British Historic Towns Atlases
Publisher: Historic Towns Trust

This bespoke series of beautifully illustrated, large format books is produced by Oxbow Books on behalf of the Historic Towns Trust. Each title details the urban development of a single town or city and comprises a descriptive text to accompany a series of detailed historical maps produced at scale 1:2500. A principal map, mostly based on a redigitising of a large-scale map (such as an Ordnance Survey 1:2500) from the late 19th or early 20th century, summarises the growth of the town, and shows the site of its principal medieval and post-medieval buildings and structures. This is accompanied by a series of maps showing the extent of the town at critical periods in its development (town-development maps), maps of parishes and sometimes civil wards and others showing the town in its regional and local context. A reproduction of an Ordnance Survey 1 inch (1:63,360) map rescaled to 1:50,000 shows the town’s context at the start of the railway age. The illustrated text provides a well-researched and readable summary of the topographic history of the town, incorporating the latest scholarship and concludes with a gazetteer listing all buildings, streets and other features shown on the principal map.