Map Geek

[TeeDee]

I love a good map. ( Just me? )

I can spend hours just looking and studying the different little nuances and more specifically the Names and try to figure why they have been bestowed with such a title.

" Green Lane " - Easy peasey!!

" Manor Road " - Pppplease!! Test me!!!



So today I came across the following and it got me wondering....

" Deaths Corner " ( Cripes!!! Its a Harry Potter Book!! )


So , my question to you , have you come across any very interesting Map anomalies or names?? Anything that requires further interesting thoughts or consideration????

C'mon , its show and tell time.....

 

[snappingturtle]

I live in a place called Glebelands it mean good land, or good church land and I agree its kind of nice here
There is also a gore hedge said to be a place where the heads of criminals were piked
critch, catch, small woodland?

 

[Toddy]

Here The Glebe is the land that was set aside for the Minister to use. Where he could grow some crops, potatoes, oats, barley, that kind of thing, and graze a milk cow, or keep his horse.
The Glebe in the village I live in is now built upon, but it's right next door to the early medieval church.

I find maps a constant fascination the older ones, like the original Ordnance Survey, (and think about that name itself; those maps were originally drawn up to give the government clear factual maps that would let them best move or site guns (Ordnance) should the Jacobites ever rise again ) are full of social detail. Farm steadings were drawn with all their attendant buildings, springs and the like. We even get kennel like structures called sheep-houses....because sheep then had to be taken indoors when the weather was bad, unlike the incoming huge flocks of Cheviots that gave the landowners cause to clear people from their lands.

The place names used throughout the British Isles are often a thought provoking pleasure. Moscow's in Ayrshire for instance

M

 

[Nomad64]

The place names used throughout the British Isles are often a thought provoking pleasure. Moscow's in Ayrshire for instance

M

Would it make more sense if it was in Rossshire?

“Cut Throat Lane” near my FiL’s in Earlswood, Warwickshire - apparently there used to be an abattoir there, now just some very posh houses!

 

[Broch]

I have always loved maps. As a kid I would study them for hours with a magnifying glass trying to find little areas that looked wild that I could explore; forgotten places between the roads and railways, gaps in the places where people trod

Near us is a hill called Cefn Goleu which means Ridge (back) of Light - and when the sun rises over the hill on the other side of the valley you can see why. It's just up the road from Bwlch-y-Cybau - pass of the pigs; I'm told pigs were herded down through here to get to the markets in Shropshire!

 

[Tengu]

Kipling was right when he said the Atlas was the best picture book ever.

I have always loved maps too. Paper ones, I have loads...Every Explorer of Cornwall....

...But online maps are fun too. Google Earth and the county Global Information system is both pleasure and useful. (We have a really good one in Cornwall)

Placenames, These are often really wacky here...I could give loads of examples but the best is a farm in a hodgepodge of lanes...

...It is called `Enquire the Way`....

 

[mousey]

I saw a really old map of the town I live in, apparently there was a slaughter house just diagonally across from me, straight across was a church [which is still there - no longer a church]. in the other direction along the coast used to be a cholera hospital right on the stoney beach next to a spring, you can still see some really large chunks of masonary at that site. I always wondered what it was that was there until I saw that map.

 

[snappingturtle]

Thanks Toddy, I think your description of Glebe is more exacting than mine.

 

[daveO]

It can be really helpful in my job to look at place names. I designed a house on 'Sandy Lane' and sure enough the geotechnical report found that the soil was unusually sandy for the local area. Of course in Wales half the time you've no idea what the place names mean in the first place which doesnt help

 

[Janne]

I love maps, specially comparing old and new.
Lots of interesting stuff to be found on old maps, that ate ruins, derelict places and roads today.

I like to compare Google Earth too both with old and new maps.

 

[Bishop]

try to figure why they have been bestowed with such a title

Cliffords Mesne pronounced with silent 's', sounds like mean
Little village about halfway between May Hill and Newent. Nice pub and one bus to town twice a week.

 

[Toddy]

Cliffords Mesne pronounced with silent 's', sounds like mean
Little village about halfway between May Hill and Newent. Nice pub and one bus to town twice a week.

Is that perhaps from 'demense' ? In England that's the land retained by the lord of a manor for his own use...not the lands that he leased to others....his gardens, orchards, grazings, etc.,
The enclosed lands and gardens surrounding a large house or castle up here are called the Policies and the demense is the private land around a dwelling place...the responsible right of access specifically excludes the curtilage of a demense....basically the gardens around someone's home.

Thanks Toddy, I think your description of Glebe is more exacting than mine.

I think, on doing some reading, that it was originally the land that was used to support a priest in a local church, or similar arrangement. Not necessarily land that the priest/vicar/minister actually worked himself.
As things changed with time though, my original description is probably what was left when the land was reduced to suit when the parish paid the priest/vicar/minister a salary.

 

[santaman2000]

Here it's Chotawhatchee Bay. The Choctaw were the dominant nation in the Gulf South so that bit I understand; not sure where "hatchee" came from though. Back home one small town was named Eastabuchie.

 

[mousey]

......
I like to compare Google Earth too both with old and new maps.

I went into Aberdeen to the harbour for a job on a supply vessel. I looked at google earth before going however when I got there I discovered they were doing major road works and had completely changed the road layout around the harbour area, these hadn't been updated on google earth, so it took me longer than anticipated to find the right quay

Later I went to look at google earth again and they had updated the road layout, the blue lines denoting where the roads were, but these didn't match up with the satellite imagery, so you could see where the new roads were going through the old building complexes. I found that immensely interesting.

 

[SiWhite]

Another map lover here - I have loads of old OS maps inherited from my late grandfather which have huge sentimental value. I treated myself to an OS Maps subscription for Christmas - I'm loving the freedom of virtual exploration it allows!

My map anecdote relates to Google Streetview. I'm a Police Officer by trade, and a few years ago I was working on the Traffic department. I was called to a fairly nasty (but amazingly non-injury) collision where a vehicle had lost control on a 60mph road, spun and skidded across a pub forecourt, across a side road and into a wooden telegraph pole. The driver would likely have been killed if the impact was on the front door as opposed to the rear door.

Anyway, part of the reporting process was to draw a detailed sketch map including road layout, signs, road markings and vehicle positions. I would often take a few snaps on my phone and use a satellite image and Streetview to complete my sketch back in the office, which I duly did that day. I returned to the base and was tidying up my paperwork, and logged onto Streetview to refresh my memory about the road layout. To my amazement, my collision was perfectly pictured on Streetview - all the skid marks, damage to infrastructure, the crashed car - even a picture of me standing next to my traffic car was all captured on Streetview! The Google car must have driven past when I was dealing with the collision, and everything was recorded in perfect detail.

 

[bearbait]

I'm in to maps as well. I still remember the first time I saw an OS map during a lesson at primary school a good number of decades ago. It opened my eyes and I thought "Wow". Also do GIS work now.

This is not exactly map-based but I came across a couple of interestingly-named roads in Skagway, Alaska 3/4 years ago. There was Lois Lane and Rocky Road (and it was).

In England it is not uncommon to find in some villages a common called Goose Green, I believe originally used to overnight the geese when being drove to market.

 

[Crowe]

Me too. Is that sad ? ' The man with a map, has a window to adventure'

 

[Trig]

Got the os maps on my computer that came with my gps unit. Great for looking and planning various walking and bikepacking trips. If only i had the holidays for it all.

Dont have many thoughts about names when looking at parts of scotland other than "How the heck do you say that??"

 

[Zingmo]

Go have look at the National Library of Scotland map collections.
http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#
If you're into maps I promise you will be there for hours.

A recent name curiosity was "Deer Leap". Which was a kind of one way fence designed to allow deer into a forest, but not let them out.

Z

 

[Toddy]

Been there and the maps turn up in the Muniment chest collections too.

If you can get into the map room of any of the University Libraries where the University has a Geology or Geography department, it's a marvellous, utterly wonderful and totally awesome place
I lost days in the map room at Glasgow Uni

M