"Geeky Heaven"

The radiator in the maps / landscape room at uni burst this week, so the room got flooded. A whole stack of maps got damaged and it's been taken as a chance to do some much 'needed' clearing out of completely unused maps - a 1960s map of the countries of Africa, some old maps of the USSR, that kind of thing - historically interesting, but not all that useful for every day use.

So when we turned up today and were waiting to find out where we would have our class, we got chatting to our teachers and went fossicking through the stacks to see what was there. And were encouraged to take anything home that interested us. Not the soggy ones of course, but most were just old editions of maps that are now available online for those times when they are needed.

Well, we were in landscape student heaven - free stuff, and it was maps! Amazing. Eventually our paleography teacher dragged us away (twenty minutes after class should have started), but Lydia and I raced back once class had finished. We felt a little naughty - the door was locked and the lights off, but hey, they tell us the door code for a reason! I started on the only Ordinance Survey maps and started pulling out ones to keep. Lydia found a few bits and pieces from different stacks. Needless to say we looked incredibly nerdy on the bus home...

So here's a selection of Ordinance Survey maps of Norfolk from 1905/6 and 1939/40. They're all A1 size, perhaps I should have put a pencil or something in the shot. Some are printed on 'war substitute paper', whatever that was. Not having many connections to places in Norfolk I tended to go for the ones that looked particularly nice (I have an idea in mind for a couple), and a couple of places that were interesting. And Little Snoring - the parish for my project. And the North Sea with it's little corner of land, because well, it looks great! Who knows what I'll do with them in the end, but they've certainly added a bit of excitement to my evening!