An introduction to Scottish
maps and map making
Most good journeys start with a map1,
but first we should consider where the maps came from and what limits
there are to using them to interpret the landscape of today.
This introduction should not be considered as
exhaustive or definitive but consider it a source of discussion,
enlightenment or an entertaining distraction.
Early Maps
The earliest2
map of Scotland is from a book called Geography by the
polymath Claudius Ptolemy (c. AD
90 – c. AD 168) who was a Greek-Roman citizen of Egypt. His book
discusses the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world.
Unfortunately there are no surviving contemporary copies of the book
and the map illustrated here is from a 17th
century copy (Illustration
1).
Illustration
1: The Ptolemy map is the earliest known depiction of Scotland
in a map.
The main thing is that it is recognisable as what
we would consider to be a map. Although not great on detail or
accuracy compared to the maps of today, he showed great skill in
tackling the problem of projecting the curved world on to a flat
surface. This attempt at portraying the world with a degree of
geographical accuracy was not continued in the coming years.
Medieval maps.
Early maps were
the creation in varying degrees of tradesmen as well as craftsmen,
and of artists as much as scientific surveyors. Medieval land
surveying was concerned primarily with written rather than graphic
description and with valuation rather than exact measurement3.
Compare the work of Ptoleomy with those of much later and you will
see a more unscientific representation of the world (Illustration
2).
Illustration
2: World map c1265. This map is one of the most important
surviving examples of 13th-century map-making. Jerusalem is in the
centre of the map, and the whole world is looked upon by Christ who
is attended by angels. This shows that medieval people looked at
geography in relation to the Bible and to earth’s creation by God.
But the map also shows an interest in local places: you can see the
British Isles, and the rivers Thames and Severn. London is marked
with a gold dot. The map was not intended, like a modern atlas, to
guide someone in their travels, but to show important places in an
overall prospect. http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item99816.html
One of the most realistic maps of the medieval
period was by a Saint Albans monk called Matthew Paris c1250, he has
the basic shape of Britain correct but with Scotland shown as an
island (Illustration
3). He
was perhaps the first medieval mapmaker to try to portray the actual
physical appearance of the country rather than just represent the
relationship between places in simple diagrams.
Illustration
3: Matthew Paris map of Britain, c.1250 Copyright © The British
Library Board
By 1560 the
Italians had made quite a recognisable map of Scotland (Illustration
4).
Illustration
4: Italian Map of Scotland 1560
County maps.
With one or two exceptions, there are no separate
maps of the regions of Britain before Elizabethan times but from
Elizabethan to mid Victorian times the county was always the basic
unit of regional mapping4.
The county maps have there own set of problems when they are used as
an aid to historical detection. J B Harley states:
'County maps can seldom (if ever) be regarded as a definitive or completely up to date record of topography for the time of their production.'5.
The cost of the survey would have to be borne by
interested parties such as the gentry and this, plus the interests of
the surveyor, could influence what got included in the map and what
got left out.
Since the maps of the time were often a commercial
venture, there was a bias towards well populated areas which were
mapped more often and in more detail than remoter areas. In fact the
act of surveying and map making was an expensive business and many of
the map makers ran into financial difficulties. This can lead to
difficulties with dating maps of this period since it was cheaper to
re-engrave an earlier map with little or no resurveying done but give
the publishing date not the surveying date.
However,
the county maps produced by private surveyors between 1760 and 1840
are the most detailed maps of rural areas of Scotland up until the
end of the 19th
century6.
County
maps showed perhaps for the last time, a degree of artistry
(Illustration
5)
and
ornamentation that is not present in the maps produced today. These
county maps have now found a new use as an object of art and are
often seen hanging on the wall of many a country pub.
Illustration
5: William Forrest Map of Haddingtonshire 1799
Uniformity and Precision
Accurate surveying of the country required systems
of very large triangles, called triangulation networks. In
trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of
determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from
known points at either end of a fixed baseline, rather than measuring
distances to the point directly. A mesh of triangles at the largest
appropriate scale is established first. Points inside the triangles
can all then be accurately located with reference to it.
Britain could not have a complete accurate survey
of the country without a full triangulation and the cost of this
could not be provided for by private subscribers, but would need to
be funded by the government.
The need for
uniform, accurate maps, of the whole kingdom related everywhere to
one national triangulated framework, was brought into sharp focus by
the seemingly unconnected events of the Jacobite Rebellion of the
1700s.
Dukes and military maps
The battle of Culloden in April 1746 highlighted
the need for accurate maps. The best map available at the time was of
a scale of 1 inch to 13.5 miles or 1:855360, which was too small for
the detail needed by military commanders7.
Lieutenant Colonel David Watson put forward the
proposal for a survey to the Duke of Cumberland who gained authority
for it from his father George II. The King was keen to provide any
assistance with the pacification of the highlands.
The responsibility for the military survey of
Scotland was delegated to William Roy and was completed by 1755. Roy
then promoted the idea of a complete triangulation of Britain as a
basis for more accurate mapping.
Roy died in 1790
and it took the Duke of Richmond to champion the cause of the
complete triangulation. The
Duke was the Master General of His Majesty's Ordnance and it was he
who initiated the Trigonometrical Survey which was later to become
known as the Ordnance Survey. Ordnance is the department responsible
for military stores and equipment, hence the rather odd title of the
British National Survey Organisation8.
Ordnance Survey
The primary triangulation of Scotland started in
1814 but it wasn't until 1859 that most of the Scottish lowlands were
complete. Although the initial mapping of England and Wales had been
undertaken at the one-inch scale,the growing need for detailed maps
for land valuation, registration and conveyancing, agricultural
improvement, mineral development, railways, together with the facts
of urban expansion, lent advantage to the more detailed mapping at
24" to 26" to the mile scales. However, the successful
mapping of Ireland at the six-inch scale had lead to the decision to
follow this in the 1840s in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Scotland9.
However accurate maps might be in trigonometrical
terms, they were valueless as records of property ownership and
guides to taxation without agreed names. Where a place may have more
than one name or many spellings, the surveyors would consult an
authority in the local populous. The 'Authority' of an individual
usually followed a class or professional hierarchy. Here is an
example of the detailed advice given to surveyors regarding authority
and names:
'For the name of a house, farm, park or wood, or other part of an estate the owner is the best authority. For names generally the following are the best individual authorities and should be taken in the order given: Owners of property; estate agents; clergymen, postmasters and schoolmasters, if they have been some time in the district; rate collectors; borough and county surveyors; gentlemen residing in the district; Local Government Board Orders; local histories; good directories. Respectable inhabitants of some position should be consulted. Small farmers and cottagers are not to be depended on, even for the names of the places they occupy, especially as to the spelling. But a well-educated and independent occupier is, of course, a good authority'10.
Map Production
The six-inch maps of Scotland were engraved on
special hammered copper, 1/10th inch thick and measuring 26.5 by 38.5
inches in extent. After scoring the sheet lines and marking the
position of trigonometrical stations with fine dots, the plates were
covered with wax, the outlines copied from tracings, and then cut
into the plate in reverse using a graver or burin. Map engraving was
a highly specialised process, and took a long time with high quality
results. In time the engravers became the highest paid branch of the
Survey.
A copper plate could only make about 500
impressions before re-engraving or copying by electrotyping was
required.
Ordnance Survey Today
The laborious task of re-triangulating Britain was
undertaken in the mid 20th century using a new set of
triangulation pillars and up to date theodolites. However this
technology was responsible for laying down a firm foundation on which
to build a more accurate map of Britain it was made redundant with
the revolution in map making that came with digital age.
The modern Ordnance Survey map is produced by
state-of-the-art satellite technology and theodolite 'total stations'
with lasers to measure distances. The national network of around 100
base stations constantly transmit their GPS-observed positions to a
central processing hub11.
The survey control network of 'trig' pillars was accurate to 20
metres over the entire length of Great Britain. Today the receivers
that make up the OS Net network are coordinated to an accuracy of
just 3 mm over the same area12.
Information gathered by ground staff is
complemented by an intensive programme of aerial photography which is
viewed in 3D.The resulting high-definition images, which show detail
as sharp as the pattern of road markings, can then be overlaid with
existing map data to check where features have changed so that
instant updates can be recorded.
The new information from both ground and air
surveys is added to the OS MasterMap database. The result is a
definitive digital picture of Britain’s geography and the largest
database of its kind anywhere in the world, made up of almost half a
billion features.
So now we have the most accurate maps ever
produced, and this introduction may read simply as a history of
improvements in accuracy over time, ending up with present day maps
that are best of all. However, does this mean that the more accurate
maps are 'better' maps? Perhaps for certain uses they indeed are but
they don't tell us as much about the landscape of the past and the
peoples relationship to it, as the old maps do. However what they do
provide is an accurate (for today's standard) baseline from which to
measure changes in the future or perhaps they will be dismissed by
the people of the future as artistic but sort of infantile compared
to the wonders of the future.
References
1All
of the maps come from the National Library of Scotland unless
otherwise stated.
2http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-15008220
3Harley,J.
B., 1972. Maps for the Local Historian. ISBN 719908345: page 6.
4Harley,J.
B., 1972. Maps for the Local Historian. ISBN 719908345: page 67.
5Harley,J.
B., 1972. Maps for the Local Historian. ISBN 719908345: page 72.
7
Dickinson, G. B., 1969. Maps and Air Photographs. ISBN 71315425x,
Page 4.
8Dickinson,
G. B., 1969. Maps and Air Photographs. ISBN 71315425x,Page 45.
9Fleet,
C. and Withers, C.,Ordnance Survey Maps - Six-inch 1st edition,
Scotland, 1843-1882: A Scottish paper landscape. National Library
of Scotland.(http://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch/os_info1.html).
10Seymour,
W A (ed.) 1980.A
history of the Ordnance Survey, Page 180.
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