Historical Books

This pictorial treasure trove of visual historic mapping will enable armchair time travel at its very best - especially for those who have obtained a copy of the recent facsimile copy of George Bradshaw's tourist's handbook. Transporting the reader back to Victorian Britain, the many railway journey guides described evocatively in Bradshaw's handbook can be explored by using this atlas in tandem to follow the routes visually, including all of the stations along the way, for the first time.

At the core of Bradshaw's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland is the exquisite reproduction of the very last detailed railway map that was produced by George Bradshaw, originally published in 1852 and recently re-mastered and art worked by Steve Toulouse, who also recently reproduced many historic maps for the prestigious Times Atlas - Mapping the Railways. Published one year before Bradshaw's death, his railway Map of Great Britain and Ireland is a visual record of train travel at its height - the golden era of the railways - and his guides are clearly a labour of love, bursting with enthusiasm and a fascination with train travel.

This atlas, a culmination of over two years of work, is alive with Victorian imagery, with over 100 vignette views and vistas from around the Britain of a bygone era. Bradshaw's mapping of the railways encompasses routes across England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the Channel area of France, as well as being magnificently supplemented with no less than twenty detailed British Town Plans. These exquisite maps were originally published in 1851 by John Tallis, enabling the time traveller to stop off at mainline stations and explore the labyrinths of Victorian streets and public places. In addition, the atlas presents a further eight “Environs” maps by George Bradshaw; Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin, followed by his railway map of London covering a full page spread. The atlas concludes with a full index of stations referenced to the page on which they appear in the atlas, and many also cross reference to the page they are referred to in the recently re-published facsimile of Bradshaw's tourist guide.

The London Olympics title bursts with evocative sporting nostalgia, written features and rare information contemporary with the 1908 Games, paying tribute to the British sporting pioneers who set the modern day Olympics on the road becoming the global event of today. The published original letters appealing for funding are especially poignant underlining the ethos of the Olympic Games. With a foreword by former Sports Minister Kate Hoey, the publication is fully endorsed by both the Chairman of the Amateur Athletics Association, Chris Carter, and Jonathan Edwards MBE. It looks set to create major interest, especially given London’s hosting of the Olympics this summer.

The first and second sections of the book present the Atlas and Gazetteer for London 1908, originally published by John Bartholomew of the famous map making dynasty. The Atlas and Gazetteer would have been of great use to the crowds flocking to London for both the Franco-London Exhibition and the much awaited Olympic Games. It contains over 38,000 streets and places in its index along with the clear and colourful map plates of London’s famous districts that have been carefully re-mastered. Also in this section, placed throughout the street index are no less than 10 sporting images from the Olympic Games of 1908.

The Atlas and Guide of Manchester 1927 has been published with the kind permission of Collins Bartholomew Ltd and the book dedicated to J .G. Bartholomew who published the original pocket guide back in 1927. By this time Manchester was one of the largest manufacturing cities in the country, and like many cities Manchester attracted many visitors. By now the majority of people were utilising the established railway networks to explore and visit far off places, tourism would become the new vogue, and the privileged few could drive their new motor cars. John Bartholomew, fifth in a family line of famous cartographers could see the need to provide such people with a handy pocket atlas (around 5" by 4") for their use when navigating the expanding city roads and locating the many businesses and attractions.

This book I am in no doubt will allow its reader a different purpose, to take part in armchair time travel, seeing how streets and places have changed or disappeared since the mid war years, identify farmsteads that now have been replaced by housing estates, and maybe recognise that their local public house or Inn has survived through many events until today. Looking at the deceptively rural view of Manchester from 1795, and the town plan of 1807, Manchester's transformation into the Industrial power house of the 19th and 20th centuries clearly occurred at a rapid pace. Manchester soon became famous for its massive cotton industry and by the 19th century had gained the reputation of being the prime source of World Textiles, as well as being a major centre in Britain's great Industrial revolution.

At the time the first County Maps of Warwickshire started to appear towards the end of the 16th century and the turn of the 17th century, a small market town in the Hemlingford Hundred was flourishing once again after emerging from a period of decline. These first maps clearly illustrate the town as "Sutton Cofeld" or "Sutton Colfelde". A number of maps at the turn of the 18th century present the town as "Sutton Cole field". Maps from these centuries illustrated in this book also refer to "Cofeld Wast" and "Cofield Wast", a landscape of sparsely wooded heath land scrub and gorse, water-logged or arid, left after many of the trees had been felled for charcoal burning.

The precious park that was born out of the "Cofield" after part of it was enclosed as Sutton Park by Bishop Vesey, the town's famous benefactor and set aside for the benefit of the inhabitants in perpetuity, remains today the jewel in the crown, enjoyed by thousands, from near and far down through the generations.

In addition to the informative text, old views of Sutton Coldfield and the park itself, the many old maps presented across three centuries will enable an informative gateway to the colourful and rich history of the Royal Town and its neighbouring communities; (Boldmere, Four Oaks, Little Aston, Streetly, Wylde Green, Whitehouse Common, Reddycap Heath, Walmley, Little Sutton and Mere Green).