Broads Cartography

[Timbo]

The Map of The Broads. One of those 'essentials' of any holiday on The Broads. A mass of information jammed onto one large sheet of paper that over the course of your holiday gets folded and refolded, not always correctly, until it tears at the creases. At the end of the holiday the Broads Map gets jammed into the suitcase and taken home where it is deposited on a bookshelf or in the attic for possible use on the next holiday. Eventually it makes its way to the charity shop, ebay or the dustbin. Some lucky Broads Maps are bought by the true cartographic fanatic and are preserved like holy relics to be occasionally taken out and browsed reverently. I have to admit to owning box upon box of Broads Maps. I am a cartographic fanatic. I can sit and read a map like a book. Losing myself for hours, days even, in the plot and subplot of the Broadland landscape. Today was just such a day. With Ellie, my better half, off to London to blub at the Lion King and visit the perfume houses and myself still not recovered from a bout of pneumonia I spent the day lost in a cartographer's heaven.

However today was not a day for paper cartography. Oh no. Today was high tech! Fifty inch monitor hooked up to the laptop, pizza parlour on speed dial and my readers ticket for the British Library handy I spent several hours browsing and scanning the NORFOLCIAE comitatus f.40. This map of Norfolk was part of an atlas owned by Lord Burghley Secretary of State to Elizabeth the Ist. The map is an earlier proof copy, being drawn in 1574, of a map drawn by Christopher Saxton as part of his Atlas published as a whole in 1579. Before I waltz off into a reverie of Saxton's art...where was I? Oh yes. Scanning. I then spent several hours stitching my scans together to make a large scale copy of the map. More of which later.

I then visited the Scottish National Library which has more Broads Maps than anyone else or so it appears. The current discussion in the forum on Woodsend Staithe prompted me the other day to post several maps of the area. Just as a passing fancy I made another search at the Scottish National Library and came across an anomaly...or so it seemed. The Bartholomew's Half Inch Maps of England and Wales Norfolk Sheet published in 1903. I will put an extract below of Barton Broad and the area around Ranworth. See if you can see what peeked my interest?

 

 

 

[Poppy]

" The Map of The Broads. One of those 'essentials' of any holiday on The Broads "

 

Judging by the number of times I have been asked " is this the way to ......"  not everybody follows that basic premise.

Either that - or they have no idea how to read one !

[Vaughan]

8 hours ago, Timbo said:

See if you can see what peeked my interest?

Some of the Broads are different shapes but that is not surprising. I notice there is no Pleasure Island shown on Barton, and Malthouse is not separated from Ranworth by a causeway.

Are you talking about benchmark heights above sea level?

[Timbo]

I was thinking more of the large body of water...almost the same size as Barton right next to Barton. As well as all the linear diggings in Ranworth Marshes. They are marked on the map as 'bodies of open water' not as marsh or wetland. To be honest I'm scratching my head as to the reasons for the differences. Are we looking at further peat workings or something else? Higher water levels in 1903?

Here's the OS sheet for the same area of Barton surveyed in 1884.

[quo vadis]

Its difficult to say Timbo as both Google Earth images seem to have been taken with a very low resolution camera

[Vaughan]

Interesting. I mentioned Pleasure Island as I had always thought this to be a boundary or causeway between peat workings.

Does anyone have a modern OS map, to compare the benchmark heights? And let's hope it's not in metric!

[Timbo]

Modern OS Map Gather round an I'll tell 'ee the story of the Giant Duck o' Barton! Ee' 'ad 'is own radio series did Duck Barton!

[Timbo]

I must say the OS aerial photography is much better than Googles!

[JennyMorgan]

1 minute ago, Timbo said:

Modern OS Map Gather round an I'll tell 'ee the story of the Giant Duck o' Barton! Ee' 'ad 'is own radio series did Duck Barton!

Along with Horace Batcheller & Dan Dare. Woi blass bor, yew mus be hully aenshunt if yew memer them! 

[grendel]

3 hours ago, Poppy said:

" The Map of The Broads. One of those 'essentials' of any holiday on The Broads "

 

Judging by the number of times I have been asked " is this the way to ......"  not everybody follows that basic premise.

Either that - or they have no idea how to read one !

the problem is their sat nav tries to take them via the road.

[Vaughan]

Even more interesting!

There are still three bench marks on the modern map which compare to the old one, which says a lot about mapmakers' continuity, over 400 years.

Converting the metric to feet, we can see the following :

Irstead Church - was 27ft, now 26ft.

Sharp Street - was 5ft, now 3ft.

Barton Turf - was 38ft, now 36ft.

This suggests an overall rise in sea level over 400 years, of about 2ft.

Can we do the same exercise with the Ranworth map, as that is only a bit more than 100 years old?

[grendel]

I too find old maps interesting, I do have a broads one from I believe about the 1930's somewhere at home.

[JennyMorgan]

1 hour ago, Vaughan said:

Even more interesting!

There are still three bench marks on the modern map which compare to the old one, which says a lot about mapmakers' continuity, over 400 years.

Converting the metric to feet, we can see the following :

Irstead Church - was 27ft, now 26ft.

Sharp Street - was 5ft, now 3ft.

Barton Turf - was 38ft, now 36ft.

This suggests an overall rise in sea level over 400 years, of about 2ft.

Can we do the same exercise with the Ranworth map, as that is only a bit more than 100 years old?

On the other hand the land might have shrunk or compressed, as does happen. 

[MauriceMynah]

22 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

On the other hand the land might have shrunk or compressed, as does happen. 

Oh for peats sake!  

[LondonRascal]

Look, don't murky the waters with technicalities here

 

[grendel]

are we getting bogged down with technicalities here.

[JennyMorgan]

Too much grass? 

[Timbo]

Here's mud in your eye...

Os map for Ranworth Vaughan.

[Timbo]

Os Map 1898

 

[LizG]

I love maps

[Vaughan]

Unfortunately I can only find two benchmarks which correspond :

Woodbastwick : was 56ft, now 55ft.

Old Hall : was 10ft, now 9ft 10ins.

Indicates a small rise in sea level, but hardly enough evidence on which to base a theory!  

[JennyMorgan]

An uncle of mine worked for National Rivers for all of his working life, eventually being based & living in the Fens for over thirty years. In that time his house physically dropped by over eight feet, apparently down to the land drying out due to deep ploughing. On top of that, as far as Norfolk is concerned, apparently we suffer from continental tilt, namely some parts rising and other falling. I'm far from being an expert but it does appear that there is no one size fits all explanation as to what is happening to sea levels and the like.

[MauriceMynah]

2 hours ago, w-album said:

I love maps

I'd be lost without them.