Good Historical Atlas

TiciaRoma · Post by **TiciaRoma** » Tue November 15th, 2011, 3:17 am

Can someone recommend a decent historical atlas that covers the British Isles from the time of the Roman invasion through at least the Tudors? I find myself having to search back through maps in various other books I've read in order to keep up with things if the author hasn't included a map.

I sometimes get a bit hazy with locations of tribes, Roman cities and roads, various invasions, cities, and districts.

Carla · Post by **Carla** » Tue November 15th, 2011, 7:03 pm

The Ordnance Survey (national mapping agency) publishes various historical maps - their website is here: http://www.shop.ordnancesurveyleisure.c ... rical-maps. I have a copy of the Roman Britain map, which has the tribes, Roman roads, villas, forts and cities marked on it, and also shows relief (height above modern sea level) by colour shading so you can see the mountains, valleys and plains. It's the whole of the British Isles on one large double-sided folded sheet, so it gives a good at-a-glance overview. The Roman sites are marked as an overlay on a modern map, so the underlying map shows the modern coastline (not the Roman coastline) and modern built-up areas like the London conurbation. This is good for locating modern place names in relation to Roman ones (e.g. Leicester is marked both as 'Leicester' and 'Ratae Corieltavorvm' in different fonts), and for novels that use modern place names, but it could be confusing if you want to know e.g. about the Roman coastline.

Hope this helps.

TiciaRoma · Post by **TiciaRoma** » Tue November 15th, 2011, 8:19 pm

Thanks for your advice, Carla. I looked on the OS website and decided on two of their maps. Ancient Britain and Roman Britain. I found them at a reasonable price on amazon. I took the $17.95 new copies, the next lowest price was $194 which makes me feel like I got a bargain.

Carla · Post by **Carla** » Wed November 16th, 2011, 1:38 pm

Glad to be of help, and I hope you find the maps useful. $194! - one wonders what on earth the seller is thinking of....

SGM · Post by **SGM** » Wed November 16th, 2011, 6:53 pm

I have quite a few historical atlases but I actually really just enjoy looking at them but also naturally find them invaluable sources of information because I don't believe you can understand a country's history unless you understand their geography and the geography of what is around them.

Having said that, I don't actually own one that is specifically of Britain. But although small in size, the Penquin Historical Atlas which is in paperback form in two volumes (and sized about A5) is my desert island book and is jammed packed with stuff. I also have several large "coffee-table-book sized" historical atlases - The Times Historical Atlas is good (I bought mine from a remaindered bookshop so it was not too expensive). The Cassells Historical Atlas, again, in two volumes is good. The only one I am not fond of is the Dorling Kindersley (or whatever they are called) one but I bought it to cut up and use to make my own maps from so I wasn't all that bothered.

You will find on Archive.org (and probably Gutenberg) a School Atlas of Britain (which wil be free) and is quite useful, assuming you are not actually interested in 20th century maps because you won't find anything after the 19th century.

I hope that helps.

TiciaRoma · Post by **TiciaRoma** » Thu November 17th, 2011, 3:09 am

Thank you SGM! I've been enjoying "thumbing through" the School Atlas you mentioned. I think I'd prefer a book format for easy reference while I'm reading. I'll check out some of the other atlases you mentioned.