UKH

Friday distraction thread.

OS Map SK 30 70. I was browsing across on OS map online and go to that area on 1:25k and thought it was some rendering effect, all this grid squares at an angle to the grid. Then switched to aerial and it's a very rectangular farm. Not checked the mag dev but I wonder it it's actual N-S aligned. Just looks likes SimCity and someone started building on the edge of wild land.

Any other similar map oddities - OS or otherwise. I know there are sites dedicated to the weird things you can find on Google Maps.

In reply to Philip:

Not an oddity as such, but recently spent an interesting evening comparing a 1970s OS map of Brum with the current version. Highlights included several railway stations that no longer exist, and the M5 just randomly stopping in the middle of nowhere.

In reply to Philip:

Last week I saw this nice place called Barnard Castle on my map. When I got there there wasn't much to see.

In reply to Philip:

I thought many (most, all ?) maps had deliberate, barely noticeable errors to protect copyright (I know thats not what you're pointing out)? Like a small cul de sac that doesn't exist or the wrong number of buildings in a hamlet. 

In reply to Philip:

Drained land, don't go to Holland your brain will explode!

Browsing the other week in my area (southern Bavaria) and found 'England' so went for a little (22km) trip, it's a small hamlet/big farm. Looks prosperous and no Covid though!

In reply to Philip:

20 or so years ago I was going to the new Doncaster airport (the old RAF Finningly, V bomber base). I called up an OS map overlay and saw the base was 'out' by several hundred metres compared with satellite photo - I'm sure that would fooled those pesky Russkies!

In reply to yorkshireman:

They do - trap streets and paper towns. This article is interesting on the subject:

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/may/03/imaginary-american-town-tour...

In reply to jimtitt:

Is it drained land?
https://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/SK3070

I assume there might be some ditches there, but it is upland land on a gradient. Hardly prime territory for really intensive ditching. Just looks like lots of uniform fields, for whatever purpose.

In reply to jimtitt:

Or Lincolnshire or Cambridgeshire...

In reply to Mike Peacock:

Yes. I wondered whether it was WW2 cultivation.

The filed pattern south of Langton Matravers & Swanage is quite regular. The field system is apparently Celtic, with long, parallel strips of land down to the sea, each now subdivided.

In reply to blurty:

It might actually have been enough to work:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_...

In reply to Mike Peacock:

View on 1:25k OS map, the fences make it look like something has gone wrong with the grid

In reply to Lankyman:

Bowes Museum, a mini Versailles of the north with a fantastic arts collection

If you zoom in on the ranges at Warcop you can see interesting things, old tanks and sometimes AFVs on exercise

In reply to blurty:

Isn’t that to do with the mat datums being different - the ordnance survey maps were to OSGB36 and the satellite maps to wgs84 

In reply to Bob Kemp:

Slightly off topic, but I recently learned that Wikipedia has its own 'trap streets'. Some articles have false references so you can easily spot journal publications that have just mindlessly copy-pasted references from a wiki article.

In reply to yorkshireman:

The A to Z guides used that technique to spot plagiarised versions of their publications.

In reply to sparrigan:

Reference books like dictionaries and encyclopaedias have done this for a long time, so it doesn't surprise me that Wikipedia do it. They're often called Mountweazels in this kind of context, after a made-up character in an encyclopaedia. Google has done something similar, when they were trying to show Bing was stealing search data from them.  

If anyone is interested, this is an entertaining look at trap streets (and ski slopes!) in the London A-Z;

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/where-are-londons-missing-map-traps

In reply to Philip:

Because the world is not flat, grid lines don't fit really.  At some points, there is a guddle of converging grid lines.  If you look at two points on a map, they may be only 3km apart but according to the GPS they are 17km apart.  As you head towards your next destination, the GPS goes into meltdown, does some sums and changes the distance to travel from 16km to 2km.  One of these locations is in the Kuwaiti oil fields, which was most inconvenient in the early 1990s

In reply to nniff:

I'm not convinced that's true. The maps are a flat representation, the curvature is marked by graticule intersections on the map, which shows the movement of lat and long relative to the North South grid. At least on OS maps.

The GPS error you refer to might have been in the days when usa satellites had a deliberate error for non military users?

In reply to nniff:

Sounds more like changing UTM zone.

In reply to nniff:

guddle - nice word, thought you were shortening "grid muddle" which would have been good, then I looked it up and of course it's already a word - it means "to catch (fish) with the hands by groping (as under banks or stones)" - presumably trout tickling counts 😁

In reply to summo:

Afraid not - you confusing the UKC's "I have heard" and"I have seen".  The map had a mass of converging grid lines.  As measured on the map and in practice - 3km, just over the next rise.  On the Magellan GPS (mil spec) 17km.  Somewhere around here.   A more likely explanation is that if one tried to apply a standard 1km grid mapping system based on a datum somewhere to produce a new map it mighty not work terribly well.

IIRC, somewhere around here

https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B052'48.5%22N+48%C2%B002'43.8%22E/@...

In reply to nniff:

I dimly recall hearing about that at the time. Grid lines all over the place? Could that area, (which was strategically unimportant years ago), have been a convenient area to 'dump' the overlapping map datums?

In reply to nniff:

no.

Powers into a power station?  

Who made the map?

I lived here for bit, https://www.google.com/maps/place/Messila,+Kuwait/@29.2368674,48.0926425,13... there are many odd things there. So grids, that aren't actually a grid wouldn't surprise. 

In reply to summo:

I think the maps were military, and probably tied into some 'standard' which had some shortcomings.  It was one of those  moments that required a good look at the map - poor visibility at the time and everything black. Logic said 3km just over the rise, but the map didn't inspire confidence.  Hence punched it into the GPS - one of the original hand held units, none of this fancy mapping malarkey you get these days, and that was clearly bonkers.  So headed off using a compass to see what would transpire.

In reply to Philip:

There is also reputedly the dullest grid square in the UK at 1:50,000. There are some ditches marked at 1:25,000

https://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/SE8322

And this https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=b470a0be-03e2-4fe9-9905-dedd608345dc&cp=...

https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=232d0b39-f4ac-4395-bc05-794125924083&cp=...

which is a circular runway.....

In reply to Philip:

on a marginally related topic, if the google earth van has driven along a road does that imply a public right of way? 

In reply to graeme jackson:

All it would show is the driver thought it was.

In reply to nniff:

So, if you had a plane and the runway was rotating...

In reply to nniff:

Hardly dull. There are lots of blue lines (presumably drainage dikes), a half-share of an electricity pylon and some cables, some walls/fences and two names. There is also a half-share in a 2m spot height. I'll bet the views are 'big sky'.

In reply to Lankyman:

I bet navigating to that spot height takes some skill.

In reply to Wingnut:

'the M5 just randomly stopping in the middle of nowhere'

It still does that....

In reply to nniff:  That sounds like someones applying an 'incorrect' datum/projection, and then suddenly jumping to the correct projection.  UTM projections for example are only correct for longitude at the central meridian, as you move away from that the error grows, but normally only up to some 10's of metres before you hop to the next one (the error also depends on the latitude - higher lat, more error).  Sounds like someone tried using a UTM from the US in the middle east....

In reply to Lankyman:

It looks pretty interesting to me, but then I spend a lot of my working time crawling around in ditches, so I may be biased. Ooooh, look at that beauty:
https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2550153

In reply to Mike Peacock:

There must be many, many grid squares up in the far north of Scotland where the only thing is endless peat hags for miles

In reply to Lankyman:

They mostly seem to have burns, lochans and contour lines as well though.

How about this one for dull?  (Or is it too interesting that it's under water twice a day?)
https://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/SH6376

In reply to deepsoup:

The Angry Corrie published a list of boring squares. Mostly Caithness.

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1993647. etc

In reply to Fat Bumbly2:

Lincolnshire seems to be the most boring at 1:50k, It's far more exciting at 1:25k...

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/81429

https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hometruths/emptymapsquares.shtml

In reply to Philip:

Mistakes or deliberate traps?

SD 270 965: Older 1:25,000 OS maps didn't name the bridge where the Walna Scar Road crosses Torver Beck, but on later editions it's labelled 'Torver Brigde'.

SD 218 969: 'High Stonythwaite' is close by, but the tea break bell must have sounded after the draughtsman wrote 'Low Stonythwai'. It's been like this for ages.

In reply to Nigel Coe:

I have come across similar mistakes on the Southern Dales map above Littondale. There are a couple of potholes there named Red Dot Pot and Calena Pot (should be Red DOG and Galena). I used to know the guys who first explored and named them back in the seventies. I think I even contacted the OS to let them know but got no response. Traps?

In reply to Nigel Coe:

I've just looked at your two examples online - Torver Bridge is spelt correctly and Low Stonythwai still stands. 

In reply to Lankyman:

A good one, now corrected was on sheet 25 1:50k. The contours on Beinn Eighe were numbered going up, continuing to rise over the ridge so it appeared that the northern side of the hill was the southern side of a very high mountain.