Map of a Nation (37 page)

 

M
UDGE AND
C
OLBY
and their assistants on the Trigonometrical Survey left Wales in 1811 when the triangulation of that nation had been completed, and turned their attention back to England. On 16 January 1818
The Times
was proud to report that ‘the Public are hereby informed, that 25 Plates’ of the Ordnance Survey’s First Series ‘are already finished, and that impressions from them are on sale at the Drawing-room in the Tower of London: these plates form a complete Map of the Coast from Folkestone, in Kent, to the Land’s End, in Cornwall, and thence to Week St Lawrence, near Bristol, and also from the Thames to Orfordness’, in Suffolk. The First Series’ state of
completion
could be imagined as a rising level on a map, and over the next two years this level would ascend as more maps were released of north-east Somersetshire, central Wiltshire and part of Hampshire. In 1820 the line reached south Wales, and a map of Pembrokeshire and Lundy Island was put on sale. By this point, although many of the maps were yet to be published, the Interior Survey had achieved the feat of mapping all of England and Wales south of a line from Aberystwyth to Birmingham, past Madingley to the
north-west
of Cambridge, to a point just south of Lowestoft on the Suffolk coast. They had even visited some areas north of this line. Engraving was under way for maps of Glamorganshire and the Gower in South Wales; but, as we shall see, the
discovery
of serious errors on the charts would prompt an extensive process of revision that meant that these particular maps did not make their way into shops until 1833. Consequently the Welsh sheets of the Ordnance Survey’s First Series show a wide variety of style. But from 1833 onwards, the public was presented with a succession of beautiful and relatively accurate depictions of
surveys
of Wales until, in the mid 1840s, they could possess a complete Ordnance Survey map of that nation. 

 

 

 

 

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

 

E
ARLY IN THE
mapping season of 1808 Thomas Colby and William Mudge found themselves in Kettlewell, a tranquil limestone village in the hills on the border of Wharfedale and Nidderdale in the Yorkshire Dales. Wales had mostly been triangulated and the men were pursuing triangles across Staffordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and West and North Yorkshire. From their base at Kettlewell, Mudge, Colby and a small team of artillerymen made their way on foot east out of the village. At first, they followed a track that led to a farm called Hay Tongue; then, on a rougher path, to Hag Dyke cottage and barn; finally, they picked their way carefully through the tussocky ground that led steeply up a small mountain called Great Whernside. The weight of the surveying equipment they carried on their backs made the surveyors unstable and liable to lose their footing, and the tangled heather and bog moss clutched at the men’s boots. After hauling themselves to the summit of the 2310-foot peak, Mudge recollected how the surveyors found ‘a great number of huge rocks, scattered about in all directions’. From this haphazard miscellany of stone, he chose one rock, flatter than the others, as a base for the theodolite.

On a clear day, a few steps east of Great Whernside’s summit give you a view down into the basin of Upper Nidderdale, whose wide expanses of sheep’s fescue and bent grass glow golden in late-afternoon sun – truly ‘God’s own country’, as Yorkshiremen say. Today a single drystone wall cascades
down from one of the mountain’s lesser summits, between two springs, one of them the head of the River Nidd, to meet the southern tip of Angram Reservoir. On the other side of a dark and imposing neo-Gothic dam lies the larger and deeper Scar House Reservoir. These reservoirs were built between the two world wars to supply the Bradford woollen industry with water. Stone was quarried from the surrounding hills to make the two dams, and a
temporary
village, now almost disappeared, was erected in the remote dale to house, heal and entertain the workforce, complete with a hospital, cinema and concert hall. But in Mudge’s day, the River Nidd was allowed to run uninterrupted through this great bowl of moorland, gathering force as it made its way down the valley.

I have been coming to Upper Nidderdale regularly since I was six months old and it has seemed a rare occasion that the long mass of Great Whernside has been visible for more than a few moments. Its horseshoe form wraps around the valley beneath and pours the precipitation that gathers in dark clouds at its summit into the two reservoirs. Many a walk has ended with a dash away from the mountain, with sulky rain clouds or a ferocious blizzard in pursuit. It is likely that Mudge and Colby had a fair wait at the top of Great Whernside for a day clear enough to get the amazing views it
concealed
for most of the year. If so, the tedium of day after day peering outside their tents to be greeted by mizzle and muted light must have been
excrutiating
. But a clear day was a valuable prize. The summit of Great Whernside offers extraordinarily long views: to the trig point at Boulsworth Hill above Burnley in the south Pennines, twenty-five miles south; nineteen miles in the same direction to the triangulation station at Rombalds Moor, near Ilkley; twenty-two miles south-east to Water Crag, between Arkengarthdale and Harrogate; huge sight lines thirty-two and thirty-five miles east across the Vale of York to Black Hambleton, the highest point on the western edge of the Cleveland Hills, and Hambleton Down, east of Thirsk; twenty-five miles north-west to a gracefully shaped mountain called The Calf, in the corner of the Yorkshire Dales; and sixteen miles almost due west to Ingleborough. The second-highest mountain in the Dales, Ingleborough’s distinctive flat summit, like a headless sphinx, even allowed Mudge and Colby to see as far as Snowdonia, a hundred miles south. Alongside The Calf and Great
Whernside, Ingleborough acted as a nexus where series of triangles that came up from the south, from Lancashire, met those coming in from the east, from North and West Yorkshire. These three peaks were also gateways into the Lake District. From Ingleborough, The Calf and Great Whernside, Mudge and Colby’s sight lines fanned west, to take in the impressive mountains of Helvellyn, Coniston, Scafell and Black Combe.

Mudge and Colby’s team arrived in person in the south-west corner of the Lake District around the summer of 1808. They began their measurements at the top of Black Combe, a mountain on the south-west coast of Cumbria. In preparation for their ascent, the men first made their way to Bootle, reputedly the smallest market centre in England and two and a half miles north-west of Black Combe’s summit. The mountain loured over the village. We can imagine that, after a quick meal on arrival at the King’s Head Inn on the High Street, the map-makers laced up their boots, pulled on their blue coats and, with their backs to the glinting sea, set off for the peak. A small lane left Bootle at right angles to the main road, and soon petered out into a good, wide path. After an easy ascent the road began again and the men met a guide-post, probably a product of the 1773 Highways Act that stipulated that parish road surveyors should ensure the presence of
guide-posts
and milestones on the nation’s thoroughfares. These made England’s landscape easier to navigate, effectively turning the ground into a
rudimentary
map of itself. After the guide-post Mudge and Colby remembered to keep an eye out for a drystone wall branching off towards Black Combe on the right, which they followed steadily uphill for two miles until treacherous scree slopes appeared on their left. Here they headed south-west and walked in a straight line along the top of the scree until they met an old
shepherding
path that led directly to the brow of Black Combe.

When the summit was finally gained – if the day was clear – the view would have been phenomenal. Black Combe looks out over the Irish Sea and, at 1969 feet, this position reputedly gives it the most extensive views of any peak in England. The Isle of Man, with its two trig points on the hills of North Barrule and Snea Fell, is sharply outlined in the west. One can
imagine
Thomas Colby facing north-west, grabbing William Mudge with his right hand and excitedly pointing out Scotland. He could have gestured towards
the Mull of Galloway, Scotland’s most southerly point and, to its north-east, the peaks of Merrick, Corserine and Bengairn. In front of southern Scotland, St Bee’s Head was visible, where the Lake District meets the sea: the western end of the modern Coast-to-Coast Walk. And then, spreading out in a
semicircle
from north-west to north-east, like a purple sea of rock and gorse and bracken, were the Lake District’s magnificent peaks: Dent Hill, Lank Rigg, The Pillar, Kirk Fell, Skiddaw and Great Gable in the background; in the foreground Buck Barrow and Whitfell; then over to Scafell and Scafell Pike, Esk Pike, Helvellyn, Dollywagon Pike, Swirl How, Dunnerdale Fell, The Old Man of Coniston, High Street and Kentmere Pike. To the east and south the scenery flattens slightly, over towards Burton Fell, Whinfell Beacon, Great Burney and finally to the beginning of the Yorkshire Dales.

Turning south-easterly, Mudge and Colby saw Pendle Hill and Fair Snape Fell in Lancashire, Darwen and Winter Hill in the West Pennine Moors. In the southern background, they made out the young holiday resort of Blackpool and, clear in the foreground, the nearby south Cumberland hamlet of
Barrow-in
-Furness. Within seventy years, it would alter beyond all recognition into a major shipbuilding centre and home to the world’s largest steelworks, but at that point in time Barrow-in-Furness nestled quietly on a peninsula beneath Duddon Sands. Far in the background, south to south-west, were the beaches and peaks of North Wales: Prestatyn, Gorsedd Bran, Llandudno, Moel Eilio, Bwlch Mawr, Moel Penamnen, Snowdon, Yr Eifl, a roll call of beauty that stretched all the way to Anglesey and its peak, Mynydd Eilian. And far, far in the distance, was that Ireland’s east coast and Ulster’s highest mountain, Slieve Donard? Or just a wisp of cloud? William Mudge had spent the last seventeen years looking at old maps of Britain and making new ones to better them. From the top of Black Combe it was as if all those maps had risen before him simultaneously in glorious three-dimensional technicolour.