Comments on: Old Hampshire Mapped

Old Hampshire Mapped

plep — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 06:43:46 -0800

By: Markb

Markb — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 07:15:01 -0800

Fantastic. I love old maps, there's something intriguing about looking at a representation of somewhere you know well made a long time ago. Although I'm living in Wiltshire, these maps just skim the edge of the county and lucklily, the village I live in, Little Bedwyn. Thanks to this cursory view, I now know that the heathland just up the hill from here, known as Burridge heath, used to be known as Birds Heath. I can now see my afternoon's productivity plummeting....

By: annathea

annathea — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 07:22:24 -0800

My family name, Privett, came from a village in Hampshire called "Prevet" here. I've traced my lineage back to about ten years before this map was created - very cool link.

By: nthdegx

nthdegx — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 07:42:01 -0800

Fremley. Presumably the now Frimley. I was born there.

By: jonvaughan

jonvaughan — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 07:48:23 -0800

Hey that's cool. I'm in 'Gylforde' now, and will be heading off to 'Blakwater' later.

By: devbrain

devbrain — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 08:44:04 -0800

Very very cool. I'm on the other side of the pond these days, but it's nice to see Lanford (now Landford), where I grew up, on the map. Of course, also very cool to see Sarum in place of Salisbury.

By: redshifter

redshifter — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 10:07:13 -0800

Wow, these are so cool, and high-resolution, too! Hellooooo, flyers for my band, heh. Does anyone know of a similar collection of US maps?

By: putzface_dickman

putzface_dickman — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 10:14:38 -0800

Were the spellings of place names codified, or formalized at some point? I know that eclectic place names about in early maps of the western hemisphere and asia, becuase they were trying to do them phonetically. Did these map makers do the same here, make phonetic spellings of place names where the question of spelling wasn't decided? I think that's different than the Birds' Heath, and South Sex questions. Great post.

By: plep

plep — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 10:50:29 -0800

p_d: Good questions... I don't know the answer but I would hazard a guess that it may have to do with the fact that English spelling in general followed fairly loose rules until the advent of the dictionary (see Shakespeare's spelling). A few place names still have more than one spelling, such as the village of Wombourne, or Wombourn in Staffordshire.