22. GSGS 3036 England 2½-inch (1:25,344) sheet 128E, with British system grid
See also sheets 85NE (no.79), 128W (no.70). The life of the military map of East Anglia at the real 2½-inch scale was extended after the first world war until the second in two phases: first, in 1925 by adding the British system grid, then, in 1931, adopting instead the Modified British system grid. In 1935 there were instructions to call in and destroy all surviving copies of the 1925 map. None are held by the Military Survey collection now in the British Library: this copy is a rare survivor of this process. From a private collection
70. GSGS 3036 England 2½-inch (1:25,344) sheet 128W, with British system grid
See also sheets 85NE (no.79), 128E (no.22). The life of the military map of East Anglia at the real 2½-inch scale was extended after the first world war until the second in two phases: first, in 1925 by adding the British system grid, then, in 1931, adopting instead the Modified British system grid. In 1935 there were instructions to call in and destroy all surviving copies of the 1925 map. None are held by the Military Survey collection now in the British Library: this copy is a rare survivor of this process. From a copy in a private collection 74901052
79. GSGS 3036 England 2½-inch sheet 85NE, with British system grid
See also sheets 128E (no.22), 128W (no.70). The life of the military map of East Anglia at the real 2½-inch scale was extended after the first world war until the second in two phases: first, in 1925 by adding the British system grid, then, in 1931, adopting instead the Modified British system grid. In 1935 there were instructions to call in and destroy all surviving copies of the 1925 map. None are held by the Military Survey collection now in the British Library: this copy is a rare survivor of this process. This is one of the early 1914 sheets issued in the original specification which included a confidential red plate, showing telegraph and telephone lines, identifying steep slopes along roads and giving the width of bridges and culverts, highlighting churches and describing the viewing potential from high ground. This was deleted by 1925, but it is noteworthy that the military information present on the green and blue plates was unaffected. Changes to the black plate included the addition of a GSGS number and new adjoining sheet diagrams. There was some revision within the neatline, including the deletion of the population figure for Cambridge (doubtless out of date). Strangely the renaming of railways caused by grouping was ignored. From a copy in a private collection.
226. 1:25,000 Celtic Earthworks of Salisbury Plain: the Amesbury sheet (CCSA.CCS_218B_67/8)
One of the objectives of the Ordnance Survey’s Archaeology Officer, O.G.S. Crawford, was to map the Celtic Earthworks of Salisbury Plain at the 1:25,000 scale. Since at the time a civilian map at that scale did not exist, Crawford obtained permission to use the relevant sheets of the military series GSGS 3906. Six sheets were required: Charlton (Sheet 44/16 NW), Everleigh (Sheet 44/16 NE), Yarnbury (Sheet 44/16 SW), Amesbury (Sheet 44/16 SE), Grovely (Sheet 44/14 NW), and Old Sarum (Sheet 44/14 NE). Old Sarum was the only sheet to reach publication, in 1933, reprinted in 1937. A copy of the 1937 printing, held in Cambridge University Geography Department Library, had this Ordnance Survey type-written sticker appended to it:
Ordnance Survey. 1:25,000 Celtic Earthworks of Salisbury Plain. / These maps are intended mainly for use in the field. The sheet shows the system of Celtic fields as far as these have been discovered. Known archaeological features have been taken as a base and have been supplemented by additional data from air maps and field work. There has been no attempt to complete the map – rather it is a work dedicated to field archaeologists in the hope that their labours will amplify the next edition.
The successor to Old Sarum, the sheet immediately north of it (44/16 SE), was entitled Amesbury: this map reached proof stage in 1940. We do not know now the whereabouts of any copy of this proof. This poor image is taken from a 35 mm slide made over thirty years ago from a privately owned copy held at that time in the R.C.H.M.E. office in Salisbury. We were also given a monochrome photograph of the map, in which the detail is much clearer, which is now held in the CCS Archives at CCSA.OS_L191.
The other four sheets were not even drawn, though a six-inch map with archaeological annotations, entitled Grovely, held in a private collection, is probably relevant. The four-page Foreword to the Amesbury sheet, remarkably, was printed in April 1941 (HMSO print code Wt. P 1483-110. 300. 4/41 A.,P.&S., Ltd.)., Though it appears over the signature of the Director General Major-General M.N. Macleod, it was no doubt written by O.G.S. Crawford. There is a copy in the CCS Archives at CCSA.OS_595_17.