Mapping Your World by Vivien Teasdale

When we mention maps, we tend to think of a map of the land or some means of transport, such as the London Underground. They get us from A to B. Which is true, but it depends on what A and B are and, more importantly, where they are, both in time and space.

This came out of a discussion about books we are writing or reading, which included a reference to a website: https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=11&lat=51.49072&lon=-0.13305&layers=163&b=1 (courtesy of Gareth Clegg, not to mention the National Library of Scotland!) It’s a fascinating resource, allowing us to see, not only areas as they are now, but as they were back in time. Very useful if you write historical novels or even just out of interest to see what your little nook of Huddersfield (or anywhere else in Britain) looked like a hundred years ago.

When they open again, you can book an appointment to visit the local archives or library and use the actual maps of your area from roughly the 1840s to date. You can get photocopies of sections of these, subject to copyright restrictions, which are always very useful for future reference. Most large libraries have them. They often also have Goad maps, which give details of streets and the buildings on them – they were used for fire insurance purposes, but are wonderful for family history, local history or for producing a fantasy town that is realistic in number, type and names of shops in a town.

When it comes to books, you discover that maps are not always what they seem. One book I recommend is: Britannia Obscura by Joanne Parker. If you have a fancy to explore underground, or overground, wombling free, this book is for you as it maps things you wouldn’t normally think of: the cave systems of Britain, the megalithic sites, lost canals, ley lines and the air space above us, together with the history behind them. They open up a whole new world of where to set that murder mystery, that story of ancient times or a fantasy world of ley line travel.

Another book which takes a different view is Fifty Maps and the Stories They Tell by Jerry Brotton and Nick Millea. Beautifully illustrated and very readable, it includes examples of maps from different cultures and times, such as a map of the classical world by Ptolemy who was the first to use lines of latitude and longitude, an Egyptian map of the twelfth century, a Persian map from the tenth century and a fourteenth century mappae mundi which even shows the Garden of Eden.

Many of these maps do not follow the expected pattern of having north at the top, nor do they necessarily bear any relationship to the world we know today. But they were effective for their time. One gives the complete journey for would-be pilgrims, showing the roads to be travelled, together with rivers, mountains, cities and sacred sites – pilgrimage and travelogue in one.

Aztec maps, tapestry maps from Tudor times, field maps, a bathymetric map of the ocean floor made during HMS Challenger’s expedition in 1862, and a map of the trenches of Ypres all get full explanations of their origin and purpose. Perhaps the most interesting is the Drink map of Oxford from 1883. It was actually produced by the Temperance Union to show how decadent the place was and how drinking impinged on the poorer classes most, but also showed exactly where you could buy a drink! Not quite what they intended.

Not all maps were concerned with reality. There’s a map of Hell from Dante’s Inferno; maps, beautifully drawn by J R R Tolkein, of Middle Earth, Helm’s Deep and the Hornburg; C S Lewis’s map of Narnia and the Treasure Island map of R L Stevenson.

And these bring me back to the reason I began writing this. I’m writing a fantasy story for which I’ve discovered that I need a map. Not the beautifully illustrated ones by Tolkein et al, but rough sketches. So far I have a map of the world (so I can work out what sort of weather might be found in various places), a map of the different regions with rivers, mountains, deserts and towns along whatever journeys my characters travel and a map of the capital city in which much of the action takes places (so far). Later I might need a map of the seas and the islands or maps of houses, temples or parks. Who knows? None of this will necessarily go into the book as such. But they are fun to draw, the whole landscape can be changed as needed, and at least I can work out a realistic time for travelling from A to B.