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By the late 1890s, the Ordnance Survey had produced two complete series
of maps of England & Wales but the increasingly rapid pace of change
and development meant that revising them was now a never-ending
task. The main cause of this change was the growth of the
railways. From being little more than a good idea in 1830, the network
covered over 18,000 miles by the end of the century, enabling the spread
of goods, people and ideas and changing the character of every place it
touched. The late 19th-century was without doubt the age of the
railway, and the Revised New Series is the definitive record of its
glory years. |
Another,
quieter, technological revolution was also taking place at this time:
the development of colour printing. Information could now be
displayed in more subtle and varied ways, and at a reasonable
cost. The government, the military and, increasingly, the public
were demanding that the map-makers responded to this. After a new
survey in the early 1890s, the Revised New Series (in colour) was
published from 1896. This captured both the variety of the natural
landscape and the human influence of Britain's late-Victorian heyday in
delicate shades of sepia, blue and ochre.
The Revised New Series is an
immaculate record of a vibrant society on the threshold of a still
greater period of development and urbanisation. It records
countless reminders of the past, many of which were about to be swept
away for good. For local historians, this is the final record of
your part of the country before the changes brought by the motor
car. If your interest is genealogical, the series coincides with
the 1901 Census, showing the landscape your ancestors inhabited.
Whatever your reason for being interested in your area's past, prepared
to be entranced by these maps - enlarged and combined to match the
present-day OS Landrangers, they will reveal secrets of a familiar
landscape you never knew existed |