VINTAGE MAP- SOLD FOR £14 ONLY- NO AUCTION- NO POSTAGE FEE FOR 2ND CLASS UK.
“A perspective on Britain: travelling with an antique or vintage map”
Seller's code: 121220181
THIS IS AN ORDNANCE SURVEY PLANNERS SHEET USED BY THE LAND TAX REGISTER
6” TO THE MILE DETAIL
showing
SNODLAND, HOLBOROUGH, LEE LIME WORKS, BURHAM
AND ECCLES
IN
KENT
A MAP WITH NO ANNOTATION
A Planner's 6 inch to the mile map formerly used by the Land Tax Register of Kent.
This map was surveyed in 1860-65
Re-levelled in part in 1930-31
Revised boundaries to 1948
Published 1945
Printed with boundary revision 1949
This sheet is called
“KENT SHEET XXX1 N.W.”
General Description:
Here is the large scale of 6 inches to the mile scale- seldom seen in the public domain, and a sheet map on thick paper with a plain verso. The map is printed in red and black; all now denoting the Newlyn Datum and the 1 km grid which post dates the war and the original Victorian survey.
The old Liverpool Datum is no longer used but would have been that of the original survey prior to re-levelling
Figures to adjust back to those old spot heights are cited at the bottom centre of the map. The old datum was 1.0 feet higher than the new one across this map
This is
KENT XXXI NW.
After being retired from usage it was passed on first to an archive held by county authorities and then to a well known book seller of the county and thence to this seller.
THE DISTRICT
The Medway as an old river meanders slowly across a flood plain north of Maidstone. Aylesford is off to the south east- famous for its Carmelite monastery and ancient bridge.
It is an industrial river here with areas of marsh in its bends and counter walls set further back to prevent flooding.
The chief industry is lime and cement production and old puts are water filled. Interestingly one is marked, not chalk, but “clay” ( Burnham Cement Works) which rather suggests that here near eccles the Upper Cretaceous chalk has given way to gault clay which is being dug for some use. The works here are marked “cement” so I wonder if this is just a mistake by the Ordnance Survey.
By that factory there is a wharf- showing that this was a navigable river right up to Maidstone and beyond as far as Tonbridge. Local companies such as the cement works and Honnor's of Maidstone shipped materials down the river and had sprits'l barges, but by about 1930 that was being replaced by motor lorries.
The river is tidal here and the marking “Highest Point to which Medium Tides Flow”, is on a creek between the main river and the railway- I don’t think that is the end of the tidal river itself.
The railway from Maidstone to Rochester is marked SR (Southern Railway) which shows that the 1948 revision was light- boundaries only- for the SR became BR in 1948.
Snodland is dominated by a paper mill on the river side of the town and that has wharfs.
Downstream is the old church and then two more wharfs with unnamed factories. Then a Lead Wool Works with a wharf, then the river bends north east to the Portland Cement Works, then Wouldham Hall Lime and Cement Works, then Lee Lime Works is on the west bank, and another Cement Works at Holborough a little west and inland; then a short dock running due west from the river and then a last Cement works.
So: 6 cement and lime works, 1 Paper Mill and 1 Lead Wool plant. (Lead Wool is a product for cold casting pipes manufactured in UK and USA)
By some of these factories there are notes of Roman finds. Roman tiles near the Lead Wool Works, a Roman temple near the West Kent Portland Cement Works.
Looking east into the flat land about Burham in the lea of the North Downs escarpment, are many chalk quarries- nearly all worked out then east agin is the alleged Pilgrims Way running east from where?? Rochester Bridge? A lost ferry or bridge at Snotland?? Off that escarpment path is a track which climbs up to Kits Coty Burial Chamber- a famous Neolithic site which is named and marked, by a farm of the same name.
South of that is an ancient Pilgrim’s Chapel dedicated to St Stephen and by that variosu ancient stones – one called the Coffin Stone.
I think the archaeology is unexposed here and perhaps the “Coffin Stone” isan exposed element of the now revealed “Countless Stones: another collapsed log barrow site.
A Roman building south of Burham is unspecified but the map notes that it was found 1896-1897.
Off the map east is a famous carved stone called the White Horse Stone. Off the map to the west on the western Downs are the cauldron Stones: another ancient grave complex.
SNODLAND
Here is an industrial town in a county in which such communities are rare. The railway separates the town from the town’s industry. The main road runs south from Strood to West Malling and on it in the town is an hotel, Bull Fields, which may be a remembrance of droves, and schools near Sharnal Lane in the South Town.
The large quarry nearby is in Holborough and a tramway runs to it and within it. Up on the hill by Holborough Quarry is a tumulus. So the general pattern of this map is 19th century and early 20th century industry dependent on the river, interspersed with ancient sites which are either Roman or Neolithic.
That is 2000 years old or 4000 years old but not much evidence of sites in between those two widely spaced epochs.
THE RAILWAY
This is called the North Kent Line and here in c.1930-31 it is Southern Railway, as stated.
The Southern Railway was instigated in 1923; prior to that it may have been the North Kent Railway. The station at Snodland opened in 1856.
The station has an hotel and sidings on the town side and on the river side. The line also has six sidings running into Holborough Cement Works and a line running into Lee Lime Works, from where a tramway runs back across the railway and due west up the hill to am Engine House seen right on the western edge of the map.
THE NEOLITHIC.
This map area, and the extended area west to Allington and east to The White Horse Stone, is perhaps the most interesting neolithic site south of Stonehenge. I think it likely that the Medway was forded or bridged here anciently- before Durobrigae (Rochester) and one account says that an avenue of stones ran west from near Kits Coty House to the River (now lost).
These sites are all long barrows which are chambered stone tombs with a large stone door, the stone chamber being covered with earth. Kits Coty House is formed of the remnant posts and lintel of a long barrow entrance.
There is a myth that it was the tomb of Caradoc who fell fighting Hengist and Horsa. Unfortunately those events of the 5th century are 2,500 years too late for the stones. The Whitehorse Stone is also said to have been the tomb of Horsa who fell in the same Battle of Aylesford: again: 2,500 years too late, and probably mythological.
The archaeological reality is that the Pilgrims Way was a neolithic ridge way running from Amesbury to the English Channel; The pilgrims actually walked along the Greensand Hills to the south.
The tombs of the mesolithic and neolithic are not matched with habitation sites, and it is now understood that those people lived on the greensand ( such as the camp at Oldbury Hill) but buried their dead on the chalk. They had some notion of a sacred landscape in which there was a land of the living and another of the dead and such a demarcation is now understood to have been present at Avebury, Stonehenge and even at Maes Howe.
INTERESTING MODERN DISCOVERIES ABOUT LONG BARROWS
Archaeologists working near Stonehenge and West Kennet have discovered an extraordinary fact about Long barrows: many of them were occupied and were hall homes for communities in the Neolithic: then at some time they were “put to bed” so to speak and became the communal tombs seen today. There was a formal burial of a hall dwelling and its former occupants perhaps when a community moved, or a dynasty changed, or perhaps a particularly revered leader died.
It is also know that the bodies interred were lot left in peace, but removed for periodic ceremonies and feasts. They therefore slowly deteriorated – sometimes to a thigh bone and a skull. Evidence has very recently been found that some were “articulated” in an attempt to keep them together during their seasonal “excursions”.
ECCLES
This seems an old name for a modern village. The word obviously means “church” and is either British, like “Eglwys” or Latin, like “Eccesia”. If Latin, is might be Roman Latin or Mediaeval Latin and perhaps refers to St Stephens ruined chapel to the east: in which case the name is Mediaeval Latin.
The village however is a series of terraces round a grid with St Mark’s Church in the middle: Belgrave Street, Cork Street, Alma Street, Victoria Street, Varnes Street.
These names betray the dates of the village: Victoria: 1937-1901; Alma: Crimean War 1851-1853.
The church was built circa 1885 and demolished circa 1975. It was polychromatic brick from that brief period when Victorians looked to Byzantine influences. So that is marked on this map, but gone today.
Looking up census details for 1851 one finds the result “none”; so I think these are houses and a church probably built for workers at Burham Cement Works. in the second half of the 19th century.
BURHAM
“Burh-Ham”, "the ham by the Burg": which is presumably Rochester.
On the Rochester Road is Street Farm, from which one can infer that the road was Roman. In the village is a school, a vicarage and a pump house on the hill side of the street, and the main village on the south side is St Mary’s Church and a Methodist Chapel, a pub in Church Street and a post office on the corner of this and the main street. Lower Baker Street lies to the south west and a second school is seen in the south east end of the village, after which there are allotment gardens. A large area of old chalk quarries lie to the north west with Margetts Cottages and Pit House on the far side.
A footpath runs down the hill from the village to the Burham Cement Works, which presumably provided most employment.
THE ROCHESTER STONE
Down by the river at the end of the Burham path is the City of Rochester Stone, and this map writes in full what is cut onto it:
“Stone marked: “God Preserve the City of Rochester”. This Mayoralty Stone was erected in 1799 and revisited in 1824, 1825, 1864, 1871, 1875, 1881, 1884, 1895, 1899, & 1902”
Cartography
RE LEVELLING
Some interesting details:
The map’s spot heights were re levelled in 1933-34 to the new (1915) Newlyn Datum. The old Liverpool Datum is no longer used.
The old datum was Liverpool LWMMT. In 1915 this was changed to Newlyn in Cornwall: again the datum was LWMMT. Re-levelling all OS maps was necessary.
Details say that to calculate the old Liverpool Datum heights add “1.2ft” Elsewhere in Kent one is told to add 0.1ft 0.9ft, 1.4ft, 1ft 1.5 ft . So such a calculation is only good for a particular sheet ( you would have thought that a change from Liverpool LWMMT to Newlyn LWMMT would be consistent over the whole country but it is not.
It can only be supposed that land has risen or fallen at different rates between the narrow confines of Kent itself, and that the County is in come way tectonically active.
Bench marks are give as dots: “.77”- those are on the ground. Or an arrow “^ 84”: those are on buildings.
The grid is numbered in red – so it was revised later than the survey date- it is an early form of the National Grid- 1 km squares. Numbered from the false datum off the Scilly Isles. It was adapted from the kilometre grid used in the War by the General Staff Geological Section and called “Cassini Grid”. This map is on a Transverse Mercator Projection.
A Mercator projection depicts a spherical world on a flat surface and uses the equator latitude as its datum with latitude stretching progressively from there to the polls. This is not satisfactory for the UK as the distortion is too great and so they projections used are either Secant Mercator's or Transverse Mercator's.
The datum for the Transverse Mercator may have been 49 degrees north and 2 degrees west: I found those figures just once on a map of the Scilly Isles, but they make sense: 49 degrees of latitude is just south of all the land in Britain and 2 degrees west is about the middle of the island: Maybe this is the standard datum used by the Ordnance Survey for all their Britain maps.
OLDMAPSHOP: IS MY SOURCE ON-LINE FOR MAP & CARTOGRAPHIC HISTORY
TITLE: Kent Sheet XXXI NW
DATES: 1860-65, 1930-31, 1945, 1948
PUBLISHER: Ordnance Survey of England and Wales
EDITION: 6 Inches to the Mile planner map
PRINTER: Ordnance Survey Office-
PRINTING CODE: B
PRINTING PROCESS: Lithography
SCALE: 6 inch to the mile or 1:10360
GRID: 1 km grid and National Grid from the 00 datum of South East Cornwall
OVERALL DIMENSIONS: Roughly 23 inches by 17 inches.
COVER DIMENSIONS: N/A Sheet
COVER DETAIL:N/A Sheet
COVER CONDITION: N/A Sheet
MAP PAPER OR LINEN BACKED: Paper
FOLD WEAR: minimal.
EDGE NICKS: NO BUT OLD REINFORCEMENT USING LINEN TAPES BY THE LAND TAX REGISTER, obviously a well studied land tax map with- later in County archive and a Library stamp is seen at top right in green
PIN HOLES AT FOLD JUNCTIONS: no
VERSO: Plain Paper
FOXING: no
REINFORCING: no , except for the old linen edging used by the Land Tax Register
SURFACE MARKING: edges as explained and the top edge tape has erased any marks in the top margin
FOLDED INTO: 8 sections
ANNOTATION: library stamp in green at top right.
INTEREST: considerable: Roman Remnants, communities grow up round the railway and the Medway: Industrial riverside landscape and Ancient sites which are either Neolithic or Roman
GENERAL CONDITION: Good with old Land Tax Register edge taping
THE NORTH WEST CORNER OF THIS MAP IS AT: Engin House above Whitting’s Farm Holborough
THE NORTH EAST CORNER OF THIS MAP IS AT: Syle Wood, Woodman’s Wood
THE SOUTH EAST CORNER OF THIS MAP IS AT: Kit’s Coty Hpouse and a footpath – St Stephen’s ruined Chapel
THE SOUTH WEST OF THIS MAP IS AT: Ham Hill in the parish of Birling
THE CENTRE OF THIS MAP IS AT: Near Burham
THE SOUTH WEST CORNER OF THIS MAP IS: 569 km EAST OF NG 00 DATUM AND: 160 km NORTH OF NG 00 DATUM (which is off South West Cornwall)
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