative and other purposes;</list-item> <list-item>

record of property boundaries;</list-item> <list-item>

settlement of property boundaries and registration of title;</list-item> <list-item>

lay-outs and engineering purposes.</list-item> </list>     

The National Archives Map Catalogue Retrospective Conversion Project

Abstract

Only a small proportion of the huge number of maps, plans, charts and architectural drawings held in The National Archives have previously been individually described in a way which enables the user to identify items of relevance to his or her research. This article outlines the current project to automate and integrate the existing multiple map finding-aids into the on-line catalogue. In the process of doing this it also explains The National Archives map extract references.