Map Man Series2

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History Documentary hosted by Nicholas Crane, published by BBC in 2005 - English narration

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Nicholas Crane travels across eight maps that changed the face of Britain in a series of geographical challenges through some of today's wildest landscapes.

[edit] Bartholomew's Cycling Map of England and Wales

When cycling took off in Britain in a big way in the 1880s, everybody wanted to get on a bicycle and head for the country. And for all these keen bicyclers, Bartholomew made the very first cycling maps. With the best cycling routes and information for the Victorian cyclist, these maps were highly popular and distinctive. It was a whole new way of looking at the country - for leisure and healthy pursuits, freedom, and exploration. Using his own unorthodox methods, extreme mountain biking over a mountain or two and going breakneck speed down a crevasse, Nick sets out to find the Barts routes through what was the playground of the Victorian age, the Lake District.

[edit] Timothy Pont's Map of Scotland

Can Nick find a missing mountain pass where the last wolves in Scotland roamed? Timothy Pont graduated from St Andrew's in 1583 and set off to survey Scotland. It was a major undertaking at a time when wolves still roamed the Highlands and it was difficult and dangerous to travel in rival clan territory. Over 18 years he made 77 maps - the first survey of Scotland - with exceptional detail and unsurpassed information. His maps include 350 mountains - some of which still remain to be identified - can Nick track any of them down? Pont's notes talk about Sutherland as an 'extreme wilderness' with 'many wolves' and 'clouds of black biting flies that souked mens blood.' Quite a place to go map-making!

[edit] Murdoch Mackenzie's Chart of the Orkneys

In the 1740s, at the time of the Jacobite rising, young Orkney schoolmaster Murdoch Mackenzie decided that the treacherous waters around Orkney should be properly mapped. Hundreds of ships had been lost in the Northern Passage, the stretch of water between the north coast of mainland Scotland and Orkney, and it was no longer good enough to have sketchy, inaccurate charts. What Mackenzie soon discovered was that in order to map the sea, he needed to have an accurate map of the land. He used revolutionary methods setting up baselines on land, even on frozen lochs, and used triangulation along with the best instruments he could obtain. Can Nicholas Crane get to grips with Mackenzie's methods and navigate his way through the wrecks of Scapa Flow?

[edit] John Speed's Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine

John Speed was the son of a Cheshire tailor, and he produced some of the most beautiful and famous maps in the world - but he didn't include roads. Northumberland was one of the first county maps Speed made, and his big innovation, the town plan, is paced out and measured exactly. Can Nick find his way round Berwick today using Speed's plan?

[edit] John Cary's Inland Navigation

John Cary was commissioned to survey and map the hottest new investment of the industrial age, the canals. His maps show the routes of all of Britain's canals and are a document of a lost world, and when Nick goes looking for the Cary canal routes through the Black Country, he has a lot of detective work to do as many have been filled in or converted into railway lines.

[edit] William Mudge's Ordnance Survey

The first edition of the Ordnance Survey was the product of the most complete mapping study of Britain since the Tudors. For the first time, there were maps linking county to county, based on a scale of one inch to the mile. The end of the 18th century was a bad time for Britain. The American colonies had just been lost. Napoleon's forces were sweeping across Europe and the French fleet was on standby to attack Britain. Under threat of invasion, the army said the country had to be mapped to see where the French were likely to invade. In 1791, a 29-year-old lieutenant, William Mudge, was put in charge of this epic mapping survey. After the initial surveying of Kent and Essex to protect the capital, the survey quickly moved to Devon, where the British fleet at Plymouth was at risk. Can Nick reproduce the triangulation methods of Mudge's original survey, particularly across the dangerous wilderness of Dartmoor?

[edit] Mrs P's A-Z

After getting lost in London using a map that hadn't been updated since 1918, Phyllis Pearsall decided to map the whole of London herself. She claimed to have set out at 5.00am each day and worked 18 hours a day, walking all 23,000 of London's streets. Her map, the London A-Z, was completed in 1936 and has been one of the most successful maps of all time. Nick tries to follow Mrs P's trail. Can he use his explorer's knowledge to find his way? Can he find the famous 'phantom' roads, or do they only exist in the imagination of the A to Z mapmakers? Nick has only Phyllis Pearsall's street-by-street maps as his guide.

[edit] Thomas Raven's Clandeboye Estate Maps

Back in the 1600s, the north of Ireland attracted Protestant colonists who came from Scotland and England to acquire land and enjoy a more prosperous life. Two of these colonists were James Hamilton, 1st Viscount Clandeboye, and Sir Hugh Montgomery. Their lands adjoined each other and for thirty years, they wrangled over the border dividing their territories. Thomas Raven was commissioned by Hamilton to map his estates and, despite the dangers to all mapmakers in Ireland, Raven took it on. Can Nicholas Crane make sense of these complicated maps? Can he discover the much-disputed border? And can he locate the lost village, plotted on Raven's map but nowhere to be seen in the landscape today?