Tag: maps

My next review is of Four points of the Compass: The Unexpected History of Direction by Jerry Brotton. I read his book A History of the World in 12 Maps in 2013,

One might imagine that the history of the four points of the compass was a rather brief affair, and Four points is a relatively short book. However, it packs a lot in because the compass points are more than just geography – they encompass religion, culture and politics.

The book starts with an “orientation” chapter followed by chapters on east, south, north and west and finishes with one entitled “The blue dot”. In this case the blue dot is us; our marker on the map we now find on our phone. A fitting end since Brotton starts by talking about the Apollo 17 “Blue Marble” photograph – not to be mistaken for Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” taken by Voyager 1 as it passed beyond Saturn in 1980. Brotton sees the rise of our blue dot on a phone as an end of the compass directions.

It is easy, particularly for the map obsessed, to think of the cardinal directions of the compass as being almost timeless, and it takes some prompting to recall that the words North, South, East and West have meanings beyond those physical directions. This is highlighted in the “Orientation” chapter.

The other source of direction in the human world is based on our own body: left, right, front, back, up and down. This creeps into the compass direction with the etymology of some languages linked to them, i.e. north is the left of east. The Guugu Yimithirr people of Queensland Australia don’t bother with these egocentric directions, referencing everything to the compass (“please, pass the salt to your west”). The up and down directions rarely feature alongside the compass directions, with the exception of Mesoamericans who for a considerable period added up as a fifth cardinal direction.

The first written references to compass-like directions are from the Akkadian culture from around 2000 BCE. They are compass-like since they relate to prevailing winds and weather rather than magnetic or astronomical dirctions. The second phenomena prompting direction, and probably the primary one is the sun which rises in the east and sets in the west. The invention of compass north and south comes rather later with the Chinese discovering what they called “south pointing stones” around 200 BCE. Magnetic compasses only became common as directional aids in 12th century in Europe. It wasn’t until William Gilbert’s work De Magnete published in 1600 that the earth’s magnetic field was understood in broad terms, and recognised as not aligning with astronomical definitions of direction – the magnetic North Pole is hundreds of miles from the point where the earth’s rotational axis surfaces in the Arctic. The difference becomes important for longer voyages.

From a religious point of view the east was initially important as the location of the rising sun, and represented birth with the opposite direction, west, representing death and sometimes rebirth. The Jewish faith, Christianity and Islam tried at the beginning to break this link to distinguish themselves from earlier sun worship but in the end succumbed to the east being a special direction. Christian churches have long been oriented with the altar at the east, and burials with the head to the west. In Islam the great expansion of the Islamic Empire was along the North African coast which meant praying in the direction of Mecca meant facing east. Geographically medieval maps of the world placed the east at the top. Mercator placed the north at the top of his 1569 map of the world but this seems to have been more a convenience than a matter of principle for him. He was mapping primarily for east-west journeys which fit better with north at the top.

North and south do not appear to have had strong religious connotations, culturally their meaning varied over time. The south represented unbearable heat from the point of view of ancient Mediterranean civilisations and the north every increasingly harsh conditions with fanciful notions as to what happened at the North Pole (which continued through to Mercator’s time at least). Later Thomas More and Francis Bacon would locate their Utopias in the far south.

These days North, South, East and West all have strong political meanings although these vary with context, in the UK the North has been associated with poverty, depravation and decline whilst in the US and Italy the opposite is true. On a global scale we talk about the wealthy Global North and the developing Global South. The West has long been a place of political aspiration, the East represented the old Soviet Union and Japan.

For me the biggest idea in this book was think of the compass beyond physical direction, it also provided a handy supply of pub quiz facts all in all a short yet thought provoking read.

For my next book I read Hidden Histories: A spotter’s guide to the British Landscape by Mary-Ann Ochota. As a countryside walker and cyclists of many years, I’ve always been interested in what I saw and how it came to be, Hidden Histories is just the book for me.

The book is divided into broad sections: lumps and bumps, stones, lines and "in the village" and within each of these sections there are 10 or so topics covered over a few pages each. There are many illustrations, and photographs on pretty much every page. Domestic buildings and churches are covered but castles and stately homes are not which is not unreasonable.

If there is a gap it is in the coverage of industrial landscapes which is limited, this reflects my interests and where I have lived, and holidayed, as much as anything.

"Lumps and bumps" covers long barrows (collective burials dating back to the Neolithic), round barrows (single burials, found in nearly every parish dating back to the Bronze Age), hillforts (defensive earthworks from the Iron Age), miscellaneous earthworks and the ridge-and-furrow plough system. I was interested to learn that windmill bases can be mistaken for round barrows. One learning of this section is that there are only known burials for about 10% of the estimated population of prehistoric Britain. I grew up in Dorset which makes frequent appearances in this part of the book. Maiden Castle was a regular walking spot – it is the biggest Iron Age hillfort in Europe.

The ridge-and-furrow plough systems makes a re-appearance in the section on lines. Essentially visible ridge-and-furrow systems are usually at least seven centuries old and are the result of the medieval method of farming with ox-drawn ploughs which leave a shallow S-shaped furrow. This gentle S-shape is also seen in ancient field boundaries. The way land was owned and shared is also relevant, in medieval times land was common with patches exploited by individuals but individual plots did not have hedge boundaries. This ended with the Enclosures Acts in the 18th and 19th century that made land ownership more individual although in principle it shared land equitably in practice it favoured the rich who had the resources to exploit land in line with the new Acts. Enclosure Acts were particularly important in the Midlands and had widespread impacts on both people and the landscape.

"Stones" covers standing stones, stones in circles,stones in lines, stones with symbols on them, stone crosses, stone tools and wayside markers (stone ones!). Standing stones are difficult to date, and Stonehenge is pretty unique in that its constituent parts are not local, usually stone circles are built from local stone.

"Lines" talks about Roman roads, and other ancient pathways before moving on to the shapes of fields and various chalk figures. I grew up just down the road from the impressive Cerne Abbas giant which is 2000 years old, there is also a white horse on the hillside into Weymouth but that is of George III and dates back to 1808. I hadn’t appreciated that chalk figures require very regular maintenance which is impressive considering the Uffington white horse dates back to 1400BC.

Holloways have a number of mentions – these are ancient routes that have been worn below the prevailing ground level by use. It is chastening that after the Romans left their road building skills were not surpassed until the turnpike roads were introduced a thousand years later.

"In the village" covers various buildings found in villages, mainly houses and churches but briefly mentioning pubs and barns. The age of homes is of direct professional interest for me, although the focus of Hidden Histories is older buildings. I was bemused to learn that the term "Gothic" was originally applied as an insult coined in the 1600s to describe what they saw as overly ornate buildings from the 1200-1500s.

I learnt a wide range of useful facts from this book, such as "metalled" roads being derived from the Latin for "quarry" which has always puzzled me! I also learnt that "turbary" refers to peat workings, so I have learnt a new word to slip into conversation.

I’m interested in maps and computers so it struck me there are some interesting things to do in geospatial analysis relating to this book. For example, medieval ridge-and-furrow ploughing shows up quite nicely in LIDAR, as do other earthworks. Similarly field boundaries and place names, and other mapping features, are all in Ordnance Survey mapping products and these days are readily accessible by automated means.

Cheshire, where I live now, has few entries although on this morning’s cycle I was spotting what I now know to be Enclosure Act hedging with oak "standards" spread along it. Hidden Histories satisfies a curiosity I’ve always had about the countryside I’ve been traveling through.

I’ve always been a fan of maps, so the History of Britain in Maps by Philip Parker is right up my street.

The book is ordered chronologically with each map getting a short page of text facing a page of the map, with some maps earning an additional double page spread. Except for the earliest periods the maps are contemporary.

The book has the air of written as a set of separate map captions with some repetition between maps relating to the same period.

There are some recurring themes through the book, maps for the pleasure of maps seem to play a role, as do military maps showing defensive positions or explaining military actions. Maps of ownership are also common. Finally there are maps for travel, first by road and then later by canal and railway. Also apparent is the evolution of mapmaking skills.

Aside from the exceedingly schematic representations of Britain on the Roman Rudge Cup from 130AD the earliest maps of Britain date to the medieval period and Matthew Paris, a Benedictine monk who was active around 1250AD. There are religious Mappa Mundi from slightly earlier but Britain is very much on the edge of these schematic representations of the religious world with Britain perched at the very edge, if visible at all.

The earliest map of Britain that looks like a map is Matthew Paris’s map of 1250AD. The shape of coast is heavily distorted but some names recognisable to the modern eye appear (such as my home county of Dorset). Rivers are prominent most likely because they were the key method of transport over longer distances. There is a strand of maps that portrays the nations of the British Isles, the counties within them and cities, particularly London which are about place, belonging and power rather than navigation or even defence. Towards the end of the 16th century such maps start to look very much like modern maps, they are relatively accurate and follow modern mapping conventions (rather than being panoramic views or schematic views).

Also produced by Paris is an "itinerary map" showing the progression of towns a pilgrim to the Holy Land would pass through on their trip from Britain. This type of map is a recurring theme through the book, it is not interested in the details of the landscape, it is not a plan view, it is a linear track with distances. This is highly relevant to the traveller who is constrained to travel along the roads rather than view the landscape from above, as a bird does. In some respects this path turns full circle with Beck’s highly schematic but very clear London Underground map.I was interested to learn that road signage was not introduced until 1696.

Although there are earlier examples of coastal maps Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century which led to open season being declared on Britain by the Pope, produced a number of coastal maps of the South of England. These are a recurring theme. The monarch, and his counterparts in Europe, were both keen to map the defences of the South Coast. Similar maps were produced during the Napoleonic Wars and the Second World War. Also falling into the military remit are the various maps of military engagements of the Civil War. The earliest work of what was to become the Ordnance Survey in Scotland in the mid-18th century and then in Kent related to military interests (the clue is in the name).

Maps of ownership are another recurring theme, these start in the early 15th century typically establish the land and rights of the monasteries. Later maps, in the early 19th century, show the results of the Enclosure Acts which took from Common land from everyone and gave to the wealthy now-landowners. Similarly the tithe system whereby a tenth of the produce of an area was owed to the parish was converted to a land taxing system where money was given instead.

There are the 19th century "social" maps of cholera by Jon Snow’s, deprivation by Charles Booth and the census of 1841 by August Petermann. Fi

The book ends with a map of the votes cast in the 2016 EU referendum, a bitter topic as I write in January 2021. 

Obviously as a fan of maps, I enjoyed this book. It is a nice skim through British history if you don’t want anything too heavy going, it is also a good overview of what types of maps people were making and when. I’d seen quite a few of the maps shown in other books, you can get a flavour of these here on the maps tag of my blog.