UKH

Navigation apps are great, but for inspiration there's nothing like an old fashioned paper sheet. More than just a tool, paper maps can come to mean something. If you're as geeky as us, you may even have a personal favourite. To kick off our new series, here's our Editor on the map he loved so much that he made the family move there.

Read more

This is the level of nerdery I'm here for - top marks. As soon as you mentioned Sheet 19, Dan, I didn't need to look it up. In an instant, it takes me back to being, by coincidence, 19 and hitching from Durham to Dundonnell to stomp up An Teallach in mist and sog, then hitching round the coast road for Beinn Alligin. Heaven knows how many kindly strangers' passenger seats I dripped on that trip.

This was a great article for a Monday morning in the little peace I stole for a coffee, after the kids’ breakfast but before they were dressed and needed a lift to school.

That is a good sheet - but, less specifically, there is something about that bright pink cover and the layout of OS landranger maps that is almost emotive.  I find topographical detail much easier to read on a Harvey map, but there’s a lack of magic and possibility, that your article described so well.

My favourite is sheet 36, slightly clichéd, but contains so many childhood and teenage memories - and with my own kids - not to mention hill days and nights, that I can probably lose myself in reminiscence for sometime looking at it, and still see endless new possibilities.

I think I would have joined you fighting over Landranger 19, but since paddling has taken over from hillwalking more and more, the next one up, sheet 15, is probably the winner. I have a 1" version of it too, found in immaculate condition at work. 
As for Explorers, though the detail struggles for the complexity of the Cuillin, Explorer 411, they look simply amazing at 1:25k and the cartography is a real artwork.

Have to say v surprised only three comments on this was hoping for a good debate on this topic! 
 

Have you been to Bad Bog. It intruiged me too.

Actually no! I'm happy to enjoy its existence as a name, from afar. But maybe it's not that bad... 

Me too. Perhaps I should have been less equivocal.

We've got a series of these pieces in the pipeline so perhaps one or another of the choices folk make will inspire a bit more discussion. No one has yet offered a town plan of Milton Keynes or an explorer map of Lincolnshire: not quite sure how we'll cross that bridge if we do come to it. 

Maybe there is less cartophilia these days with the use of electronic devices.  I’ve an idea for the worst value LR sheet so if you’re looking for additions that are less celebratory…

I reckon sheet 189 has to be in with a shout, J72 - no mountains, Dungeness power station, shingle, a load of English Channel you can't walk on, and an untidy amount of overlap with sheet 179.

Years ago, there was an independent bookshop in Lincoln that permanently stocked all 204 sheets. Decades before Google Earth, it used to tickle me endlessly that you could wander in and look at *anywhere* in Britain at 1:50,000.

(That was how we passed the time in the Olden Days, etc etc)

That’s a good shout Norman!  There are some notable sheets of islands that are predominantly sea (though at least the land contained is worth a visit in some cases).
 

Sheet 46 (Coll and Tiree) has something like 60sq miles of land on a sheet that’s what, 625sq miles?  About 90% water, and I do wonder whether it would have been better as an addendum to nearby sheets (a Harvey version would no doubt have taken that approach).  That said, the land that does feature is pretty special.  It might be the sheet with the lowest land:sea ratio. 

This slightly brings to mind an older guardian article (I’ll try to find the link) where if I recall correctly the least purchased/popular map OS sell was the explorer for Glenn Cassley.  It’s slightly surprising because it contains Ben More Lodge at its edge, I think on the overlap with the neighbouring Assynt sheet, but surely there are a reasonable number of people who would want to make an extended route over to the Assynt munros from there.

That's an excellent bit of esoteric knowledge, J72.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/09/uk-worst-selling-map-empty-...

From experience it is bad.... of course dependent on rain fall but it's also fairly brutal in the heat.

13 mile Great Wilderness Challenge (charity event) from Aultbea to Poolewe tackles this bog

Out of interest where about did you live in the area?

I was lucky enough to live in Sand, Laide and very much enjoy returning home to visit many times per year.

Forewarned is fore-armed, thanks!

We were in South Erradale. Loved it.

Getting to Bad Bog is actually pretty easy, as the track from Kernsary is a good vehicle track. We trolley portaged canoes down it a few years ago. 

There is nothing there. However the views into the mountains are excellent. I wouldn't fancy crossing the moors around though!

https://flic.kr/p/2m5hSyY

https://flic.kr/p/2m5mwng

 

More of this sort of thing please!

It's the kind of nerdery I can get right behind.

It's many years since I've used a purple rather than orange map, I think it would feel rather strange. I've just got out sheet 15 (probably the nearest rival to 19 and the area coverage is very nice.

I think I'll stick to 1:25000 in the field though.

On the topic of worst sellers I wonder what the worst selling Second series (green) 1:25000 map was. These look great framed.

Thanks! Loads more map nerdery is in the pipeline, this series will be running for the next couple of months at least. Part 2 out next week.

As a total map nerd I'm really looking forward to reading about others' favourites.