Archived decisions

Evaluation of Historical Documents Appendix 1

Early Commercial maps

A number of map-makers (such as Issac Taylor, Thomas Milne and C & J Greenwood) were producing small-scale maps (often one inch to the mile or less) during the C17th - C19th centuries. The were often sponsored by local landowners, and purchased as works of art rather than aids to navigation. The quality of surveying varied, and prior to 1800 was generally poor compared with similar scale Ordnance Survey maps produced from 1808 onwards. They are nonetheless useful in proving the early origin of a highway. Although, of themselves, they do not prove the status of the roads and tracks shown on them, it is likely that only roads or tracks of some physical or strategic significance would be shown.

A set of strip maps showing main roads and their junctions first produced by Ogilby in the late 1600s, but later plagiarised by others carry similar weight.

Ordnance Survey Maps and records

The first maps of Hampshire produced by the Ordnance Survey and commercially available date from the early C19th and were a great improvement on contemporary maps of a similar genre. The most valuable series of maps are the 1:2,500 County Series maps, produced at intervals between the late 1860s and the 1940s. These maps provide an accurate picture of the landscape at the date of survey, and carry strong evidential weight, but it should always be borne in mind that the surveyors mapped physical features and not legal rights. Rarely can these maps alone be taken as evidence of the legal status of the paths and tracks shown on them.

Additional help in determining the status of a path can be found in other Ordnance Survey Records: the first edition County Series Map is accompanied by a Book of Reference, which identifies `Roads', and sometimes `Public Roads' or `Occupation Roads'; the object name books (some have survived for the third edition, circa 1909) use local knowledge to describe a features, including public roads; boundary books can record public highways where they also form parish boundaries and levelling records may also refer to roads and other features.

Maintenance Maps (the 1929 `Handover' Map)

These maps were prepared by the Surveyor of each district within Hampshire when responsibility for the maintenance of rural, unclassified roads was transferred to the County Council The maps must be given some weight because they are good evidence of what the highway surveyor believed to be publicly maintainable and, of anyone, he ought to have known which these roads were. Having said that, however, we do not know how rigorous were the inquiries that resulted in the colouring that appears on the maps, and there is the further complication that the key to the map does not make provision for the recording of bridleways.

The important thing about the maintenance maps is that they should reflect existing public responsibilities and should therefore be consistent with the known history of the roads shown on them at that date. They add weight to a body of evidence where they are consistent with it, but great care needs to be taken before attributing too much importance to them where they contradict earlier evidence of the use and status of a path.