Maps RSS feed for the Maps tag
found 11 stories.
Feature
BrownhillsBob 27 Feb 11
When we discussed a couple of missing pubs in the area, The Coach & Horses and Royal Oak, an interesting observation was made by reader Caz.
I’ve been talking to a man today who’s lived near the Blackcock all his life and he said that the Royal Oak pub was across the road from the Blackcock pub in Green Lane, Walsall Wood. There was also a mortuary there and a row of houses. Hope this jogs someones memory.
I’ve heard the mortuary thing before, and disregarded it. Talking about the map I featured in the last post about Walsall Wood Colliery, the sharp-eyed top local history buff [Howmuch?] pointed out that the morgue in question was marked at the edge of that extract. In disbelief, I checked, and he’s quite right, there’s a small building marked ‘mort’, just the other side of the canal. I decided to pull up some old maps, that better show the area, formerly known as Bullings Heath…
Feature
BrownhillsBob 7 Jan 11
I have gained access to some great digital mapping – some of the best and most beautiful hand drafted cartography ever created.
The examples of early Ordnance Survey popular sheets have been professionally reproduced in digital form, and are a treasury of detail for those of us addicted to the work of those pioneering public surveyors and draftsman.
Here we can see Brownhills and the surrounding area recorded over the course of four decades or so…
Feature
BrownhillsBob 14 Dec 10
One of the things that has really proved inspirational to me in the creation of this blog is Google Earth. As a young kid, long before computers could do anything remotely like even the most basic mapping, I was was fascinated by aerial photos.
I remember that the Walsall Thompson Local directory for a while in the eighties featured such photos of the town on the cover. I spent hours, poring over the photographs, identifying buildings and places I knew. Any such image was devoured – I spent hours perusing the ‘Britain from the air’ books… one of the things that most fascinated was the way one could observe changes in landscape over the years…
Feature
BrownhillsBob 12 Nov 10
Way back in the mists of time, top reader and contributor Steve Hickman asked a question about when I thought the Chester Road was diverted from Stonnall Village.
I started researching a reply, but in the interim, top amateur landscape historian Julian Ward-Davies stepped into the breach and made all my efforts look daft, which was welcome because his work is just wonderful.
In the melee, I compiled some map snippets and Google Earth overlays, so I thought I’d share them anyway. Many readers enjoy the old maps and it’s a while since I featured any here…
News
Express & Star 18 Mar 10
Google Street View has arrived in the West Midlands – and with it a pair of giant floating pliers. The strange discovery was made by a West Bromwich resident who decided to look up his road when the internet site recently went live…
News blog
BrownhillsBob 15 Mar 10
Fiddling with Google Earth this evening, I’ve noticed with some delight that the Streetview feature has been enabled for huge sections of our local area. For anyone intrinsically nosey, like me, this is set to provide hours of amusement…
Feature
Garry’s Blog 12 Mar 10
Walsall is on Google Street View now (along with 95% of the UK apparently). So I thought I’d give you a little tour of my town 
This is going to interest NO ONE…
Feature
BrownhillsBob 5 Jan 10
I’ve been fiddling for some time now with digital maps. I’ve always loved their paper forebears; a map is a promise, a portent of future exploration, a pointer to places and journeys yet to be experienced. When I open a map, it takes me right back to my childhood…
News
Mercury 20 Oct 09
The public will be able to discover if the area where they live is more crime-ridden than other parts of the country following the launch of a groundbreaking interactive map…
News
Birmingham Mail 20 Aug 09
Britain’s national mapping agency has finally agreed to give the Black Country the recognition it deserves. For the first time today Ordnance Survey maps will include the region by name…