London: A life in maps

The plan for Saturday was to bag another city, St. Albans, which is a mere 26 minutes from here by train. Sadly, First Capital Connect were unable to deliver me to my destination, but instead repeatedly played an announcement that apologised for the inconvenience and explained how I might get to Wimbledon (take the tube), Elephant & Castle (tube, maybe bus) Anywhere South (use some other public transport). After half an hour, patiently listening and watching the information board displaying “STAND BACK - FAST TRAIN APPROACHING” palled as entertainment, so I decided to go the British Library.

For the rhetorical purposes of this blog post, allow me to divide the world into two sorts of people: those who are interested in maps or the history of London and those who are not. Those who fall into the latter camp are advised not to bother reading much further.

The exhibition, London: A Life in Maps is simply curated and has a collection of important maps in London’s history. It includes:

A map, never completed, which was rendered obsolete by the Great Fire.
The survey of the fire damage.
Seeing the expansion of London between 1850 and 1900.
The Luftwaffe bomber’s map of London.
Population and poverty maps.
Many street maps.

Go at a quieter time than I did. Even though it was reasonably empty, each map had about half a dozen people poring over it at any one time. To look at a map properly, it’s necessary to get so close to it and to have space to let your eyes follow the line features.

The virtual exhibition is unbelievably frustrating to use; you can choose between viewing in detail through a window the size of a postage stamp, or viewing a large map which shows none of the detail. I was underwhelmed by the electronic installations in the exhibition - a couple of PCs running Google Earth.

Overall, it’s well worth a visit.