Sheet 46ne, Old Series 1". 1884 1st drift edition. Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire: Ampthill, Hitchin, Baldock. Hand-coloured engraving

Sheet  46ne, Old Series 1". 1884 1st drift edition. Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire: Ampthill, Hitchin, Baldock. Hand-coloured engraving, 46 x 61.5cm. Base map 1834, geology revised 1884, issued 1895.  Flat, faint plate mark. Neatly added in ink, by hand, a drainage divide, a proposed straight line route and a cluster of numbered plots in southeast corner at Luffenhall and Weston. Stencilled no in lower left corner. In good to very good condition.

About the England & Wales One Inch Old Series

The Geological Survey of England and Wales used the Old Series of the Ordnance Survey topographic map at a scale of one inch to the mile as its basemap, initially. These engraved basemaps were published and revised between 1805 and 1885; the sheet sizes varied and the layout and numbering system were eccentric. The Old Series geological maps were hand-coloured and without geological sections, which were published separately. The GS of E&W published the Old Series from 1850 to 1900, when it switched to the colour printing and the New Series one inch maps. However, old stock of the Old Series continued to be issued, hand-coloured, until the 1930s.

See also: Index Map for England & Wales One Inch Old Series.