Bartholomews Road Atlas - a work of art

  Some maps are more attractive than others. I've always preferred the old one mile to the inch Ordnance Survey maps to the modern 2cm to 1km ones; they just look nicer. And most road atlases are just boring overviews of roads, leisure attractions and towns, with plain white between them. But they weren't always like that.

   My dad had a Bartholomews road atlas. As a kid I would look at it for hours. It's a magical thing. Bartholomews are credited with inventing Hypsometric tints - using different colours to emphasise the contours, ranging from dark green for below sea level through yellows, greens, pinks and browns as the land rises. You can see at a glance where the hills and valleys are. It really gives you a feel for the look of the landscape. And the level of detail is astonishing - there are even lightships shown off the coast.

   They were always charmingly archaic - my 1971 edition has the major roads updated and the  Beeching railway cuts in place, yet the urban area looks to me like it hasn't been updated since the 1920's. The part of Offerton where I live is shown as open countryside.