Old Hampshire Mapped

Route Diagrams

Notes
diagrams Diagrams have been drawn of the roads shown on some of the county maps of Hampshire; others are constructed from road strip maps, or extracted from general maps of England. A few sources outside the Map Collection have also been included. They are presented here, all in one style, as an aid for you to make comparisons between the choice of routes made by different map makers at different times. Places are positioned correctly. The roads are drawn as curves between places, indicating the approximate route. The county boundary shown is approximately the one in use around 1700. The diagrams are drawn in two sizes: the smaller is shown first with limited place names to orientate you within the county; the larger version shows a greater selection of places through which routes pass.

destination The larger diagrams show the further destinations where these are known:-


from Cowley's map of Hampshire, 1744.

grading Most maps indicate roads with a double line. Some distinguish minor roads by using a single line. A few makers use a thicker stroke on one of the double lines for really important roads, as in Kitchin's map of Hampshire, 1751:-



Cary's map of England and Wales, 1815, uses a fringed double line:-





Where routes have been graded for size or importance by the mapmaker, this is shown by line thickness on the diagram.

road
or
route 		It is necessary to bear in mind the difference between a route, which goes from one place to another somehow, and the actual road used on the journey. But we have not attempted to define the difference formally. On a map it depends on the scale, and on how many places are marked on the roads. On the ground there would be problems of definition too, for example with the changing line of an unfenced and unpaved road over downland.

accuracy
The roads on Morden's Hampshire, 1690s, seem to have been added late in the process of engraving, after the words, and separately from the bridges.

On many maps the roads appear to have been drawn quite casually, perhaps indicating the existence of a route between towns rather than trying to show the road precisely. This is in fact the technique that has emerged as the most practical in constructing these diagrams!

Roads on smaller scale maps are usually less carefully drawn and show the road passing through fewer places. Roads included on county maps or strip maps may be missing from the corresponding general map of the country; the general map may include roads which are not on the county or strip maps.

On several small county maps, the map maker has placed settlements so inaccurately that the road's relationship to them is wrong, as in this example from Kitchin's county map of 1751:-


The road west from Basingstoke should go through Dean, keep well south of Hannington and just south of Overton and the river Tees. The road south-west from Basingstoke should go the other side of Stephenton.

A dotted line has been used on our route diagrams where we think the map maker has deviated significantly from his intended road, or where there is incorrect positioning of settlements relative to a road.

copying errors
John Ogilby's strip map, plate 25, of 1675 leaves Whitchurch and skirts south of Hurstbourne Park to pass through the village of Hurstbourne Priors, where he crosses the Bourne Rivulet on the way to Andover. He calls the village Down Hursboorn; elsewhere it is recorded as Nether Hurstbourne, Down Husband, etc.


Robert Morden, in his 1690s county map, drew the road out from Whitchurch rather too straight, missing the village of Husborn.


The straight road on Robert Morden's smaller map of 1701 has been amended in 1708 by Herman Moll to pass through Husborn; now two roads show where there should only be one.


Thomas Kitchin, in 1751, shows Husborn Pri. by the Bourne Rivulet, with D. Husborn as a separate place on his straight road.


John Harrison, in 1788, shows Husborn Prior and Down Husborn as separate places, each with its own road.

before 1675 The earliest printed maps of Hampshire, by Saxton, Norden, Speed, etc, showed no roads. This is despite the fact that Saxton's map was clearly a government map, a royal funded project, which had a real interest in communications, and it showed a significant number of bridges. Communications affect the security of the state; the ability to receive information centrally, the ability to deploy forces under central control. Major routes were already established at the time these maps were made, the late 16th and early 17th century, and some routes were probably established long before. Customary posts were inns, between 10 and 20 miles apart, either on or near the road, where fresh mounts could be obtained; and various letter systems were in operation. In particular, during Elizabethan times there were exchequer funded stages in Hampshire on the important routes from London:-
  • via Staines, through Hartford Bridge, Basingstoke and Andover to Salisbury, the West Country coast and Lands End.
  • via Guildford and Farnham, through Alton and East Meon to Portsmouth; after 1600, via Staines, through Hartford Bridge, Alton and East Meon; in 1635-51, the mail route from Alton went via Petersfield instead of East Meon.
  • via Guildford and Farnham, through Alton and Twyford to Southampton.
Interest in routes increased in the 1630s-50, perhaps because more people travelled out of their local area; the Civil War may have been an influence. This interest is reflected in the publishing of road books, which began as distance tables between towns within counties, supplemented by very small maps to aid orientation. An example is that published by Simmons, in 1635.

We can only speculate on the reasons for the absence of roads from early maps. John Ogilby, in his preface to Britannia, 1675, berates his predecessors for not surveying the roads properly. Why was this not done whilst surveying other landscape features so carefully? Why were roads not regarded as significant in comparison with other information competing for space on the map?
  • Was it due to the state of the roads? Perhaps there was no concept of major and minor roads, the traveller, on foot or on horse, taking the most convenient, least muddy or rutted way between the inns or stage posts.
  • Perhaps the satisfactory surveying of important roads could not be accomplished by the methods used for other features; the surveyors would be travelling by horseback, from one small settlement to the next, rather than following the major town-to-town routes.
  • It could be that roads were not required by the purchasers of the maps, landowners who would be using them to put places in relationship more clearly and to understand their surroundings, rather than for travel. Perhaps for travellers who were strangers, showing roads was unnecessary because they would take it for granted that you could generally get from place to place, with some form of river crossing where required; knowledge of the precise road would be readily available locally.
It is most likely to be due to a combination of factors.

1675-1750s Robert Morden was one of the first to show roads on a county map of Hampshire, acknowledging them to be based on John Ogilby's survey, 1675. Only a few roads appear on Hampshire maps before 1750 which had not been described by Ogilby; these include:-
  • Southampton to Lymington, using Hythe Ferry.
  • The route from Salisbury, via Stockbridge, to Winchester.
  • The route from Winchester through Bishops Waltham to Fareham, and thence to Chichester.
Once roads started to be shown, most county maps included at least a few. Some older maps were reissued: Philip Lea, in 1689, added an interesting selection of roads to Saxton's map; John Speed's map was re-published by John Overton in 1713 with roads;

1750's-1825 There is an increase in the number of roads shown all over the county; one is the road from Basingstoke to Winchester. Many others are north-south routes, including:-
  • from Salisbury through Fordingbridge and Ringwood to Christchurch
  • from Newbury to Andover and from Andover to Winchester
  • from Oxford via Newbury and Whitchurch to Winchester
  • from Reading to Odiham, Odiham to Alton, Alton to Fareham and Fareham to Gosport
Around Southampton, several east-west routes are established as main roads. New bridges were built at the sites of older bridges, at Redbridge on the Test and at Mansbridge on the Itchen. Northam Bridge was built in 1799 as a new crossing of the Itchen downstream from Mansbridge, closer to the town, and it allowed a more direct road to Fareham.

Many of Ogilby's routes survive, including three important roads from London through Hampshire:-
  • via Staines, through Hartford Bridge, Basingstoke and Andover to Salisbury, then a different route to Lands End.
  • via Guildford, through Petersfield to Portsmouth.
  • via Staines and Farnham, through Alton and now Winchester, not Twyford, to Southampton.
1965 The pattern of A roads in 1965 is similar to that found on the maps around 1800, though a few changes are apparent. The A303 now takes more southerly route between Basingstoke and Andover and replaces the A30 as the main route to the west country. The other important east-west routes are from Southampton, the A27 along the coast towards Chichester, the A31 to Dorchester serving the large built up area of Bournemouth, and the A36 to Bath. The main London to Southampton road is now via Basingstoke and Winchester. The A34 from Winchester through Newbury is the main route north. The other trunk road is the A3, from London to Portsmouth, which still comes via Guilford. On a more local scale, a main route is established from Farnham to Petersfield, and Aldershot has grown into a town. There is continued expansion on the south coast around Southampton and Portsmouth.

After the 1960's the building of motorways and bypasses has a significant effect on the roads in the county.
References : 1828 (January): Plan shewing the New Road from Winchester to Petersfield: Wheeler's Hampshire and West of England Magazine (Charles H Wheeler, High Street, Winchester, Hampshire): 1(1)

Box, E G: 1932-1934: Hampshire in Early Maps and Early Road-Books: ProcHCF: 12: pp.221-235

Box, E G: 1935-1937: Hampshire in Early Maps and Early Road-Books-II: ProcHCF: 13: pp.61-68

Brayshay, Mark: 1992: Royal Post-Horse Routes of Hampshire in the Reign of Elizabeth I, The: ProcHCF: 48: pp.121-134

Davies, Rev J Silvester: 1883: History of Southampton, A: Gilbert & Co. (Southampton):: pp.3, 233

James, Alan: 1970: Post, The: Batsford (London):: ISBN 0 7134 1764 1

Jervoise,E: 1930: Ancient Bridges of the South of England, The: Architectural Press (London)

MacEachren, A M & Johnson, G B: 1987 (December): Evolution, Application and Implications of Strip Format Travel Maps, The: Cartographic Journal: 24: pp.147-158

Maxwell, William H: 1899: Construction of Roads and Streets, The: St Brides Press (London)

Smith, D: 1989 (June): Strip Format Travel Maps: Cartographic Journal: 26: pp.39-41

General index
Old Hampshire Mapped