Issue 331 – 19th century map of Frome brought up to date

a large scale map of the town, first published in 1886, was launched by the Deputy Mayor of Frome, cllr Pippa Goldfinger, at the Hunting Raven bookshop in Cheap Street on Saturday 2nd July.

The Frome Society for Local Study and the Frome & District Civic Society has published what may be the first map of its kind in Britain.
This is based on a reproduction from the Ordnance Survey’s most beautiful series of engraved town maps produced in the nineteenth century, which were intended to provide local public health boards with a large enough mapping based on which to prepare designs for healthy water, drainage and sewerage systems to each individual house.
John Peverley, chair of Frome Civic Society said, “This 1886 map of Frome has taken the society over a year to produce, and involved the digital merging of nine very detailed maps into one map. It’s been reduced in scale by half, from the original very large scale of 10.56 feet to the mile to 5.28 feet to the mile (ie. from 1:500 to 1:1,000) At this reduced scale, the map becomes more comprehensible, without losing detailed information.”
This painstaking work was carried out for the society by John’s son, David Peverley, a freelance software engineer, working in his spare time. When completed, the map was printed and folded by Butler Tanner and Dennis using the same machinery on which they now print and fold the Ordnance Survey’s Landranger and Explorer maps.
The coverage of the map includes the centre of Frome and the Trinity area.
Peter Clark, chair of the Frome Society for Local Study said, “It will prove to be of great interest to both historians and those who know Frome. It contains so much detailed information that it will keep you absorbed for hours.”
The map is available in both a folded and flat version for display and costs £10. A CD of the map is also available for £10 covering a much wider area of the town. Both can be purchased from the Hunting Raven bookshop, Frome Museum, the Tourist Information Centre in the library, or direct from the society by contacting info@fsls.org.uk or through the society’s website www.fsls.org.uk