VINTAGE MAP- SOLD FOR £10 ONLY- NO AUCTION- NO POSTAGE FEE FOR 2ND CLASS UK.

seller’s code 100720171

NEWCASTLE, GATESHEAD, SUNDERLAND, MIDDLESBOROUGH

IN NORTHUMBERLAND, DURHAM, TO YORKSHIRE 

&

INLAND TO CROSS FELL IN THE WEST

Very fine Bartholomew’s topographic map dated 1950 but still the War Series

Great Britain Sheet 39

JOHN BARTHOLOMEW’S OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL INSTITUTE, EDINBURGH

General

This full colour topographic map is on linen with the classic floating covers of vintage Bartholomew. The Coast is seen from above Seaton Sluice to Middlesborough- so the towns of Newcastle, Tynemouth, Gateshead, South and North Shields, Sunderland, Hartlepool and Middlesborough are seen on the coast. Inland is Hexham and in the west the western escarpment of the Pennines rises to Cross Fell 2930 ft and then drops away to that valley- through which passes the Eden and which divides the Pennines from the Lake District.

Here is Tyneside and the Tyne South to its source at Tynehead Fell and north off the map north of Wark near Bellingham where the valley and region was later to be covered with the new Kielder Forest.

In the centre is the Wear with its interesting characteristic , on this map, of seeming a most substantial river upstream through Durham and Wolsingham than downstream from Chester le Street to Hylton.

Interestingly, the border between Cumberland and Durham divides the catchment areas- west of it streams or gills descend to the Eden. Borders can be drawn arbitrarily, along rivers or along catchment boundaries and it is apparent that, in the north the borders tend to be along watershed and in the Saxon lands, and between England and Wales, they tend to be along rivers. An obvious exception here is the Tyne which parts Durham from Northumberland.

This map charts the collieries and mineral railways of the Northumberland and Durham coalfields- roughly from Easington to the top of the map and inland up to 15 miles, after which the later strata of the Pennines must have made reaching the Upper Carboniferous levels impractical.

The great number of mines, collieries and smelting plants on this map would be nearly all gone within 35 years of the map’s printing: a state of affairs which would not have been believed by anyone of this map’s date.

Here too are the railways substantially before the closures of the Beeching era and of particular interest are: The Wear Head line from Bishop Auckland; The Middleton in Teesdale Line; Hexham, Haltwhistle and west to the Lakes, and the North Tyne line off the map to Bellingham

The main road of this map, the Great North Road or A1 was substantially Roman and this map of 1950- but really the cartography of 1939 shows no motor ways. The still visible sub-structure of this map’s roads is 2,000 years old and it is interesting to speculate that the main road structure of this map has more in common with that of the Roman Age than it does with that of today. The main difference, geographically- which might be too obvious to mention- is that these roads and the traveller of this age, progressed from town centre top town centre- the notion that an arterial road should avoid a town had not taken root.

This is interestingly at variance with the Railways, which, in their early form, went out of their way to avoid urban centres. Famous examples are the GWR through Wiltshire, the SER through Mid Kent- and notoriously the GCR which chose to ignore Wolverhampton. The railways of this map are some of the oldest in England and the national network can be said to have expanded from this map’s historically important. Here at the bottom of the sheet, is the Stockton and Darlington which is a Yorkshire railway at its western end and a Durham Railway elsewhere. This was the line of George Stephenson’s Rocket locomotive. These lines were essentially colliery based- and perhaps the whole network was built around the joining of quarries, mines , ports and canals- with a secondary military use in the south east. The mass movement of people seems to have been an unintended consequence but not the reason for the railway network.

This map is 2 years later than the formation of British Railways and though- like the nationalisation of the mines- that seemed a reasonable step- the consequence for both industries was that a hostile government could then decimate them.

There seem no LNE or LMS markings on this map so it has been adjusted for the new nationalised system.

PENNINES

The Pennines are an unusual fell range in the light of British geological history because most ranges on the island bear the consequences of either plate collision or orogenies from further south. The Lawrencian Plate, which had north west Scotland on it, and was a North American Plate, collided with the Avalonian Plate of Western Europe and created the main fault lines of the north. These tend to align North East South West- as any map of Scotland shows. The resulting volcanism created massifs such as in the Cumbrian Mountains and those near Edinburgh. The Alpine Orogeny (mountain building period) of 50 million years ago pushed up the sea bed strata of Southern England forming the Downs, and the east west tendency of other southern hill ranges- because the Alps are vaguely to the south and south east. But these hills align north south and their form must be the consequence of glacial erosion. The Anglian ice sheet came as far south as the Thames, the Wolstonian is named after the village in Warwickshire where it stopped and the Devensian described a line roughly from Glamorgan to Flamborough as its ice front of greatest reach. So, probably, this map was just under all three ice sheets- where as Sussex and Hampshire were under none. It would appear that a general flow of glaciation west and east left the landscape of this map and exposed the carboniferous strata in the east, resulting in the coalfields of this map.

Particularly interesting geological features of this map include Seal Sands in the Tees; the very narrow highland bridge between the low land of the Upper Tyne and the River Irthing flowing west; and the isolated fell massifs about Trimdon, Shotton Bridge and Haswell, and at Eighton Banks and Wiekenton.

The general tendency of the map is to escarpe in the west and fall away very gently to the east.

THE ROMAN WALL

This is particularly well marked with existing sections castellated and places where only the vallum are seen as a dotted line. Geographically it is a mystery for several reasons. Why build a wall a few miles north of the Tyne which seems to provide a far better defence? Why build a wall which is not at the northern limit of the Roman settlement? From Limestone Bank to Gilshea it uses a natural escarpment- and at this point there is another point of toponymic interest- where several lakes or meres are seen with the term "Lough" applied to them. In Northumberland the Irish form is preferred over the Scottish form.

Note how, from Procilitia west, the “vallum”, which is presumably a service road, departs the wall and runs considerably south of it, but east of there, they run together.

The other interesting feature is that, in the west the Wall continued south of the Solway round towards Whitehaven- but here in the east it seems to stop at Wallsend and not secure the shore south towards Sunderland. Also in the west it runs south of the Firth, but here in the east it stays north of the Tyne. There are some who think this was an instrument of taxation rather than a defence for, as a defensive structure, it relied on the tenuous notion that hostile people to the north did not have boats.

MAP STATS:

OLDMAPSHOP. CO. UK: IS MY SOURCE ONLINE FOR MAP & CARTOGRAPHIC HISTORY

TITLE: TYNESIDE SHEET 39 DATES: 1950 BUT WAR EDITION PUBLISHER: John Bartholomew of the Geographical Institute, Edinburgh EDITION: 1/2 inches to a mile PRINTER: John Bartholomew of the Geographical Institute, Edinburgh PRINTING CODE: 870 PRINTING PROCESS: FULL COLOUR LITHOGRAPHIC. SCALE: 1/2 inches to 1 mile GRID: 10 MINUTES OF A DEGREE ON A MERCATOR PROJECTION WHICH LOOKS TO HAVE AN EQUATORIAL DATUM AND IS NOT TRANSVERSE OR SECHANT OVERALL DIMENSIONS: Roughly 33 inches by 23 inches. COVER DIMENSIONS: 7 1/2 INCHES BY 3 3/4 INCHES COVER DETAIL: blue fixed to verso, floating, printed black and red with royal arms – verso has index map COVER CONDITION: good MAP PAPER OR LINEN BACKED: linen backed FOLD WEAR: little PIN HOLES AT FOLD JUNCTIONS: little VERSO: Plain linen FOXING: no REINFORCING: no. SURFACE MARKING: very little FOLDED INTO: 27 sections ANNOTATION: no INTEREST: considerable: Newcastle and Gateshead in war and as it ends- old railways collieries and industry, Roman Wall, Pennine geography- Northumberland and Durham Coast- oldest railways Roman Road structure. Tyne, Wear and Tees GENERAL CONDITION: Good THE NORTH WEST CORNER OF THIS MAP IS AT: Greyfell Common THE NORTH EAST CORNER OF THIS MAP IS AT: Sea off Blyth Links THE SOUTH EAST CORNER OF THIS MAP IS AT: Eston south of Midlesborough THE SOUTH WEST OF THIS MAP IS AT: Towcett THE CENTRE OF THIS MAP IS AT: Crooked Oak, Allensford

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General Description of a Bartholomew’s 1/2 inch maps:

These are very attractive maps which give the reader an instant appreciation of the geological structure of a landscape as well as the cycle-able, drive-able roads. In their classic form they were printed to the 1960's. The earliest are Victorian.

They are topographically coloured, which Bartholomew used to call “Orographically coloured”. The tints represent altitude zones with a range from white for the highest peaks of Scotland to a pale apple green for land just above sea level. County borders are purple, rivers are blue if large and black if small. Sometimes the single black line for a railway and a river might be confused. Tidal reaches are pale blue and permanent water is a cerulean blue. Roads are uncoloured, ochre or burnt red, later maps number A and be roads with red numbers and letters according to the MOT demarcation. Woods are a repeated tree symbol because, of course, the green has already been used for topography. The Ordnance, when they used similar shading coloured woodlands green and therefore could only use and ochre-umber range for the topography.

The limited symbols included Youth Hostels, National Trust, Golf Courses, Railways, Canals and Airfields. Footpaths are dotted. The grid is 10 minutes of a degree. The borders were also numbered and lettered

Technique.

The Bartholomew Map, being coloured on a black base might be assumed to be purely lithographic. But I think that is not true. The earlier ones had a fine black base plate which was probably electrotype and the colour , if examined under a glass is seen to be lined or matrixed. Therefore I think the maps must have been letterpress or if lithographed: that was taken from an electrotyped and letterpressed original.

If the word “Ordnance” appears on the cover it is an early map, for the OS prohibited this in c.1911.

If the map is in collaboration with the Cyclists Touring Club, the dates are 1911-1928.

Maps might also be dated by the aircraft graphic: there is an early form and a later form- roughly Pre War and Post War.

Tidal banks are usually well named and this suggests that the base surveys of the OS used by Bartholomew, are quite a bit older than the map.

If the map contains an acknowledgement of the Ordnance Survey, it is Post 1911.

Spot heights are common, on promontories, hills and on roads. They are probably correct to the old Liverpool Datum which was surveyed prior to 1915.

If the covers float the map is older, if hinged it is more recent.

A standard size for a Bartholomew’s map would be about

32 inches by 22 1/2 inches.

The versi are always plain and may be paper or linen backed.

War and Post War editions.

Bartholomew marked airfields with a biplane symbol pre-war and a Hurricane-like symbol post-war. War maps had neither because the airfields were redacted. They would reappear in the 1960's maps. The war- period edition is found in the 1940's and into the 1950's. Other symbols hidden included radio towers.

Ordnance Reduction:

This is a ½ inch to the mile reduction of the Ordnance Survey, printed in colours and revised locally by Bartholomew. The Ordnance Survey is acknowledged on the bottom margin, where a date is usually, but not always cited. If this acknowledgement is not seen- suspect a date prior to 1911.

Royal Appointment:

Bartholomew's had the Royal Patronage of George V and continued his Royal Arms at bottom centre of their map sheets, with the dedication “By Appointment to the Late King George V” after his death. When collaborating with the Cyclists' Touring Club in the 1920s. The Royal Arms were replaced by the winged Wheel symbol of the C.T.C.

Publication:

These maps were printed and published from the Edinburgh Geographical Institute in Duncan Street, and this is cited at bottom left on the map sheet. A More extensive details of John Bartholomew & Sons are to be found in the “Historical Notes” section on the home page

The Map Covers and Edition

Earlier separate Scottish and England & Wales series were revised into a “Great Britain Survey” which had 62 maps. No 1 was S.W. Cornwall, and number 62 was Shetland. These were the “Revised Half Inch Contour Maps”. Earlier surveys had differentnumbering. Also titles may change- some use County names and some District names for similar surveys- for example “Lincolnshire” or “The Fens”; “Cumberland” or “The Lake District”.

Classic covers are blue red and black, with much variation in the blue and style changes, particularly in lettering and the Cover Royal Arms: red and black in the War editions; Blue and Orange/Red in the Post War ones, which cause a curious complimentary colour illusion when an orange red juxtaposed with a lighter blue. Sheet numbers were at top corner of the cover: map type (cloth or paper) and price appeared at the bottom.

Here the Complimentary Colour effect is seen with a blue inclining towards turquoise and the red inclining towards vermilion. A Number 14 in each of the top corners and a “Cloth 5/-” price.

A letter or letter an number code can usually be found on a Bartholomew’s map: look first bottom left or top left.

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